Myint Naing, a Burmese man, recently made it home 22 years after being taken aboard a Thai fishing trawler, where he worked as little more than a slave. In the last six months an estimated 2,000 enslaved fishermen have been freed from captivity from Thai-Indonesian fishing ventures.
The trawlers fished for low value fish, often called “trash fish” that are used as feed stock for aquaculture, such as pond-raised shrimp. The trash fish are also used in pet foods.
As reported by the New York Times: Every year, thousands of migrant workers like Myint are tricked or sold into the seafood industry’s gritty underworld. It’s a brutal trade that has operated for decades as an open secret in Southeast Asia’s waters, where unscrupulous companies rely on slaves to supply fish to major supermarkets and stores worldwide.
This is one of those great “only in New York” events. Next Thursday, 
The coastal cargo ketch 
In the summer of 1995, a group of lovers of the music of the sea got together on the deck of the windjammer 
For several years we have followed; virtually, if not literally; the travels of 
I have a definite love-hate relationship with 
When Matt Brooks and his wife Pam Rorke Levy bought the 52ft yawl 
This morning was overcast and threatening rain on the West bank of the Hudson River. Fourteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, it was a sunny, clear day. A Nor’westerly wind was blowing and the air was cool and crisp. That morning, I got a frantic call from my wife who had left for work not too long before. Something terrible had happened in the World Trade Center. She had been on the mezzanine of One World Trade Center when the first plane hit. I left our house and walked literally around the corner to see an ugly black plume of smoke streaming almost horizontally from the North Tower. A few minutes later, while walking with neighbors toward the waterfront, I saw the second plane hit the South tower followed by a billowing orange plume of flame erupting from the opposite side of the building an instant later.
Last Sunday, a 
In her long and varied career, the historic cutter 
One hundred and fifteen years ago today, on September 8, 1900, the city of Galveston Texas was struck by what today would be classified as a Category 4 hurricane, with winds of 145 mph and a storm surge of 14 feet. Somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people died, making it the deadliest hurricane in US history.
This weekend, the 
On July 10, 1985, 