On Valentine’s Day, a few Valentine Islands. Are they islands of love on the storm-tossed seas of life? Sadly, they are probably not, but at least they do resemble Valentine’s Day hearts.
Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of both the day and Black History Month. Here is an updated repost about the social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He is considered to be the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century. Frederick Douglass. But what does Valentine’s Day have to do with Frederick Douglass? As a slave, Douglass never knew the date of his birth, so he chose to celebrate it every year on February 14th.
Frederick Douglass was born around 1818. From an early age, he developed a close attachment to ships and the sea. His path to freedom led directly through the docks and shipyards of Baltimore, Maryland.
A global internet poll has named a new species of deep-sea chiton – a type of marine mollusc – from the genus Ferreiraella. The chiton was discovered in 2024 in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench of the coast of Japan at a depth of over 5,500 metres (3.4 miles). The name chosen is Ferreiraella populi.
A public naming campaign began after YouTuber Ze Frank featured the rare chiton from the genus Ferreiraella in an episode of his “True Facts” series. Over 8,000 name ideas were submitted through social media, and after reviewing the entries, scientists selected the name Ferreiraella populi, where the species name in Latin means “of the people”.
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.
We recently posted Celebrating Black History Month — Part 1: Harriet Tubman & the Great Combahee Ferry Raid, the first of a two-part post which recounts a daring raid planned and helped lead a Union riverboat raid at Combahee Ferry in South Carolina in June, 1863, freeing over 720 slaves.
Before the war, Harriet Tubman was a legendary “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, nicknamed “Moses.” She rescued approximately 70 enslaved people after her own escape from slavery. She made the perilous journey at least 13 times, through treacherous swamps, shadows, and danger. She always escaped and later boasted, “I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
As we noted in our previous post, the current Trump regime has launched a full-scale war on American history, specifically America’s non-white history. Through a series of executive orders, the current regime has attempted to rewrite our past, glorifying racists and traitors and erasing the horrors of slavery. Federal websites removed the positive accounts of resistance to oppression and tyranny by deleting the names of thousands of non-white heroes in American history, including Harriet Tubman, the Tuskegee Airmen, and the Navajo Code Talkers.
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.
On May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls, a 23-year-old slave, who served as the pilot of the Confederate armed transport, CSS Planter, led eight fellow slaves in an audacious flight to freedom. They seized the CSS Planter, steamed it out past the batteries and forts of Charleston harbor, and turned it over to the Union naval blockade. Smalls would go on to become the first black captain of a U.S. Navy vessel, a South Carolina State Legislator, a Major General in the South Carolina Militia, a five-term U.S. Congressman, and a U.S. Collector of Customs.
Harper’s Weekly of June 14, 1862, recounts the escape:
Continue reading
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.)
I started to correct this oversight, and it quickly became obvious that I had also left out a large part of Tubman’s legacy. Just as she continues to be an icon and a role model for all Americans committed to freedom and justice, she is also still under attack by white supremacists. I have decided to break the post into two sections — the history of the famous raid and Tubman’s legacy and continued challenges of combating bigotry in this troubled nation. As is so often the case with any good story, both posts involve ships.
For several years now, we have followed the all-electric hydrofoil runabouts designed and built by Candela. Now the Swedish boat builder and engineering design firm has moved beyond runabouts to delivering the P -12, the world’s first serial-production electric hydrofoiling passenger ferry which appears to be on the brink of revolutionizing urban ferry services around the world.
Recently, a Candela P-12, a 30-passenger ferry, completed what the company says is the longest electric sea journey ever made by an electric passenger vessel. The 160-nautical-mile voyage saw the ferry travel from Gothenburg on Sweden’s west coast to Oslo, Norway, over the course of three days.
Strolling on the East River, 1867
As we posted recently, the Coast Guard has been busy breaking ice in New York Harbor. The current forecasts suggest that the frigid weather is likely to continue for several more weeks, so the ice breaking is also expected to persist. Nevertheless, it has been far worse in the past. Even the recent past. In 2015, ferry traffic was interrupted by heavy ice in New York’s East River, and sections of the Hudson River partially froze over. And that is nothing compared to conditions in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
Despite tidal currents that can run up to four knots, New York’s East River froze solid at least eight times between 1780 and 1888. The East River isn’t actually a river. It is a tidal strait connecting Upper New York Bay to Long Island Sound. Nevertheless, it froze often enough so that after the particularly hard winter of 1866-1867, there was a public outcry that led ultimately to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
People continued to walk across the frozen East River even after the Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883. In the hard winter of 1888, the New York Times reported: The ice was fully six inches thick and covered with two inches of hard snow” and “was solid from shore to shore.” That day, New Yorkers tested the strength of the ice and “paid a boy his two-cent fee for the use of his ladder” to get on the ice on the Brooklyn side… when they reached Manhattan, they found a young employee of the fish market with a thriving side business, charging 5 cents to use the ladder he secured to help people up to land. Continue reading
Tthe USCGC Polar Star has been icebreaking in the Southern Ocean summer in support of Operation Deep Freeze 2026, including rescuing a cruise ship stuck in pack ice. Meanwhile, in the winter Northern hemisphere, US Coast Guard icebreaking tugs have been hard at work breaking ice in harbors along the East Coast, including New York Harbor.
Toward the end of January, Winter Storm Fern swept across North America, extending from northern Mexico and the southern United States to the Northeast and into Canada. The storm brought significant snowfall and high winds. Over a million customers lost power, and approximately 146 people lost their lives in the storm. The weather system moved into the Northeast, where it began to transition into a nor’easter, which battered the region with gusty winds and heavy snow.
In the deep freeze that followed the storm, New York Harbor began to ice up. A mosaic of ice formed and spread quickly across the harbor and the Hudson River, with significant ice packs impacting the waterways north through the Hudson Valley. Shore and drift ice formed throughout the area, with forecasts indicating continued ice growth over the coming days as cold temperatures persist. Continue reading
Last month, the US Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) began icebreaking operations in the Southern Ocean in support of Operation Deep Freeze 2026. The deployment also marked the cutter’s 50th year of commissioned service.
This milestone was further commemorated by the Polar Star rescuing the Australian-owned cruise ship Scenic Eclipse II, which became trapped in pack ice, eight nautical miles from McMurdo Sound. After receiving a call from the distressed cruise ship shortly before midnighton January 17, the Polar Star broke the ice surrounding the Scenic Eclipse II by encircling it twice before escorting it for four nautical miles until it reached open water.
Virginia ” Ginny” Oliver has hauled her last lobster pot. Widely known as Maine’s “Lobster Lady,” she died quietly at age 105. Oliver began lobstering at age 8 alongside her father and older brother and spent over a century hauling traps on Penobscott Bay.
“Ginny” gained national and international attention for continuing to lobster well past her 100th birthday, becoming a symbol of longevity, resilience, and Maine’s working waterfront.
“Sad news from the Midcoast,” the Maine Lobstermen’s Association said in a social media post. “Ginny was an amazing ambassador for our industry and exemplified the incredible work ethic that defines our industry and all Mainers! Our thoughts are with her family.”
On December 6, 2025, beaches in the county of Sussex on the southern coast of England were battered by barrages of bananas. Tons of bananas washed ashore at Selsey, Bognor Regis, and Pagham Harbour in West Sussex. Some also washed further inland, making a slippery mess on coastal roads.
Where did the yellow tide come from? 16 shipping containers fell off the cargo ship Baltic Klipper near the Isle of Wight. Eight of the lost containers were filled with bananas, while others contained plantains and avocados.
Last week, Rear Admiral Michael Day retired after more than 40 years of service in the US Coast Guard. Over his career, he served in a range of responsible positions, in locations ranging from the Arctic to Taiwan and throughout the United States. including as Commander of Sector New York from 2015 to 2018.
Michael Day will probably be best remembered for one VHF radio call he made as a Coast Guard lieutenant on September 11th in New York Harbor. From our post on the 2oth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:
There are moments in history when an individual makes the right choice at exactly the right moment, and against all odds, it makes all the difference. Such was the case on the morning of September 11, 2001, in New York Harbor when LT. Michael Day made the call for “All available boats.”
Trump recently announced that the Navy will begin the construction of “two brand new, very large, the largest we’ve ever built battleships.” He claims that the new battleships, which he has named after himself, the Trump Class, will be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built, the largest battleship in the history of the world.” The first ship of the series is to be named USS Defiant.
Presuming that Trump is not referring to one of two starships named USS Defiant in the Star Trek media franchise, then essentially, none of the claims about the proposed battleships are true. What Trump is trying to accomplish with this grand scheme, beyond wasting taxpayer dollars? Is it just another vanity project onto which he can affix his name? Or does he really believe that building a new class of ships considered obsolete for over 80 years is a good idea?
Once again, Trump is saying the quiet part out loud. After giving a rambling, word salad of a speech announcing the battleships, Trump answered a reporter’s question about the Epstein files and effectively admitted that the battleship proposal was intended to distract from the deepening Epstein scandal.
The USNO Millennium Time Ball
Tonight, roughly a million revelers will watch in person in New York’s Times Square, and over a billion viewers are expected to watch on television or online, as the New Year’s Eve ball drop rings in 2026 with a dazzling new time ball — the largest in the history of the event that started 118 years ago.
The Constellation Ball, as it has been named, is the ninth ball to usher in the new year at the famous Midtown Manhattan intersection. It measures 12.5 feet in diameter and weighs just over 12,000 pounds, is bejeweled with 5,280 circular Waterford crystals in three different sizes — 1.5-inch, 3-inch and 4-inch — as well as LED light pucks.
In another first, the dazzling new ball will be lowered twice, to celebrate both the arrival of the new year and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. As the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve 2025, the Constellation Ball will drop and then rise back up to be relit in red, white and blue for a second celebration.
The tradition of the ball drop began in 1907 after New York City officials banned New Year’s fireworks over concerns about the celebration setting the city on fire. Instead, they chose a time ball to mark the birth of the new year, But where did the tradition of dropping a ball to mark the time originate? The practice dates back to 1829 and was a key tool for making it possible for sailors to calculate their position at sea.