Hailing from Florida, I am a huge fan of brown pelicans. I was therefore very pleased to hear that after several years where brown pelicans on the West Coast of the US have been mysteriously dying off, this year the flocks of pelicans … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
I am always amazed by how well darkness, cold and a lack of oxygen can preserve a wooden ship wreck. Thanks to Badewanne, a non-profit group of divers that has been documenting shipwrecks in the Gulf of Finland for more … Continue reading
Last August, we posted about the collision of the containership MSC Chitra and the bulk carrier Khalijia 3 which resulting in the sinking of the Chitra with a significant oil spill, a loss of cargo containers and the blockage of the port of Mumbai for five … Continue reading
The Ohio River may just be too high to allow the running of the Great Steamboat Race on May 4th, between the Belle of Louisville and the Belle of Cincinnati on May 4. If the river doesn’t fall, officials are … Continue reading
In yesterday’s New York Times, Rose George of Leeds, UK was an Op-Ed Contributor. In her essay, Flying the Flag, Fleeing the State, she starts off by calling many ship operators criminals and comparing them to Somali pirates: But maritime lawlessness … Continue reading
A sign of changing times. A Russian submarine will be participating in a NATO undersea rescue exercise off the Spanish coast scheduled for next month. Russian submarine to participate in first-ever naval exercise with NATO warships … Continue reading
For hundreds of years, coastal schooners carried cargoes up and down the hundred harbored coast of Maine. By the early part of the last century, the schooners were being replaced by trucks and trains. In 1936 Captain Frank Swift started buying laid up … Continue reading
As the sands of Fire Island are swallowing Le Papillon, Cyclone Yasi has uncovered a mysterious shipwreck on an island off the Queensland coast. Cyclone Winds Unbury Island’s 130-Year-Old Shipwreck The huge cyclone’s intense winds blew away sand on one … Continue reading
If Detroit was and is the “motor city,” then perhaps Bivalve, New Jersey was the Oyster Capital of the World. By the late 1880s, 90 railcars full of oysters were shipped from Bivalve every week. Oysters were once the largest … Continue reading
The Ducks have returned to the Delaware River. Not mallards, but duck boats. Last July a tug pushing a barge ran down a disabled “Duck boat” DUKW 34 at anchor in the Delaware River off Philadelphia. Two of the 35 … Continue reading
The Coast Guard released a report yesterday that was highly critical of Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drill rig, which exploded and sank last year. Transocean contributed to Gulf disaster, Coast Guard report says Flaws in Transocean Ltd.’s … Continue reading
It is not champagne, but whiskey bottles which are still appearing from the sands where the sailing ship Stuart wrecked 110 years ago on Easter Sunday off the Llyn peninsula of Northern Wales. Whisky bottles still being washed up on … Continue reading
In July of last year we posted about the discovery of 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution in a wreck on the Baltic seabed. In November, wine experts tasted the “world’s oldest champagne” which was judged to be … Continue reading
I recall many years ago how excited the guide was on a whale watching trip out of Provincetown when we sighted a mother right whale and her calf not long after leaving the dock. I can only imagine how researchers … Continue reading
Jim Luce recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet Found in Japan. The title makes it sound like a new discovery. Not so much. The site of the “lost fleet” was discovered … Continue reading