harbortug.blogspot.com
The Jack Whistle: And I *Still* Can't Complain ....
http://harbortug.blogspot.com/2016/07/and-i-still-cant-complain.html
Saturday, July 9, 2016. And I *Still* Can't Complain . Hitch number two is in the books and the boss tells me we'll be a 24-hour boat when I come back to work. Getting signed-off on the class of boats I'm now working on will be a matter of months, not weeks, but apparently the master feels comfortable enough with me on the wheel to stay in his stateroom for all but the really unusual jobs. All that before the stars aligned and a port captain was available to "bless" my TOAR. I was a little, uh, nervous.
harbortug.blogspot.com
The Jack Whistle: January 2016
http://harbortug.blogspot.com/2016_01_01_archive.html
Saturday, January 2, 2016. To kick this off, let's fire-up the wayback machine. The year is 1974. The setting: a tidy, green-and-white mobile home separated from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway by a stand of windswept oaks, a quiet two-lane blacktop and a broad expanse of mudflats and spartina marsh. Inside, a towheaded, freckle-faced boy hunches over a record player, a book in his hands. The scratchy LP and the book bear the same title, and the boy follows along as the record plays Little Toot. If you'd ...
harbortug.blogspot.com
The Jack Whistle: Old Home Week
http://harbortug.blogspot.com/2016/06/old-home-week.html
Saturday, June 25, 2016. In the hall of my company's Corpus Christi office there is a photo of the USS City of Corpus Christi. Which made her first port visit to her namesake in 1986. I skipped school with a friend that day to tour the Los Angeles-class attack sub. I sailed a ship last week from the same cargo dock at which I visited my grandfather aboard his Lykes Lines freighter. First of her class, from 1964-1975. My father was a crew member from '66 to '68. If the pace of operations in Houston. Her t...
harbortug.blogspot.com
The Jack Whistle: July 2016
http://harbortug.blogspot.com/2016_07_01_archive.html
Sunday, July 24, 2016. In Praise of Good Deckhands. Sitting across from the human resources guy at my first crewboat job, I was shocked to hear him say: “Deckhands are a dime a dozen. That’s a McDonald’s job. We can always find more deckhands.”. It is true that “deckhand” is usually an entry-level position; that is, someone with no maritime experience starts his or her career as an ordinary seaman or a wiper (if a deck-engine utility). Is a drain on the entire boat, and may in fact endanger other crew me...
simenstad.org
simenstad.org: Short Timer
http://www.simenstad.org/2016/07/short-timer.html
Friday, July 22, 2016. I'm ready to head home soon. I feel like a fixture aboard the tug Hunter, so totally soaked in work it's difficult to remember that anything else exists in the world. I have quite literally been wearing the same two outfits for six weeks straight: the same t-shirt and Carhartt double-front duck trousers on the day watch, and the same shirt and jeans at night. Same Thorogood. Eaten 3 jars of almond butter entirely by myself;. Opened a brokerage account (woo! Time to play with stocks!
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simenstad.org: January 2016
http://www.simenstad.org/2016_01_01_archive.html
Thursday, January 14, 2016. I Am The Storm. Incidentally, today (January 14) is the 6th anniversary of my first crew-up ever, on the Sidney Foss in 2010 for a trip up the inside passage to Valdez with a deck barge. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). I Am The Storm. View my complete profile. Back to sea with me. Bowsprite: a NY Harbor Sketchbook. Hawsepiper: The Longest Climb. The Monkey Flower Group. Wings On Our Way Down.
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simenstad.org: June 2016
http://www.simenstad.org/2016_06_01_archive.html
Wednesday, June 29, 2016. The weather was amazing for a few days there and made it easy to take beautiful pictures of the mighty vessels (the Overseas ships are small and mighty; the Polar tankers are pretty huge). Now we are in Outside Bay, or as I often refer to it, Never Land. Naked Island even looks like the Never Land from the fairy tales, with all the little coves and the mountains in the middle. It's the perfect setting for a bunch of pirates and lost boys to battle and cavort. Daddies miss their ...
harbortug.blogspot.com
The Jack Whistle: March 2016
http://harbortug.blogspot.com/2016_03_01_archive.html
Sunday, March 6, 2016. And for all this, nature is never spent. Being both a native Texan and a lover of wild things is probably something akin to a gentle version of multiple personality disorder. Our beaches are not the whitest, our mountains are not the highest, and our rivers are not the most awe-inspiring . I like to say we have a little of everything, but we don't have the best of anything. Standing on the bridge deck of a tugboat smack in the middle of the Houston Ship Channel last week, I was rem...
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simenstad.org: May 2016
http://www.simenstad.org/2016_05_01_archive.html
Friday, May 20, 2016. We Give Ourselves Permission. Identifying as a feminist means I'm in favor of my own freedom to be a woman in every sense of the word without being told to censor myself, without being told I'm too loud/too aggressive/too tall/too whatever. And if I want to form a girl gang, I'll form a damn girl gang. This is what I want to say:. I had to remind him that the maritime industry is roughly 2% female. Monday, May 9, 2016. This past weekend I missed Opening Day. Monday, May 2, 2016.
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simenstad.org: November 2015
http://www.simenstad.org/2015_11_01_archive.html
Tuesday, November 17, 2015. The weather was wonderful, we had a massive northern lights show one night, and towards the end of the trip I got to take a walk into town with a friend of mine from another boat. It's strange to walk a mile or two when you've barely walked more than twenty feet in a straight line in weeks. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). View my complete profile. Back to sea with me. Bowsprite: a NY Harbor Sketchbook. Hawsepiper: The Longest Climb. The Monkey Flower Group. Wings On Our Way Down.
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