A Tale of Two Ships

I will start this post with the ship not mentioned, the USS Intrepid. This American warship was my home for a number of years. The ships are ships upon which I took pleasure cruises. My cruises on the Intrepid were not for pleasure.

My first cruise aboard a cruise ship was from Ketchikan, Alaska to Vancouver, Canada. It was one of the ships advertised as a “fun ship”. Our cruise was on tje Carnival Spirit.  I think that term was used because of the shipboard entertainment. And, of course, because of the nightclubs and casinos . Neither of the latter appeal to me. But the ports of call were interesting. Especially the one where the salmon cook-out was raided by a bear and her cub. The ship’s cook, a true hero, chased the hungry bears away. Unfortunately he overcooked the fish!  I used most of my shipboard time filling my sketchbook and journal. There was the opportunity to witness a glacier calving. I’m not sure where that term comes from. The awesome power of nature is overwhelming. The purpose of this cruise was to transport passengers to ports of interest. Seeing a marvel of nature was purely incidental. 

The largest of these cruise ships carry over four thousand passengers. Passenger is probably the wrong term since these ships usually begin and end their cruise in the same port. Indeed these passengers are vacationers, not persons enroute to a foreign port. But in our particular case we were enroute from AK to Canada. The Carnival line calls their ships the “fun ships”. And it is one of  the least expensive of the cruise lines. Once you’re on board you receive your personal ship's identification card. Not only does the card identify you as a passenger but you can use it to charge purchases of goods and services. In many ports it is even used as your passport. These less expensive cruise lines promote their casinos quite a bit.  Another thing they promote a lot is photographers. It seems they are always on hand to snap your photo for a price. But the inconvenience does not come with a price unless you buy the photographs. There are various activities abound while at sea as prescribed by the cruise director; from  hairy chest contests beside the pool to talent contests in the theater. The big theater in the bow of the ship held about four hundred of us to view a musical show with singers and dancing girls. A bearded fellow in a John Deere baseball cap nudged me and said, “ Would you look at the buttocks on those girls!” There was sort of a leer on his face. I verified what he meant.

Cruise ships have a different organizational structure than a military ship. The hotel manager takes care of everything concerning the passengers. The Captain’s crew takes care of the operation of the ship 

One of my greatest joys have been the places seen from the deck of a ship. Nothing quite compares to the view of a Caribbean sunset with the wind in your hair and the taste of salt on your lips.    And, as I noted earlier, glacier calving. The Fantasy Line ships simply have too many people aboard for my liking. But they give a lot of bang for the buck.

Our most recent cruise was on the Viking ship ”Sea” sailing out of Stockholm. It was a relatively small cruise ship of about 900 passengers. It was a seven nation cruise. The ship had no casinos and I don’t believe food and drink were available around the clock. Fewer people made movement around the ship more conducive to relaxing. Everything was an improvement over the “fun ship”. Of course that is a matter of preference. I have no problems with dancing girls but prefer a bit of variety in entertainment. There were daily lectures about the ports of call and other interesting subjects.  One lecture I remember was by a former member of the British diplomatic corps stationed in Moscow.  He regaled us with his stories of dealing with constant surveillance by the KGB.  Afternoon tea was usually accompanied by a string trio or jazz quartet.  On another night the shipboard performers entertained with a musical salute to the Swedish rock band, ABBA.  Staterooms were a bit bigger and since it was a smaller ship the amenities were more convenient.  My favorite place aboard the ship was the bar at the bow. Large comfortable chairs and sofas with reindeer rugs near the library fit my fancy well.  We had a lot of interesting tours ashore as well. St. Petersburg, Russia, and Gdansk, Poland, were most interesting. There seems to be a more relaxed atmosphere aboard the smaller ships as well as a different type  of passenger, perhaps  of a higher intellectual or income group. 

I must say the smaller ship better suited me. But, if your lifestyle moves at a faster clip than mine, and you like spending your time on board in a bar, gambling or lounging by the pool, then maybe a  “fun ship” is for you.

Rice

A Winnowing Shed

Rice. Everyone eats it. The Italians liked it so much they made pasta that looks like it.  But where does it come from? Normally one thinks of Asia, you know, Chinese and Japanese. But what if I told you that in the 17th century the center of western rice production was right here in South Carolina? Look at this area. It's hard to believe that as far as you can see there were once fields of rice.  

When this area, South Carolina, was first settled by the English, the Crown demanded that the colonists find crops that could be grown for export. A number of different varieties of crops were tried with little success. Initially the economy of the Carolinas was based on timber and naval stores. What are naval stores, you ask. As the name indicates, they are things or stores that have to do with the navy; products for the building or maintenance of ships such as pitch, tar, turpentine and, of course, timber.  Deer skins were also shipped to England in huge quantities.  But, according to one story, the colony's fortune changed with the weather. 

Literally, a hurricane was responsible by forcing a pirate, John Thurber, into the port of Charles Town which later became Charleston. It seems that Thurber had aboard his ship, a brigantine, some African slaves from his last port of call, Madagascar where rice was regularly grown in terraced fields.  Those slaves had with them bags of seed. And those seeds were grains of rice. How much did they have? Legend says as much as a bushel. That would have been quite a bit of rice. That rice was used as partial payment for repairs on the pirate ship at a local shipyard. Henry Woodward, the shipyard owner, managed to get the seeds to grow. 

Initially the rice was grown on dry land.  There are two types of rice, "dry" and "wet", in reference to the soil in which each is grown. The eventual rice economy of South Carolina was based on the “wet” variety of rice. The thin topsoil with the clay subsoil was ideal for a crop that required very wet growing conditions. Unfortunately the land was covered with  predominantly marine forests in the late 17th century.  To remove the forests and prepare the land for rice production, hundreds of African slaves were imported. Some local Native Americans were also enslaved. Trees were cut down and  stumps removed. Much of the acreage was burned; perhaps the beginning of slash and burn in the Western Hemisphere. The fields needed to be level too since they would be flooded periodically with water during the growing of the rice crop.  As the forests were removed and planting began, slaves from rice  growing countries such as Sierra Leone, Gambia and others were sought. Indeed, slaves with rice growing knowledge fetched high prices.  

The control of water in the production of rice is very important.  There are two points in the growth cycle of rice that the fields must be flooded with freshwater; salt water could not be used. The fields must be flooded prior to planting. When the rice stalks mature to a certain height the fields are flooded again to kill the weeds and grasses which would tend to inhibit the growth of rice. (Weeds could not survive under water.) This may be repeated as necessary.   Initially, streams were dammed up to produce reservoirs of water to allow flooding on demand. In Madagascar rice was grown in fields which were flooded by water. From the diary of John Bertram we find that in 1783 Gideon Dupont of Goose Creek perfected the use of tides to push the fresh water from the creeks into the rice fields when needed. McKewn Johnstone had done this initially at Winyah Bay in 1758 but Dupont perfected the process. On the Carolina coast the water level changed over five feet between high tide and low tide. Through a system of dykes, ditches, and flood gates or trunks the water was controlled flowing into and out of the fields. With this water management system the cultivation of rice had reached its pinnacle. 

When the rice matured and the green stalk changed from green to yellow the rice was cut down with a scythe or sickle. The stalks would be bound in bundles of about eight inches in diameter. These bundles are called sheaves. A number, six to eight,  of these sheaves placed in the form of a teepee to dry are called shocks.  After the rice had dried it would be threshed. One method of threshing, removing the rice from the stalks, is to place the sheaves on the ground and flail them until rice kernels are removed from the stalk, leaving the straw and kernels of rice separate. By another method the sheaves are beaten against the ground to separate the grain kernels from the stalk. The rice, once removed from the straw, was winnowed. Winnowing consists of taking the rice after threshing and tossing it into the air from a large flat basket, allowing the wind to remove the chaff as the rice falls back into the basket.  On larger plantations there was a winnowing shed which was raised off the ground about eight feet with a hole in the floor. Threshed rice was poured through the hole in the floor while the wind blew the chaff away before it hit the hard packed earth. The rice was swept from the ground before the next process. The next process would remove the husk.  To do this the rice was pounded in a large mortar and pestle to remove the husk from each grain. The mortar was usually made of a hollowed out section of hardwood approximately three feet tall by ten inches in diameter.  The pestle was a four to five foot length of hardwood with the end rounded to the curvature of the mortal which was used to pound the rice.  At this point in the process the rice is brown and edible.  Continuing this pounding polishes the rice. Polished rice is the product we normally refer to today as white rice.. Eventually, the use of water power in 1817, and later steam power, mechanised threshing and pounding processes. Remnants of some of these rice mills can still be seen today.

Growing and cultivating rice was extremely labor intensive. No part of the process from planting  to processing the harvested grain had been mechanised prior to 1817. Therefore there was a dependence on slave labor. Rice had to be planted and harvested by hand. By 1690 South Carolina was shipping 300 tons of rice per year to Great Britain. There are many who claim that the African slave is responsible for the Carolina rice culture including all the technical aspects of rice production. While it is true Africans had been cultivating rice for centuries, even utilizing tidal control for flooding the fields, rice would have never become king of the Carolinas without the capital, land and other resources of the English.  

The production of rice made the Carolina colony the gem of the American colonies; the richest colony. The plantations were of various sizes but with a combined total of over 120,000 acres under till for rice when production was at its peak.The rich planters were the aristocracy of the new world. But, as  they say, all good things come to an end, and the era when rice was king did indeed come to an end. In the late 19th century rice production declined. However, the elimination of slavery, which had an adverse effect on labor for the rice fields, it was not the only reason for the demise of rice production in South Carolina. After the American Civil War, Europe, the major market for Carolina rice, found less expensive sources. India and the Far East provided cheaper rice, although it did not rival the quality of Carolina rice. Also, as rice cultivation became mechanised, the soft earth of the Carolina lowcountry would not support planting and harvesting machinery. This combination of factors led to the abandonment of rice as a cash crop in South Carolina. American rice production moved west to Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. 

If you look closely you can notice how the topography of the land was changed for the growing of rice. This abandoned plantation with its ruins of a grand house is all that reminds us of the days when rice was king in the Carolina lowcountry.  

What's In Your BitVault?

The BitVault is like a key fob manufactured by Lever Gear. The rather clever name describes the storage place for two supplied bits. Screwdriver bits, that is.Small and easily attached to a keyring the BitVault is a great place for Every Day Carry items. Of course EDC items are as personal and individual as the person carrying it.The contents of my BitVault is as follows:

-flat blade bit

-Phillips blade bit

-dental floss

-pencil

-paper

-2 Tylenol

-single edge razor blade

The uses of the screwdriver bits are obvious. However, one may question the choice of dental floss. In addition to the purpose for which it is designed it is very useful in securing things, I once secured a mirror to a Mercedes after it met with another mirror on a arrow street in Bath. Of course you can cut the floss with the  razor blade. And of course sharpen the pencil. 

There is a bit of space left. Any suggestions?

click here to see more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FcS_MIm9ZU

Burial at Sea

It was a sad day among most of the members of the ET Gang.  It was late September and the USS Intrepid (CVS-11) was back from another Western Pacific cruise. It had been my home for about three years.  I was a 3rd Class Electronics Technician and a part of the Electronics Technician Gang.  We maintained all electronic radar and communication equipment on the forty-two thousand ton aircraft carrier. Some of my shipmates would become friends for life. There were some pretty smart boys in the  Electronics Division.
Some were college drop-outs or just plain smart.  But I didn't fit into either category.  Over long periods at sea men can sometimes develop hobbies out of boredom. The sailors on whaling ships of old were famous for scrimshaw. But today hobbies were of a different kind. Many would create vast collections of recorded music on expensive tape recorders in a pre-digital age. Others would create electronic gadgets. One made a homemade lava lamp. And yes one of my shipmates had a pet. Pets are frowned on by the Navy brass. I had once been on a ship that had a beagle for a pet. It was the secret everyone knew about. But there was no dog on the good ship Intrepid. However, there was this kid in our division that did have a pet. I say "kid".  I think I had the right.  I was twenty-three at the time. Richardson* was what was known as a "kiddie cruiser".  If you joined the Navy at seventeen, you enlistment was up before you turned twenty-one. He looked the part too.  He was tall with a mop of very black hair and perpetual smile on his face. He was gangly though not skinny and rather quiet. He worked with another tech on UHF gear. (Our division was divided in to "gang" according to what equipment they maintained.) The ultra high frequency communication equipment was in fairly discrete space that if you didn't know where it was you would not find it.  These techs for this equipment practically lived in this space.  Since the space was hard to find and Richardson and his buddy weren't the most popular sailors in the Division few people knew of Richardson's pet. I once overheard Richardson ask hs buddy Slovak if he had fed Ferdie. After seemingly days of pestering Richardson, he finally admitted that he had a pet on board.  I was hoping it was not a snake. We had recently dropped anchor in Singapore and some sailors had brought snakes aboard.

"Is it a python?" I asked.

"No, nothing like that,"  he answered with his usual smile, "Come on, let's go!"

I followed him through the passageways through hatches an up several levels to the UHF space. It was a very small space located high in the island structure of the ship. On one side was a bank of electronic communication equipment. The indicator lights of green, amber and blue blinked or glowed.  On the opposite wall was a counter space used for a workbench.  There were two barstools there also. On the wall was that famous Farrah Fawcett poster of her in the orange swimsuit. The space was air conditioned unlike our berthing spaces.  Electronic equipment had priority over the human crew.

"So where your famous pet?" I asked, still expecting a snake.  I don't like snakes.

"He's right over there," Richardson said pointing to the workbench. 

"Where?" I saw nothing.

"There, On the bench.  In the jar," he said.

Near the wall at the back of the workbench beside an oscilloscope was a jar with a transparent liquid. It was one of those large jars like the kind pickled eggs inhabit at local watering holes. There was movement in the jar. I moved closer. I could finally make out a small fish.

"That's Ferdie!" And he's almost swam around the world, " Richardson said and added, "Maybe he can get a certificate too!  He came aboard at Norfolk, you know."

This was the Intrepid's last cruise before a lengthy shipyard period in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for extensive repairs. This last cruise was a circumnavigation of the globe. It was a great cruise. Ports of call were Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Subic Bay, P.I., Hong Kong, Singapore, Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan,  Sydney, Australia, and Wellington, New Zealand.  All sailors would receive a large certificate verifying their membership in the Loyal Order of Magellan.

" I don't know, Richie. We'll see what the Chief says. We may have to com-sha one and I could letter it for you," I said, "Thanks for letting me in on your secret."

In a week we would be home. Our families would be waiting on the pier for us.

The sea is sometimes placid spread like a sheet of glass as far as the eye can ssee. But there are places at sea where that is never the case. Terra del Feuga is one of those places. That particular point at which the two great oceans meet south of the continent of South America. We saw high seas and snow there. But closer to home there was another unwelcome body of water. There is a reason the sea off Cape Hatteras is called "the graveyard of ships". Many a seafarer has met his doom there. Our passage would be no different. After a few months at sea, you learned how to adapt to rough seas. If it was extremely rough, everything that was not fastened down was lashed down. When eating in the galley, you held on to your tray with one hand or it would hit the deck. But it was not quite that rough at the Cape. But it was bad for one sailor's pet.
As the ship rolled to starboard, Ferdie's habitat fell to the deck and shattered. As the life sustaining liquid dissipated he gasped for the life giving liquid. With a final flick of his luxurious fins he was gone.
His funeral was a rather simple event. A match box served as a coffin. I drew an American flag on a napkin to drape across it. The three of us committed his body to the sea off the fantail. Richie mumbled some words from Heinlein's "Glory Road".

The next day we met our friends and families. But we would always remember, Ferdie, the black moor who almost swam around the world.

Kindness in the Fog of War.

The Sinking of the Linda Blanche out of Liverpool by Willy Stöwer

My father told me of his closest  encounter with the enemy during WWII.  Dad was near forty years old when he was drafted into the Army. Due to being deaf in one year he was not sent to the combat zone. Instead the Army made him a military policeman, an MP stationed at Fort McClellan, AL. While there he was sent with other MPs to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to guard a German submarine that had washed ashore. I thought this would be a good subject for a blog post when I was searching for a topic last week. I began my research on the web since my primary resource had passed away quite a few years previously. 

The Gulf of Mexico was actually a hotbed of submarine warfare during WWII. Tankers carrying petroleum products from the oil refineries on the gulf coast as well as freighters carrying other products were very desirable targets for the German submarine navy.  During 1942 there were 23 enemy submarines patrolling the Gulf almost continuously. Specially designed “tanker” submarines replenished the subs in the Gulf. 

Unarmed tankers and freighters were easy targets for the U-boats. Almost daily debris from U-boat victims washed ashore in the Gulf states. The biggest concentrations of Nazi submarines were around England and in the Gulf of Mexico. The German U-boat Navy under Admiral Karl Donitz sank 225 merchant ships totaling more than 1.25 million tons of cargo in six months in 1942 in the Gulf. German losses were small, losing only eight submarines.

One of the most intriguing losses of American shipping was the sinking of the Alcoa Puritan. It was early May, 1942, when the freighter, loaded with 9,700 tons of bauxite ore, was sighted by the  U-507 commanded by Korvettenkapitan (Commander) Harro Schacht.The first torpedo fired from the submarine missed the ship but was close enough to be seen by a seaman on the freighter. The captain of the ore laden ship attempted to escape. The U-boat was slightly faster and soon caught the Alcoa Puritan. With its deck gun the German riddled the American vessel amidships with holes. The captain of the freighter ordered the crew and passengers to abandon ship. The submarine submerged and the commander wasted no time in firing a torpedo amidships into the freighter, sinking it immediately. Captain, crew and passengers were safe in lifeboats when the German U-boat surfaced close by.  The commander maneuvered his craft close to the captain’s lifeboat and ordered his crew to pass cigarettes, bread and water to the Americans in the lifeboats.  In clear English the German commander, Schacht, called out, “Sorry we can’t help you, hope you get ashore!” The account of this incident is well documented in the book, Slaughter In The Gulf .

This was very interesting research but I never found any reference to the incident my father had described.