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By the sea
2007-10-19 05:41:00
Location : Carribian - 20 19 N, 083 59 WThis is the latest work by Puja & its called by the sea. This was the biggest canvas that she had attempted. She has now picked up a pretty challanging painting & I think it'll keep her busy for the better part of a week & half.

Panama City
2007-10-18 17:38:00
Location : The Carribians - 18 19 N, 081 49 WWe crossed the Canal yesterday & are now on the way to Texas. Pictured above is the Panama City outline as seen from the Pacific anchorage. It seems to be huge city, but I'm informed that it is pretty much the only city in the whole nation.This is pretty much the way we see you from our ships. :)
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The Clouds of Panama
2007-10-16 13:53:00
Panama - Pacific AnchorageThe clouds were out in full force yesterday. There is hardly any wind out here & the clouds lazily sweep the countryside & the sea, with heavy rain. The Mountains themselves look a little small infront of the clouds. Comparing the ships to the cloudsseems a far stretch indeed.
More About: Panama , Clouds

Panama
2007-10-15 22:30:00
Location : Pacific Anchorage, Panama Today finds me again at Panama. We came into the Pacific anchorage & have dropped anchor about two miles from the sea Buoy. The place remains beautiful as ever with clouds hugging the hills & the rain coming & going. Pictured above is not the anchorage, but a picture from the Gatun Lake. The red tanker is a product tanker from the Aurora lines. to the right of the tanker, you can see the Gatun Dam in the background. That is the dam holding all the water of thePanama Canal. & to the very right of the picture is one of the Maersk line ships.

Flowers
2007-10-12 18:58:00
Peru Coast - 07 20 S, 080 50 WThe spring is starting in Chile right now & the flowers are blossoming everywhere on the countryside. As I was going along the sea coast, the person kind enough to give me a ride to the town was explaining that the cold current along the chile coast caused a fog in the mornings. In the north of Chile, where it was desert & absolutely barren, this fogwas enough for the flowers. As per him, if you went to the northern deserts in the month of Oct, you would find a blanket of flowers over the sand dunes as far as you could see. An amazing sight that must be. :)
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Tectonic plates & Geostacy
2007-10-11 18:00:00
Location: Peru Coast - 13 07 S, 078 53 WToday lets leave the mundane topics of the Sea & talk about interesting things such as Tectonic plate movements. The "Tectonic plate theory" is a generally well accepted theory these days. What that means, is that enough people oppose the theory sothat no one dares to call it the "Tectonic plate fact". :)In basic terms what it implies is that the Earths core is made of molten magma & the continents are in effect floating pieces of solids. Much like wood floating on water. The Theory of Geostacy proposes that like the wood or ship floating on the water,the continents float with respect to their weight. If you add more weight to them, they will sink & if you remove weight from them, they will rise. A great example of this are the poles. It is estimated that due to the melting of the Ice caps, so muchweight will be released from the landmass that the whole continent will life up by many centimeters. This is known as Geostacy. So if yo...
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Still life
2007-10-10 18:42:00
Location :- Peru Coast 18 24 S, 077 02 WThis is the latest of Puja's paintings and I think its simply great.
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Far far away
2007-10-09 04:27:00
Location : Chile coast - 27 26 S / 073 43 WPuja , being the prodigious painter that she is, has now completed three paintings. The first one that I showed you, was actually her second painting. This is actually her first painting. It's titled "far far away".Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Tue, 09 Oct 2007 02:30 UTC Message-id: 347243331

Chile
2007-10-07 17:07:00
Location : Valparaiso, Chile This is a beautiful Country. Everyone on the streets is kissing one another & gorping one another. Apart from that the country side is nice too. This is the view from the jetty on which our ship is tied up. It is a beautiful beach and once the sun isup, you can see people soaking in the sun. The temperatures here are pretty low & once the sun comes up, everyone is out on the beach. People drive beach bikes & horses on the sand & you even see people surf boarding on the waves once they pick up abit in the afternoons.There are of course women in bikini as well & I'm afraid that my duty officers might actually have their binoculars trained somewhere other then on the ships deck. I wish people would be more disciplined these days & simply go and take pictures of thebeach to blow up & see on their computers.

Panama Birds
2007-10-04 23:31:00
Location - ChileWell we arrived at Chile and things are a bit hectic. Just wanted to leave you with a picture of a bird from Panama . In the docks, an extensive grid of Cameras is used to monitor all happenings. These cameras also provide a useful perch for the localbirds to sit & spot out their next meal. In my transit, I often saw different birds use this camera for sitting purposes when they could have sat anywhere nearby. Something to do with an birds eyeview I guess. :)
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Shadows by Puja
2007-10-03 21:44:00
Location - Chile Coast 29 00 S, 073 05 WPuja has brought along her painting kit with her & was busy the last few days with the Oil paints. Presented above is her first effort at a nude. We call it Shadows . :)

Leading lights & channel Navigation
2007-10-03 18:06:00
Location :Chile Coast - 27 48 S, 073 34 WI wanted to talk about the navigation in confined waters today. Navigation by itself is a very tricky thing. The basic purpose of Navigation to find out "where you are" & as a derivative second step, "where you are going". In the open sea, the beauty of Navigation as an art worked upon over the thousands of years becomes highlighted. To me, there are few things more beautiful then the act of setting down in paper, your position within a mile on the chart, using a star many many light years away. But lets discuss ocean navigation some other time. Today as the topic suggests, we shall deal with Inland navigation. One might reason that with a sign board every 50 meters, it would be easy to figure out where you are. And I would have to agree. Inland navigation is not really about "Where you are going", but about "How you are getting there safely". Due to the restricted waters of Canals & channels, it becomes critical to keep ships in very...
More About: Lights , Channel , Leading , Chan

Comment on the comments
2007-10-02 03:13:00
Location : Chile Coast -20 34 S, 076 14 WJust wanted to come by & say that even though I can't comment on the comments page because I'm not connected, I do read them & appreciate them. Thanks for the comment Mieke on the seagulls. I might just take a picture of the port fwd deck that theselittle buggers have decorated with their poop. I fail to understand how these chaps can eat so much. I am afraid I belong to those few who have not read J Seagull. It is on my "to do" list and I promise that I will get around to it. And thanks to Anon who pointed out that the white buildings in the pictures of the Panama locks are actually the control towers from which they operate the lock gates & the valves. The beauty of the Panama canal locks is that there are no pumpsinvolved. The lake (and the full Panama Canal) is above sea level. So what happens when the ship comes in the lower lock is that the valves between the two locks are opened & the water simply flows down with the ...
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Miraflores Locks - Panama
2007-10-01 17:10:00
Location : Chile Coast - 18 45 S, 076 54 WThe picture above is one of the classic shot of the Panama canal. A gem of a shot if I might be allowed a little modesty. Let me explain. Of the three lock gates of Gatun, Perdo Miguel & Miraflores, it is the Miraflores that is the most famous. This is simply because it is the closest to Panama city, & so has a big tourist centre. Hence, if a chap staggers over to you ina pub on Grant road at noon (Lets skip what you were doing there for the time being) and claims to have visited the Panama Canal, he is in most probability, talking of the Miraflores. Of the Miraflores, the White Building featured above is the most famous landmark. It stands, as it stood way back in 1913 when the canal opened up & no one is quite sure what it is used for these days. If you zoom into this low resolution picture, youmight just make out the writing on the wall "Miraflores Locks 1913"So the picture has the following going for it:01. The Mira...
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Dolphins
2007-09-30 03:46:00
Location : Peru Coast Yeasterday morning as I opened the blinds to the portholes, saw a huge school of Dolphins racing with the ship. Watching dolphins is one of the rare pleasures on the ship & I have rarely heard of anyone disagreeing with that. These particular dolphinswere in a particularly palyful mood & they would jump along the vessel or ahead of the bow & then criss cross underneath the ship to come jumping out on the other side. The fifteen or so dolphins must have been playing around the ship for atleast half an hour before they gave us up as poor sport and went jumping & dancing on their merry way.

El Nino & The Peru Current
2007-09-28 22:00:00
Location : Ecuador Pacific Coast - 04 54 S, 081 32 WToday we are passing the area of the world that actually is giving cause for much concern to the world.The Peru current flows nothward along the west coast of South America. It is a cold water current & brings water from the Atlantic ocean into the warmer climates of the Equatorial Region. The Area around which I am right now - Ecuador coast is the farreach of the current. After this the the current turns to the west & goes into the Pacific ocean. You can see the current with the broken line. The Current against this is the Panama Current that is a south bound current flowing from the gulf of Panamato the south along the coast. This is the current marked by the thicker line.In 1982 it was observed by the scientist Camilo Carillo the Peruvian fishermen used the term "Corriente del Nino" or "Current of the Christ Child" for a sudden southward current near Christmas. This current brought in a huge cache of fishes from theEquat...
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Bridge of the Americas
2007-09-27 17:47:00
Location : Equador Pacific coast - 00 17 N / 080 55 WFeatured above is the Bridge of the Americas in Panama. It is called so because for a long long time, this was the only bridge connecting the North & south America. It is really astonising to consider two huge continents to be connected with such athin link.We had started feom Gatun lake at 0900 hrs & by the time we passed through the Miraflores locks, it was evening. The Bridge of the Americas is at the southern end of the canal & actually in the background you can see the first glimpse of the Pacific. South of this bridge is territory that I have never been to before in my life. & the Pacific is the one ocean that I have not crossed. That will have to remain so for the near future, but I will go down the western coast of the South America. The routewill take me past Columbia, Equador (where I am presently) , Peru & Finally to Chile. I have never been to Chile as well & to be honest had never really seen i...
More About: The Americas , Icas

Panama Departure
2007-09-26 02:56:00
Location : Pacific Coast Panama - 08 30 N, 079 31 WWe crossed the remaining locks of Pedro Miguel & the Miraflores today. As we left the channel waters it was dusk & the pacific coast was just as beautiful. For some reason, the clouds in Panama, stick to the tree tops of the forests even though theyare not really high hills. The view was spectacular & I look forward to coming back to this part of the world around the middle of October. Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless;Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:05 UTCMessage-id: 344963783
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Panama - Gatun Locks
2007-09-25 02:22:00
Location : Panama Yesterday I showed you the snap of us approaching the Gatun locks from the Atlantic side. These are the pictures of the vessel as it climbs into the second set of locks. It really is a very tight fit for the vessel & the shocker is that the walls ofthe docks aren't even lined with some rubber fenders or tyres. It is very tense times for people low in the food chain like me, but these pilots do seem to have things well in control & take out the vessel with hardly a foots clearance on either side!Pretty neat sight. This amazing control is primararily due the the locomotives attached to the vessel on all four corners. You can see two locomotives on each bow of the ship. These send out wire ropes to be fixed on the ships bollards & then the vessel is positioned inthe locks by the tightening or slacking of these wires. There are two sets of these also on the stern & these eight locomotives move along with the ship on rails provided for that purpose.You ...

Gatun Locks
2007-09-23 18:13:00
Loacation : PanamaCrossed the Gatun locks today. Pictured above is the entrance the docks. On the Starboard you can see the Sunlight Venture going through the East Docks. There are three dock gates at Gatun and right in front of us, you can probably see the aft & Funnel of a ship at the top most lock. We passed through all those locks & went up there an hour after this picture was taken. Between the Derrick post & the fore mast, you can probably see the tower on the shore. That is the tower on which the webcam is fitted. You can checkout the ships passing through on :www.pancanal.com & also on www.czbrats.comIt was fun. Will send some more snaps over the next few days.

Curacao
2007-09-23 00:00:00
Location : PanamaI never did get around to telling you all about Curacao . I think we did go over the basics of the Netherlands Antilles & the ABC Islands. Before coming to Panama we had gone to Curacao. Pictured above is the Bridge of Curacao. It is probably the mostfamous landmark of Curacao. This Bridge has a span of 55 meters on high water & is a beautiful & rather unususal design. This picture was taken after we had come in the bay. In the background is the channel & then the sea. As you enter the channel, you are greeted by a row of beautiful buildings & the downtown area on either side. The next day, we were actually having acoffee on the waterfront and saw a ship passing by. It was a beautiful sight & sadly denied to me because we entered & exited in the middle of the night.

Panama
2007-09-22 03:42:00
Location : Panama AnchorageReached the Panama anchorage today. We were coming in to Panama from Curacao and this gave me the opportunity to coast along the Venezuelan & Columbian coastline. By the morning the Panama coastline came on the horizon & it was great. I have put up asnap of a ship on my port quarter at Sunset with the coastline in the background. The whole country just seems to be one big expanse of forests & in the evening the clouds had settled in the mountains & the view was just spectacular. The thing about this area is that the weather is pretty much equatorial. If I had shown you the picture on the front of the vessel, you would have seen pouring rains & lightning all over the place. Puja tells me that its harmful for the eyes to look atlightnings & the risk is not mitigated by even looking at it from the view screen of a digital camera. So sadly I can't show you any lightning snaps.

A Seagull Massacre
2007-09-19 21:00:00
A couple of days after I had written about the seagulls out in the carribian, we recieved this peice of news today:Worker Fined For Seagull Massa cre A Longshoreman was fined nearly USD 20,000 after being found guilty of mowing down 189 seagulls at Packer Marine terminal in Philadelphia port. Municipal Court Judge Deborah Shelton imposed the minimum fine of USD 75 per bird against Daniel Gallagher,the President of an International Longshoremen's Union local. The incident occurred in February 2006 when Gallagher was driving across the terminal. According to local media reports, he was talking on a two-way radio and trying to grab spilling coffeewhen he looked up and saw the flock of birds. But rather than stopping, Gallagher said he panicked, hit the gas and ran down the 189 seagulls before crashing into a parked container chassis.Must have been one heck of a sight!
More About: Agul

Seagulls
2007-09-17 05:22:00
Seagulls are not really my favourite. I think my dislike stems right from my cadetship, when I would spotlessly clean or paint the deck & a seagull would come swooping down from the heavens, crap on the deck & nonchalantly fly away to another part ofthe deck to repeat its handiwork. As I progressed along the ranks, I grew slowly possessive of the ships under me & the behaviour of the Seagulls was simply unacceptable. In most parts of the world, these chaps are excellent fliers & often glide in place for up to fifteen minuteswithout moving a wing. Actually that would be neat in itself, but what happens is that they keep pace with the moving ship & maintain their position without flapping a wing. As the ships bows break through the waves, they glide around the bow, waitingfor the fishes to break through the frothing sea before they would dive & in my fervent imagination, be run over by my bows to be gruesomely killed in the churning propeller. But that was not ...
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USS Yorktown
2007-09-13 00:16:00
Yesterday we had seen the Bridge at Savannah. Let us go back to the Charleston Bay Bridge. In the picture you have one of the pillars of the Bridge & in the back ground is the Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown . The Yorktown is a uncommissioned warship &serves as a museum these days. I had gone on a similar Warship Museum at Texas city & they maintain the whole thing very well. That one had even got an Aircraft Simulator type of movie in it featuring an actual mission in the Persian Gulf. For some reason, the Radar antennae of the warship was turning. Pretty weird considering that she could hardly have moved an inch in a long time.

Portland Senetor at Savannah
2007-09-12 00:14:00
Pictured above is the Portland Senetor in the Sava nnah River & in the background is the Bridge over the Savannah River named the "Eugene Talmade Memorial Bridge". I'm not sure anyone calles it that though.And the second picture shows us going underneath it at midnight. I had taken it on longer exposure so the thing has come out a little blurred. The savannah is a gently meandering river that snakes its way between the borders of two of the Western states of the US & the activity along it is surprisingly heavy. Most of the shipping traffic like Jettys & the terminals are built along thesouthern shore and because of this they stretch right along the river till more then fifty miles inland, So you actually have substantial traffic moving in the river even though there might not be much to see out there. I remember that I had gone ashore in Savannah as a third mate & for the first time in my life discovered a place called an "Army-navy sulprus store". The amount of cool stuff o...

Flag Etiquette
2007-09-10 18:12:00
The Carribians : 13 16 N, 069 56 W, Spd 13 KtsLet's go back to the container ship Tokyo Express that we had seen a couple of posts back. Seen in the picture above are the flags on the main mast above the Wheelhouse / Bridge. On the extreme right we can see the Smoke stack or the funnel of the shippainted Orange & then the three windows of the Bridge. On most ships, the flags have to be hoisted by going above the Bridge, to a deck called the Monkey Island. But on Tokyo express the flag halyards seem to be tied to the Bridge deck on the areaoutside the enclosed bridge. This area is called the "Bridge Wings".International Flag Etiquette is very clear on the method of hoisting flags on the merchant ships. The last time we saw Tokyo express, I had shown you the Jack staff where the Flag of registry (Germany in this case) was hoisted. It is on the main mastthat the rest of the flags are hoisted. The flag on the Extreme Starboard of the main mast is always the country of visit. As the sna...

Mona Passage
2007-09-09 20:54:00
Mona Passage : 17 54N , 068 06W , Spd 13.0 Kts ,Co -200(T)For anyone desirous of entering the Caribans, there two main passages to go through. The Windward passage, & the Mona Passage. The Windward passage is between Cuba & Haiti, whereas the Mona passage lies between the Dominican Republic & Puerto Rico. The passage is called Mona because of the Mona Island that guards it. Today was a bright & beautiful day & the visibility was great. If you look at the chart of the Mona Island, you can see that its a circular Island with about a miles radius. Itsgreat to look at from Google earth & you must try it out sometime. The pictures along with the chart are of the Isla Monita, a small rock jutting out of the ocean a few miles northwest of the Island (also there on the chart) & the full Mona Island as seen from a distance of about 5 miles. An interesting thing about British Admilarity (BA) Charts is that the UKHO has decided a few years back to start using the local names of...
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Tugs of the Savannah
2007-09-09 14:46:00
Approaches to Mona Passage: 19 07 N, 068 05W , Spd : 13.4 Kts, Co - 172 TThere is a large lobby of ship enthusiasts that are ardent admirers of the Tug. The tugs are the work horses of the marine industry and are typically small vessels with a strong engine, built more for the power then for the speed. In fact a normalcruising speed of a tug rarely crosses 10 kts. Pictured above are a couple of tugs that passed by in the Sava nnah river. The Edward Moran is a typical tug used for ship handling & it is really beautiful. The tug is a classic and is built along the lines of the tugs made in the late 70's & eighties.I won't be surprised if that really was the age of the old lady as some of these vessels can last a long time in the rivers fresh water. The second tug, ugly by most descriptions, including some of my own, is the tug "Savannah" The reason that its front is cut off into a blunt end is because its really meant to carry barges. The US applies cabotage law along its coast. ...

Tokyo Express in Savannah
2007-09-08 19:13:00
Posted north East of Bahamas : 22 32 N, 070 51W, Spd 13.1, Co 131.8All mariners think of ships as women. Probably because we don't see many of the real ones. But notwithstanding any and all allegations of sexisms, you have to agree that you can tell a lot about a ship from the way her stern looks.Pictured above is the Container Ship Tokyo Express discharging Cargo at Sava nnah .The information garnered from the picture of the Stern is as follows:Name : Tokyo ExpressPort of Registry : HamburgIMO Number : 9193290Call Sign : DGTXPoints of note:The picture also shows some neat points of interest to those who think that those points of interest are neat. Firstly, the lifeboat used on the ship is that of the free fall lifeboat. The advantage of these lifeboats is that the owner is required toinstall only one of these on the ship. Conventional lifeboat fittings require each side of the vessel to have lifeboats for the total life saving capacity of the ship. The problem with this kind o...