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Free!
2007-09-07 05:00:00
Posted North of Bahamas : 27 51 N, 077 35WIt always surprises me how far you can see out at sea. After the months of being at home, when you finally do step out on the bridge of your ship, the horizon is so far far away that you wonder if you ever will catch it. It is good to be out at sea & especially good to be out of the US. I think I had told you about the IALA buoyage system & how the US has an opposit system in place. Well I always feel that you are going the right way if you keep green on the Starboard.This seems more then symbolic when you have to keep the green buoys on your Stbd as you leave American port.Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Fri, 07 Sep 2007 03:07 UTC Message-id: 214161148
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Charleston Bay Bridge
2007-09-05 00:07:00
I have been sailing on the larger ships for so long that I had almost forgotten how much fun it was to pass under the bridges. Char les ton was a dreary place. It was cloudy & rained pretty much throughout the stay there. For some reason, there was nocity in evidence. Most US cities that I have seen are characterized by these clutter of high rises that the Americans inevitably call downtown (I have no idea where that would be in an Indian city) & then spread all around it would be the industrialarea, the warehouses & then the suburbs. If Charleston has a downtown with high rises, they were not visible from the river. But it does have a stunning bridge going for it. The Charleston bay bridge has a charted clearance of 186 feet and we with anair draft of 132 feet would have comfortably passed under it. But like getting out of a chopper, you always feel like ducking every time you pass under one of these. Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:58 UTC Mess...
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US Coast guard 211 at Charleston
2007-09-03 21:41:00
Posted at sea : 30 35 N, 082 19W When alongside the berth at Char les ton, this Coast guard vessel passed by. Like the Naval ships, coastguard ships don't carry the names painted on their sides. This one seems to be a supply of support craft of some sort. Charlston is a small port butthere is a substantial presence of the coastguard. This presence is also manifested because there are fewer naval vessels here. I had got to speaking to a chap from the USCG & he was telling me that a pert of the movie "The Guard ian" a movie based onthe rescue squad of the USCG, is based on the camp at Norfolk hardly a couple of hours drive from here. I think I'll have to watch that movie again.That capable fellow told me that there was a bigger presence of the USCG at Norfolk, but the staggering mass of the Naval contingent there meant that no one really noticed the USCG. Or as he put it, " They don't notice us - till things start goingwrong!"This is also a great snap ...
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Helicopters
2007-09-01 20:46:00
posted at sea : 31 49 N, 069 56W I have been seeing a lot of Helicopters over the last few days. Smaller ports like Charlston & Wilmington didn't have many of these, but Baltimore & Chesapeake had plenty of them. The ones near Chesapeake & Norfolk were mostly military ones butBaltimore had all types of choppers from News, medevac to Police Choppers. The Chopper refueling jetty was near our Terminal so we would see choppers coming every twenty minutes or so to Land, take fuel & then be on their merry ways. Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Sat, 01 Sep 2007 18:48 UTC Message-id: 213177213

Chesapeake Bay Departure
2007-09-01 00:52:00
GPS : 32 39N , 079 39WTo come out of the Baltimore port, you have to go through a pilotage for about 14 hours & then pass out of the Norfolk & Chesapeake Bay area. As we were coming out of the departure channel, we met another Aircraft carrier on the way in. The ChesapeakeBay & the Norfolk Naval base are featured a lot in the Tom Clancy Novels & my Brother is very fond of them. I wondered if he was around here, he would have had great fun thinking about the area where Jack Ryan had fun with the Red October. Sadly the Aircraft Carrier didn't have a single plane above deck & had only one Helicopter that was going all over the place. I suppose if you are the Captain of an aircraft carrier, you can post a lookout pretty much where you want!Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:54 UTC Message-id: 213057705
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Depart Baltimore
2007-08-30 21:14:00
GPS Position : 36 13N , 075 02W Another reason that I liked Baltimore was because it gave a feeling of a classic city. Sort of like a snapshot of an American city from the forties. Cities like New York seem to have lost their soul in the maze of concrete & glass. Most of the High-rises in Baltimore are concentrated in the Downtown region as is the case with most American cities, but they do look beautiful. I'm not sure which any of these buildings are but I'm sure that almost any Baltimore resident would havebeen able to recognize these buildings. Another picture that intrigued me was this huge Sugar factory called "Domino Sugar". At least I think that is the factory & not an Advert Billboard. For some reason, a sugar factory in a major port of the US seems to be a bit strange. One would imaginethat All American sugar would be made elsewhere. We did leave Baltimore today, but over the last few ports, I think Baltimore is one of the cities that I would enj...

Baltimore
2007-08-30 06:34:00
Current GPS Position : 38 48N, 076 24WI Liked Baltimore . At least the bit I saw from the five miles away. I had actually planned to roam about in the city, but circumstances pervaded & I stayed on the ship. The evening on the Baltimore River Front was beautiful. As the sun began to cometowards the horizon & people came out in the Sailing boats & small boats for a bit of a sail. As the Sun set, all of these boats came back to the Marina like birds to their nests. Any City that affords its citizens a sail on a weekday can't be all thatbad!Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:36 UTC Message-id: 212706328

Norfolk Anchorage
2007-08-29 19:49:00
GPS : 39 06 N, 076 14W Norfolk anchorage is not really a very busy place. If you come from the major shipping lanes like the Malacca Straits and the English Channel, you would actually think it a bit deserted. The only things other then a few Container ships that keepmoving to & fro are the Naval Ships from The Norfolk Naval Base. Yesterday I had shown you the Princess I riding to her anchor. On the other side were rows of Aircraft carriers (I counted six!) being refitted. I even spotted the aircraft carrier thathad interfered with the movements of ships the other day. All it sported was a solitary & sad looking plane with no one for company. In the other picture, you see the Warship 67 coming in the channel being escorted by her Tugs. I chose this picture because you see the Aircraft carrier in the background, & you can even see the sailors lined up on the deck. I'm not sure why all thesailors are required to line up on deck whenever a Naval vessel comes to port, ...
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Princess I & the IALA buoyage
2007-08-28 15:33:00
GPS :36 57N, 076 20WWe anchored near the Princess I at the Norfolk anchorage today. The Princess I looks like a Panamax bulk carrier & has five Hatches & four cranes. It's a bulk carrier of just the right size to go to great ports and it's a treat to handle a vessel ofthis size. It looks like the chaps there are doing a bit of hatch cleaning as they have partially opened two hatches. In ships like these, you generally have two hatch covers over each hatch & they open by folding and stand up at either ends of theHatches. The hatch covers are opened by Hydraulics & waterproof the hatches by thick rubber packing. I remember the many-many times that we had to repair leaks in the hydraulic piping and the testing of the water tightness by hosing down by a firehose. To test the water tightness, one team would go inside the hatch & the other team would start hosing down on the sides of the hatch with a fire hose at good pressure. The tricky part was to let the p...

Chesapeake
2007-08-28 00:51:00
USA is beyond doubt one of the most beautiful countries in the world. We came into a place called Chesapeake today. It is a berth at the end of three hour long pilotage and passes through the Norfolk Naval Base. The base is one of the biggest navalbases & also a very old & famous Ship yard. I saw more then twenty naval ships either under construction or being refitted out there. Today they were going to launch an aircraft carrier at 1000 hrs & they had decided to shut down the whole channel forit. Luckily managed to sneak in just a few hours before the window began. As you pass the Norfolk area, the USS Missouri lies as a Museum on the Port side and a friend works in one of the offices near it. After the Norfolk area, you come to thesparser countryside with green grass & wide fields. It's a little scary to pass underneath a few draw bridges, but it's a perverse fun to watch all the cars waiting for you to pass so that the bridge will be lowered. Received: fr...

At sea
2007-08-26 15:57:00
Its a beautiful day. The sun is out & the visibility is fine. The weekend is on & the local people will start moving out of the marina's in a couple of hours. We were in port yesterday and the amount of boats out on a saturday evening was simplyamazing. They were like bugs moving all around the ship trying to get where ever they might be off to. I'm not sure if the Americans do anything productive on their boats over a weekend, but they sure did make the second mates day. I think he managedto see three episodes of Baywatch in the Half an hours berthing.Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:15 UTC Message-id: 212068808

Stuck in the middle of the Ocean
2007-08-26 00:15:00
There have not been many entries in my blog over the last few days. The reason for this is that I have joined a Ship again and this particular moment finds me far removed from the Internet. But regardless, I shall keep trying to updating the blog byemail. The only problem with this is that I will not be able to check up on the stuff I write. Probably a good thing. :)Received: from GCC at Globe Wireless; Sat, 25 Aug 2007 22:17 UTC Message-id: 211995818
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And they also eat!
2007-08-02 08:34:00
After the post about the sparrow, I felt obiliged to atleast put out some food for them. They ahd a few pecks, but I'm not sure they are crazy about uncooked rice. :)

The legend of the house sparrow
2007-07-25 05:48:00
A blogger I regularly read is Eric, who maintains a philately blog. He recently posted a stamp featuring the sparrow from Belarus. A further research informed me that stamps on Spar rows were around in some quantity. While I am not going to start another collection on sparrows, let me tell you the story of why the male sparrow has a darker chest then the female of that species.It so happened that once Mrs Sparrow decided that she wanted to apply Kajal (Mascara) to her eyes, but sadly back then the sparrows didn't have any. So she told Mr Sparrow to get some. Mr Sparrow flew far and wide, but there was no Mascara to be found anywhere. After a long futile search, he finally came upon a big black rock. This was the perfect rock that Mrs Sparrow could use for her Mascara. But it was simply not possible for Mr Sparrow to take the big rock to the Mrs. And god forbid the thought of Mrs Sparrow coming out of the nest without her make up intact for applying the Kajal! So Mr Sparrow did the o...
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A Blog on Philitaly
2007-07-22 06:21:00
Hi All.Over the past some time, people who read this blog would have realised my fondness for the Postal service. In view of this, I have decided to start a new blog solely dedicated to the postal dept and my stamps. The blog is called "The Stamps of Velu" (for lack of more imaginative title)Please do drop by and spend some time there.Regds,Velu
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More stamps
2007-07-17 05:19:00
Some time back I had written about the Indian postal departments philately scheme to let you receive newly released stamps at your home after opening an account with them. This has proven to be very useful to someone like me who doesn't hang around the country for more then half the year.On returning back home this time, I saw that the postal department has released some great stamps over the last few months. The Miniature sheet for the 2550 years of mahaparinirvana of the Buddha is one of the most beautiful pieces of work I have seen released by this country.The first of the six postage stamps depicts a statue from the gandhara period of Siddhartha when he was a prince. The second stamp is a sculpture from Myanmar where buddha is an ascetic. The third stamp depicts the blissful head of the meditating Buddha from Sarnath, India. The fourth stamp is that of Buddha holding the nectar of immortality in a jar & the fifth stamp contain incarnations of Buddha past and future. The Hina...
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The wall
2007-07-16 11:01:00
We had gone over to Puja's village home at Astha and I found a most photogenic wall.I'm not really sure which of the pictures I like to most, so I'll let you people have them all.I think the Cycle gives it a classic look. I should have clicked one snap off in black and white
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The return of the Lego
2007-07-14 06:03:00
I haven't been around for some time. I thought I should begin again with something else that I hadn't been doing for some time. The Lego blocks are something that have never lost their coolness as far as I am concerned. The Lego mindstorm Robotic invention system is something that takes these blocks to an all new level.As a lego fan, I used to relish working on the technic sets. The gears & springs and interlocking parts would in my humble mind be ample proof of some genius at play. The fact that an assorted pile of stuff could be assembled into into something so obvious was magical.The beauty of the Lego RIS is that not only can it be used to make what the Lego team wants you to do, but that the Lego team wants you to do what you want to do with the Lego RIS. At the heart of the RIS is the RCX module (That Yellow thingy on the top) that you can actually programme with your PC as you want. The RCX, powered by six AA batteries and assisted by gadgets such as Touch sensors, motors,...
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The Local Airport
2006-12-07 03:31:06
As I lugged my suitcase to the taxi stand in Mumbai, the gang of Taxi drivers standing besides the paan Shop perked up and crowded around me."Where do you want to go sir?" One of them asked"To the domestic airport."This produced some confused looks and a bout of vigorous murmuring. After much ado, the enterprising man questioned me again."To where might you be catching the plane for sir?""Er, to Nagpur."His brows cleared and he glowed with satisfaction."Ah! You will be wanting to go to the Loca l airport then."
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The walls of Cafe Mondegar
2006-12-06 21:31:07
Last in the series of stiched images, Let me present to you, the walls of the famed Cafe Monde gar. This is where the end of the walk found me. Cafe Mondegar, or "Mondy's" as it is fondly called by its admirers is a landmark in Colaba and is one of the oldest pubs in Mumbai. The wall s have been painted by the great Mario Miranda and his signature style is evident. You will need to click on these to actually see some detail.The pictures were taken after a couple of beers, so You'll have to forgive the blurriness. I will make it a point to take better pictures on a dry day.Cheers!
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Riding on Bikes with Daddy
2006-12-02 15:27:01
White people just don't get it. I don't know why that is so, but it is so. The other day, I saw a chap asking people on the net about renting a couple of bikes so that he and his dad could drive around India and generally have fun. Apparently he wasn't a good biker and was wondering if he could keep up with his dad in a country like India.He asked the same question after a couple of weeks when he didn't get any replies, but he still didn't any reply. Neither did he get the point. You just don't ride bikes with your dad. How difficult is that to understand?I was raised like any normal Indian. That I didn't turn out to be one does should not reflect in any demeaning manner on my parents. But the fact of the manner is that like all Indians I have ridden on bikes with papa. If you look up on my other blog about dad, you will see that he used to ride the Jawa. I have no memories of the Jawa. Infact if I didn't keep leaving links for it everywhere, it is doubtful that I would even...
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The dreaded Veluitis
2006-12-02 15:27:01
The thorntree is a great place to hang out for someone who likes to travel. Or anybody who doesn't like to like to travel & yet still has to. I had also posted the "urinating Norms in India" thread In the Indian Sub Branch. Some of the replies to it were most entertaining. I am not very sure how long the Mods on that branch will allow it to float on the TT waters, so let me run by a few of them here.Till then please see the thread on its original site:Terry recounted how he had suffered directly due to the horrible bacteria:- Horrible side effect: The damn Indian bacteria (veluitis) made my package huge, but shrunk my bladder to the size of a peanut.Result: I'm hung like a porn star, but have to go to the bathroom every 3 minutes.Personal allegations were heaped in my directions for raising the deadly Veluitis:Balthasar: ...Velu has been one of the leading oracles on this branch for many years, ever since he got honourable discharge from the merchant navy in 2003, when he (not to ...
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My Happy Birthday to me!
2006-12-02 15:27:01
Yes. It is my birthday today.Apart from the fact that I have aged another year and don't seem to be any wiser from it, it is proving to be much fun.Much to Puja's anguish, these days the birthdays seem to be welcomed at midnight. This ofcourse means that someone has to stay awake till midnight so that the rest can be woken up. As you can see, I am not slowly taking the narrative to a party that was most rocking!But thankfully we had Rajat, my batchmate and my chaddi-buddy to give me company through the aurdous hours leading up to midnight. Ofcourse a few pegs of officers choice did help in relieving the burden of each others company. I think we didn't deviate much from our usual discussion on topics ranging from the Karmic circle to our great wisdom in being able to talk about the karmic circle.Puja , full credit to her, did manage to stay awake till almost midnight, but the poor thing has been below the weather these last few days with a viral and needed to be nudged at appropr...
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The Triumph of the hostel food
2006-12-02 15:27:01
You really should never let down your guard in Life. Just when Puja thought that she had escaped the fate of hostel life, Bham! She gets married and finds herself in a hostel.As we were discussing the logistics on the first day in the hostel room, In came the canteen boy with two plates of our Veg-Thali's."How much do these thali's cost?" asked Puja"20 Rupees." I told herShe went into whichever world where women go to handle finaces and multipled the figure with 2 & 30's and bigger numbers before mumbling,"Hmm... this isn't bad. Maybe we won't need to cook after all."She then proceeded to eat the lunch in silence. The only thing that she did say at the end was,"I think we should start looking seriously for that gas cylinder."
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Google Video
2006-12-02 15:27:01
Hey I finally put up my first google Video . :)It's a clip of the IL-76 transport plane dropping anti-heat seeking missile flares. It was some show and the whole night was lit up because of it.Awesome!Check out the video out here!
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The Kala Ghoda Area - Elphinston college
2006-12-02 15:27:01
The walk was great. We started off from the Jehangir Art Gallery and the went down to the fountain via the Bombay University. Sadly the it became a bit dark by the end so I couldn't take as many pictures as I might have liked to have taken.Right Opposte the Jehangir Art Gallery it the Elphinston Coll ege . It ofcourse has a great history behind it, but we were focusing only on its architectural side of its facade. This is the Bust of Sir Jehangir on the front of the building.The brown rock that we seehere is the hard Basaltic rock quarried from Mumbai itself. Whereas the white rock is the much softer rock brought in from Gujrat.As you can see, the White rock is the one where all the art work is done, whereas the Basaltic rock was used f load bearing purposes. Unlike the buildings of today, where the beams take the weight of the structure, here the walls take the weight. That is why architects call these load bearing structures.The College was built in the Neo Gothic style and it does...
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Kala Ghoda area - The Sasoon Library
2006-12-02 15:27:01
The David Sasoon Libra ry is right next to the Elphinston college and is truly a beautiful peice of work and I went in the library for the first time. I'm putting a few of the pictures I took there.
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Jerry Springer and Indian Biker Daddy's
2006-12-02 15:27:01
Or Riding on bikes with Daddy - II=========================So where was I? Yes For some reason, I had drifted over to talking about riding with dad on the Vijay Super. It is probably a good thing that I stopped then, because I would inevitably have then drifted on to how in a darstedly move, he sold off the beauty to some milkman for 40 USD before my 18th birthday when I was out at sea. A occasion of great tragedy, which I never refer to except when I am listing out points that I never refer to. So the point was this. India ns travel everywhere with their daddy on a two wheeler. They travel in front, behind, and in some Indian vehicles, even above or below their esteemed fathers. But under no circumstances will you ever see an Indian riding alongside his father.The reasons for this are not hard to understand once you try to the understand the sociological ethos and the root of all traditions of the nation. It would be a gross insult and a tragedy of unmigitated sadness if proper pro...
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Happy Diwali
2006-12-02 04:57:07
To all of you who hapen to drift by, ...A very happy diwali to all of you and your families. Hope you have a great and peaceful year up ahead.Regds,Velu
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Anti-heat seeking missile flares deployed by IL 76 aeroplane
2006-12-02 04:57:07
I finally put up my first google video. And thanks to Dada, also found out a way to embed it in the blog. During the Diwali celebrations, we had gone to the camp and the huge IL-76 went overhead dropping the flares.These flares are actually a defensive measure against heat seeking missiles (like in Air force one). They lit up the whole night sky and was an awesome display.
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