Featured Books
His Majesty's Ship by Alaric Bond
The Frigate Surprise: The Complete Story of the Ship Made Famous in the Novels of Patrick O'Brian by by Geoff Hunt and Brian Lavery
James Nelson's George Washington's Secret Navy
Defying Empire:Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York by Thomas Truxes
Deadly Shoals, a Wiki Coffin Mystery by Joan Druett
Star Crossedby Linda Collison
The Privateer's Revenge: A Kydd Sea Adventure (Kydd Sea Adventures)
Peter Wicked: A Matty Graves Novel (The Matty Graves Novels)
The Jackass Frigate byAlaric Bond
Steady As She Goesby John Molloy
Voyages, the Age of Sail: Documents in American Maritime History, Volume I, 1492-1865
Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World's First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge
HMS Resolute a novel by Elizabeth Matthews
The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Welcome to the Old Salt blog, a home for lovers of the sea, for tellers of tales, for sailors, for dreamers and anyone else who wanders by. Pull up a chair by the fire and join us. There are many tales yet to be told.
Happy Birthday Horatio Hornblower
As Americans celebrate our Independence Day this July 4th, perhaps we should raise a glass to that most estimable fictional Naval officer, Horatio Hornblower, born on the same day as this new country, July 4th, 1776, in C.S. Forester’s eleven classic novels.
Starting in 1937 and continuing through 1967, Cecil Scott Forester (the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith) created his eleven volume series of novels featuring Horatio Hornblower in his rise from midshipman to admiral. Hornblower is a complicated and worthy character courageous and a skilled seaman troubled by an intense reserve and wracked by self-doubt.
Ebb & Flow - Paintings by Miguel Hernández
Cloud underneath
We met Miguel Hernández when we bought one of his paintings, which captures perfectly both the look and also the sense of one street corner in our city neighborhood. It is a wonderful work of art. I have admired his other urban works and am pleased to discover that Hernández is not limited to cityscapes. From his website:
Scottish Traditional Boat Festival 2009
The Scottish Traditional Boat Festival is being held from July 2th to Jul 5th in picturesque Portsoy in Aberdeenshire. It is a colourful celebration of Scotland’s great maritime heritage featuring traditional boats and traditional boat building. A full programme of sailing, music, and associated fashion and design on the delightful North East coast.
Scottish Traditional Boat Festival Official Site
China to excavate cabins on 800-year-old recovered merchant wreck
Artist rendering of the Nanhai No.1’s new home at the Crystal Palace
The “Nanhai No.1 boat,” discovered in 1987, was raised intact in 2007. It is the oldest and largest Chinese merchant vessel to be discovered and may confirm the existence of an ancient maritime trade route linking China and the West.
China to excavate cabins on 800-year-old recovered merchant wreck
Chinese archaeologists have won permission to start an “excavation” into the cabins of the 800-year-old shipwrecked merchant vessel Nanhai No. 1, the local government said Sunday.
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Nelson’s hair is sold at auction
On a day when the discussions of the sale of Michael Jackson memorabilia are all over the airways and the Internet, it may be worthwhile to be be reminded that the frenzy is nothing new.
Nelson’s hair is sold at auction
A lock of Lord Horatio Nelson’s hair has been auctioned for £2,500 in Lincolnshire.
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Staten Island Ferry Crash
Staten Island Ferry Boat Accident
A Staten Island Ferry boat has slammed into the St. George Terminal on Staten Island Wednesday evening, authorities said.
At least 15 people have been hurt, New York Fire Department officials said. Ten of the injuries are minor, the other five were more serious.
The ferry boat may have temporarily lost power after hitting a docking ramp. Crews were able to restore power and complete the docking maneuver. Emergency responders set up a triage area at the terminal to evaluate passengers and crew.
In 2003, a Staten Island Ferry boat with about 1,500 people aboard slammed into a Staten Island pier at full speed, killing 11 people.
Diving Bonaire - Southwest Corner and Bonaventura Reefs
In honor of “Swim Day” here are two short videos I shot of diving off Bonarie a few years ago. Bonarie, in the Dutch Antilles, is an amazing place for divers. The water is so unbelievably clear at times it feels like swimming in air. To get an idea just how clear the water is, these videos were shot with only natural light at a depth along the reef wall of 90 -100 feet.
Free Diving White Banks Dry Rocks
Will at the Tugster blog suggested that a number of fellow water bloggers post on a common theme today. He suggested swimming.
I feel like I have been swimmming for most of my life. I spent my early years in Dallas, Texas which is to say that I spent a goodly portion of most summers in a swimming pool. When the temperature climbs over one hundred degrees and the pavement seems to radiant more heat than the blazing sun itself, there weren’t too many better places to be.
The problem with pools is that they are boring. There is very little to admire beyond the skill of the plasterer and the shine of the tiles. Years later I would discover what swimming was really all about, at least for me, when I first dove on White Banks Dry Rocks, a shallow reef near Key Largo.
A Salty Dog Wins the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton
This year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winner has a distinctly nautical flare:
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’ east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May,” a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin’ and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”
The Last Packet: the Charles Cooper - from Black Rock Harbor to the Falklands
As we described in our recent post -The Two Lady Elizabeths, last of the Windjammers, the Lady Elizabeth, was damaged rounding Cape Horn in 1913 and limped into Port Stanley where she was condemned and sold as a warehouse. She was not the first. On June 1, 1866, the three-masted square-rigger, Charles Cooper, outbound from Philadelphia for San Francisco with a cargo of coal, sprang a leak rounding Cape Horn and put into Port Stanley for repairs. She was condemned and sold as a storage hulk. “The once fine ship was stripped and later grounded in front of Ross Road where she served as a warehouse until the 1960s.”
Sails in the Sunday Sunset, New York Harbor
Pioneer
Before the city became know for its skyscrapers, the shores of New York harbor were fringed with a forest of masts of ships, large and small. Those days are gone yet not entirely forgotten. This evening as the sun was setting, the harbor again seemed full of sails.
Britons Win Inaugural Indian Ocean Rowing Race 2009
We had previously blogged about a group of four women, the “Ocean Angels” competing in the first Indian Ocean Rowing race. They were in the lead when we posted. - Naked Ladies Lead Indian Ocean Rowing Race.
The initial race results are in and after 68 days, 19 hours and 40 minutes later, the Bexhill Trust Challenger, a 29 ft long custom composite ocean rowing boat, crossed the finish line off the beautiful island of Mauritius at 2240hrs GMT today, Friday 26th June 2009. The boat was rowed by four Britons - Phil McCorry, (24), brother Nick McCorry (25), Matt Hellier (20) and Ian Allen (25), The Ocean Angels appear to be in second place with roughly 300 miles to go.
