Seaman Randy Knight Checking In on 6/07/06 (#30)

"Surprising as it seems, we're getting toward the 'winding down' stage of cruise. My classes are moving toward the final chapters, and I have last midterms in 2 of them on Saturday.

"FINALLY, a warm, sunny day. Temps have shot up to the high 70s as we come up on the equator (anticipated crossing about midnight tonight, although I doubt I'll wait up). And, no big surprise, the humidity has shot up along with it. But with midterms, papers and projects due, etc. there are very few students out sunning. Unlike our southward pass through the tropics, which was early in the cruise and the students weren't yet taking classes too seriously. Then the upper deck was littered with bodies soaking up the rays.

"Last night's 'Navigation for Dummies' was pretty interesting. I knew most of it already, but a review was good. And I did learn how navigators use special triangles with protractors stamped on them to lay out courses at different headings and also to locate a current position based on bearings taken off nearby landmarks. Not hard, I had just never done it.

"Three days a week, our Cal Poly students go to a special after-lunch class called Cruise 195 where various of the ship's officers come to talk about different aspects of the ship. Today, the captain came to talk about piracy and to give his first-hand account of being on an oil tanker that was boarded by pirates off Singapore about 1990. Most people think piracy died out centuries ago, but it's alive and well. There were over 250 incidents of piracy on the high seas reported last year. Most of them are akin to house burglaries. Pirates board from small boats in the dark, hold the crew (a pretty small crew on most commerical vessels) at gun point or knife point while going through cabins and the bridge stealing watches, computers, money, etc., then depart. But there are times when the whole ship is taken and its cargo sold off into the black market, and even entire ships are "re-registered" and sold to buyers who promise not to look too closely at the details.

"But don't worry. Nearly all piracy is off the coast of Asia and Africa. I think we're safe."

[Editor's note: This is my reply to the piracy topic. Quoted sections are Wikipedia entries.]

Now this is interesting! There was a show on TV awhile back, maybe on the Nat'l Geo channel, about modern-day piracy. Tankers and big cargo ships get hit the worst because they have such small crews. The show specifically mentioned problems in and around SE Asia. They showed how crews train to repel pirates with high-pressure water hoses since there isn't much else they are allowed to do. The pirates also specifically look for U.S. cash.

Just a few days ago I bought a book about pirates at Costco. It's a children's book, but is a really good, entertaining look at the history of piracy.

You might want to start thinking ahead toward:

"International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a parodic holiday invented in 1995 by two Americans, John Baur ("Ol' Chum Bucket") and Mark Summers ("Cap'n Slappy"), who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like pirates. For example, instead of "hello," an observer of this holiday would greet his mates with "Ahoy, me hearty!" The date was selected because it is the birthday of Summers' ex-wife and would consequently be easy for him to remember.

"Background

"At first an inside joke between two friends, the holiday gained national exposure when Baur and Summers sent a letter about their invented holiday to nationally syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002. Barry liked the idea and promoted the day. The day became "international" that same year when people in Australia learned of the holiday from Barry's column. By 2003, with the release of such pirate-themed films as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the holiday was established.

"Actor Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island is the patron saint of Talk Like A Pirate Day. Peg-legs, parrots and treasure maps were all literary inventions of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, Treasure Island, a book whose influence on pirate culture can not be overestimated.

"Examples of pirate sayings

"Seamen in the days of sail spoke a language far apart from the norm. It was so full of technical jargon as to be nearly incomprehensible to a landsman. For example, few could follow these instructions:

"Lift the skin up, and put into the bunt the slack of the clews (not too taut), the leech and foot-rope, and body of the sail; being careful not to let it get forward under or hang down abaft. Then haul your bunt well up on the yard, smoothing the skin and bringing it down well abaft, and make fast the bunt gasket round the mast, and the jigger, if there be one, to the tie.
--The Seaman's Manual (1844), by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

"Even more baffling are some of the phrases used by sailors in the 17th century:
If the ship go before the wind, or as they term it, betwixt two sheets, then he who conds uses these terms to him at the helm: Starboard, larboard, the helm amidships... If the ship go by a wind, or a quarter winds, they say aloof, or keep your loof, or fall not off, wear no more, keep her to, touch the wind, have a care of the lee-latch. all these do imply the same in a manner, are to bid him at the helm to keep her near the wind.
--former pirate Sir Henry Mainwaring (see Harland (1984) p.177)"

So if you're not safe, Randy, at least you now know about the international holiday.