Today, March 8th, is celebrated as International Women’s Day (IWD), commemorating women’s fight for equality and liberation along with the women’s rights movement. International Women’s Day is intended to focus on issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women.
It is a good time to remember a woman who literally charted her own course. Eleanor Creesy, was the navigator of the clipper ship Flying Cloud, who, with her husband, Captain Josiah Creesy, set world sailing records for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco.
Creesy was born on September 21, 1814,in Marblehead, Massachusetts, to Joshua III and Eleanor Prentiss. She learned the craft of seafaring from her stepfather and uncle, John Prentiss. John Prentiss married Eleanor’s mother after Joshua Prentiss died at sea in 1817.
John Prentiss, a master mariner, captained the ship Californian. Locals thought it peculiar that his stepdaughter was so eager to learn how to use a chronometer and a sextant and how to make a sight reduction, learning the skilled and specialized craft of celestial navigation at a time when women were rarely educated, let alone in a business wholly dominated by men. Her dream was to marry a Captain and sail with him on his ship and, and though she attracted many suitors as a young woman, she rejected their advances until she found a sailor.
Eleanor married Captain Josiah Creesy in 1841. and served him as a navigator aboard his ship. The couple sailed together on the ship Oneida in the China trade. Josiah was captain of the ship, but Eleanor was the navigator. Continue reading
Millennium Challenge 2002
In a time when the US Navy seems incapable of designing and building ships that are not significantly over budget and behind schedule, it is good to remember 
Around 650 years ago, off the eastern tip of Singapore, a trading vessel slipped beneath the waves and vanished from history. It carried bowls painted with ducks and lotus flowers — porcelain so exquisite that even the Chinese emperor sought them for his own. This week, the world learned just how extraordinary that sunken cargo really was.
Donald Trump bragged that his administration would recruit “only the best people.” Instead, his regime is the very definition of a kakistocracy, a system of government run by the least qualified, most unprincipled, or worst citizens.
Last Sunday, on a frigid day on the Navesink River in Red Bank, NJ, the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club (HRIYC) won back the 
Last Tuesday, the 3,080 passenger cruise ship, 
Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of both the day and Black History Month. Here is an updated repost about the social reformer, 
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Martin Luther King Jr. popularized the saying, “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.” It would be pleasant to think that this is always the case. Given the recent political climate, the quote may be overly optimistic.
Robert Smalls is an American hero, well worth celebrating every day of the year, not only during Black History Month. An updated repost in honor of the remarkable story of Robert Smalls.
Updated: Several blog readers pointed out that in focusing on the history of Harriet Tubman and her leadership in the Great Combahee Ferry Raid, I failed to mention the bridge over the Combahee River named in her honor. (Thanks, Doug and Boca Jim.)