Collectors Weekly has a nice write up about origins of tattoos among sailors.

Body art was particularly well-suited to the transient and dangerous nature of life at sea. “These sailors were traveling the world, and wanted to bring back souvenirs from places they had visited,” explains Eldridge. “Aboard a ship, you don’t have much room to carry fancy souvenirs, so you end up getting tattoos as travel marks.” …But beyond mere records of their travels, tattoos also served a superstitious purpose among those living an unpredictable, and often risky, lifestyle. “Many sailors are extremely superstitious,” says Eldridge, “so they would get specific tattoos to relieve this anxiety over their beliefs. There are stories of guys in the old, wooden-ship days who would get Christ’s head tattooed on their backs so if they got into trouble and had to take lashes, the person wielding the lash would be more sympathetic.”…“Sailors would get things like a pig and rooster on their feet to keep them from drowning,” Eldridge says. “They would have ‘Hold Fast’ tattooed on their knuckles so that when they were in the riggings, their hands would stay strong. They would get hinges on their elbows to keep them from having rheumatism and arthritis, and sometimes they would even get a little oil can tattooed above the hinge so that the hinges would stay lubricated.”

via Hello Sailor! The Nautical Roots of Popular Tattoos | Collectors Weekly.

The post The Nautical Roots of Popular Tattoos first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In case you didn’t know Crete is an island.  Shocking, I know but stay with me.  Crete has been an island for five million years.  What happens when you find a quartz stone hand ax on Crete 130,000 years old? You drop a quartz brick in your pants

“I was flabbergasted,” said Boston University archaeologist and stone-tool expert Curtis Runnels. “The idea of finding tools from this very early time period on Crete was about as believable as finding an iPod in King Tut‘s tomb.”

This suggests that Homo heidelbergensis had the ability to set sail pushing the ability to island hop tens of thousands of millennia earlier than expected.

[mappress]

The post Seafaring Part of Human’s Ancient Past first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post Wednesday Knot: The Poldo Tackle first appeared on Deep Sea News.

From the name of this knot you might expect its use-to secure an anchor to the end of line.  This is perfect for use with wet and slipper lines and as such is a secure hitch perfect for small anchors.  The name is a bit of misnomer as the anchor bend is actually a hitch (a line is “made fast” to an object with hitch knots) and not a bend (a knot used to bind to lines together).

The post Wednesday Knot: Anchor Bend first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post Darwin and the Adventure: Sailing, Science and Outreach in South America first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In  agreement or harmony with

A Bill of Lading was signed by the ship’s master acknowledging receipt of specified goods and the promise to deliver them to their destination in the same condition. Upon delivery, the goods were checked against the bill to see if all was in order. If so, they fit the bill.

The post Wednesday Nautical Term/Phrase: Fit The Bill first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I also took advantage of the challenge and made a donation, putting my money where my mouth is. You need to do this too. Donor’s Choose offers a way to directly impact students’ lives and help out teachers that are already overworked and burdened. With Donor’s Choose you get to choose the projects you feel are worthy to fund. There is no red tape, you aren’t paying an administrator’s fees or the salary of a non profit worker. Every dime goes straight to purchasing the supplies necessary to carry out an educational project designed and budgeted for by the classroom instructor.

There is a project that Craig and I would really like to see funded very soon. Let’s make this one a reality. Mrs. “D” teaches at a high poverty middle school in northern California. Her students have a chance in a lifetime experience to go on an amazing field trip to the San Francisco Maritime Museum.

“Help us transport our students from the streets of our urban neighborhood to the high seas of the past on the Balclutha (a restored 1890’s sailing vessel). We are writing to ask for transportation funding for an incredibly exciting field trip opportunity for our fourth and fifth graders! Our School is a public charter school with 97% free and reduced lunch students. We have received FULL Scholarships for all of our students to participate in this Incredible field trip, and now all we need is the transportation to get there. “

This one is very important! They have an opportunity that these 60+ students can’t afford to miss, all they need is to get there. To be on an historic sailing vessel learning about the sea while AT SEA is an invaluable and inspirational experience. These are inner city junior high school children, they are at the right age to really get the most out of this. BUT, they have to secure funds in less than 38 days! Lets fund their travel expenses and inspire future marine scientists in 24 hours!!

p.s.-For those who are curious, congratulations to Eric Heupel for sending in his receipt first for the Deep Sea Song Challenge! I am hard at work to make up a song about the GIANT deep sea Solenogaster named Neomenia yamamotoi. I have my work cut out for me!

The post We Did It! But We Can Do So Much More! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Weatherward or windward is the side of the ship toward the wind.  The lee side is the side of the ship sheltered.  Much like the leeward side of island is one that faces away from the wind and provides shelter.  On the otherhand, a lee shore is downwind of the ship, i.e. facing the wind,  and if there is not enough leeway then the ship can be driven onto shore.

The post Nautical Term/Phrase Wednesday: Leeway first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Its been a long time since I put up any original music. Here is one I got around to finishing tonight. Its a bit rough around the edges, especially the acoustic guitar dub over, but I was too lazy to redo it after a first run.

It may be hard to believe now – with ocean liners larger than my fair village of Beaufort, NC – but sailing vessels were the workhorses which transported goods around the world. Indeed, sailing ships are still making a comeback as a more environmentally friendly option for transporting wine in Europe.

Like any occupation on the sea, such routine work is fraught with danger! Safety wasn’t necessarily built in to the sailing vessels  of yore and modern safety equipment wasn’t even a fantasy 100+ years ago.

Kiss of a Cold Ocean –  words and music by Kevin Z

Jack laid in here for a hundred years
His flesh is gone as are his fears
Ragged bones that have a home
In the crushing darkness down below

Carrie Ann still weeps a tear
Everyday for a hundred years
Her jack he never came home that night
Her jack he done changed her life

The winds were low but fog was high
But that never bothered Captain Light
First mate was Tim and he trusted Jack
He knew his way on the topsail mast

For seven years he ran dead trees
Lumber for the gold rush cities
Down the coast from the Puget sound
Out into Pacific, California bound

Jack never gave a thought about dying
As Captain Light took his last sun sighting
The cook was in the kitchen as the swells kept rising
Tim held rope but the water was icy

Jack came on deck, pulled hard on the line
But the icy water made it hard to climb
The rigging swayed and water rushed in
Jack never even saw it coming

Awoke to kiss of a cold ocean
Down he sank like a drunken fish
The dark envelopes, full moon gets smaller
Tries to breathe but all he gets is water

In the deep sea his body abodes
While poor Carrie Ann waits for Jack at home
Gently strokes the boy who never knew
A father like Jack who sailed on the blue

The post Kiss of a Cold Ocean first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Sunday was a big day. We had our first sail, set up the molecular lab on board, did a practice plankton tow, and met the rest of the workshop participants (more on the workshop in the next post). We were picked up early in the morning and taken out to the pier to board a transfer boat to the Tocorimé. At 120 feet, she is a bit too big to dock there during low tide so they keep her parked by a picturesque island just offshore.  She is a beautiful ship, made by hand in the Amazon by Markus Lehmann and colleagues. The story of the Tocorimé is absolutely fantastic and I encourage visiting their website and learning more.

After enjoying ourselves for on deck for a while and talking with the crew and several local persons who were invited to come along, Karen and I went below deck to set up our little molecular lab. It is quite simple and can take up very little space aboard the ship. A thermocycler that can hold 20 samples is used to control the temperature of the samples. It heats, then cools, then heats, then cools, etc for many cycles. A set of pipettes, with disposable pipette tips, to measure liquids. A minicentrifuge spins the samples up to 6000 rpm. This is used during the DNA extraction part of the process to separate the heavier “junk” in the mix to the bottom, leaving the DNA floating in the water above it. Other supplies include a slip mat to put equipment on to help keep things in place, several tubes and chemical reagents for DNA extraction and PCR, gloves to reduce contamination, a styrofaom box to keep samples and reagents cold, and twine to tie down equipment in case of rough weather.

Simon did a demonstration plankton tow. I was busy helping him a bit with it and forgot to take pictures. I’m sure some will show up somewhere. Plankton are easy, inexpensive and loads of fun. It is basically a net that cinches down to a small opening with a bottle at the end of it. Any small stuff will get caught in the net and forced into the bottle. After a few minutes the bottle can be teeming with life! Simon brought a small USB microscope to look at the plankton. Lots of copepods, a couple polychaetes, ostracods, a fish larvae, and one or two amphipods were in the sample. It wasn’t a great sample because of the time of day. Sampling at night is much better to get a greater diversity of small plankton and larvae.

The first sail was a success. Captain Michal (called Captain Romance by Markus) did a great job. I helped to raise sail (it is no wonder sailors are so fit!) and had a fantastic time with a very personable crew. Karen even got up and climbed the rigging!

After we got back to port, we were treated to lunch and Karen, Simon and I headed to the conference center to prepare ourselves for the arriving participants in the workshop. We have delegates from Chile, Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil in addition to us, from the UK and USA. A wide variety of taxa are studied between us all, from several different types of fish to polychaetes and worm-like snail called Caenogastropods to phytoplankton and bacteria.

The post Darwin and the Adventure Day 4 first appeared on Deep Sea News.