Unless the winds blow above about 30 miles per hour, this is how Peregrinus' tender, our Zodiac, gets parked at night, to prevent marine growth on its hull.
The Amel has a halyard hanging from the mizzen mast spreaders, and the halyard goes to an electric-powered winch, so that raising the dinghy is a matter of seconds.
Charleston, 6 December 2014. iPhone 4S.
With Peregrinus anchored right in front of the garrison, the crew found the display of the six flags that flew over it quite interesting:
US flag with 33 stars (1860)
South Carolina state flag (1861)
Confederate States "Stars and Bars" (1861) with seven stars: SC, TX, FL, AL, GA, LA, MS.
Confederate States "Stainless Banner" (1863) with thirteen stars
US flag with 35 stars (1865) -The Northern states never subtracted about a dozen stars from their colors, which sums up their stance regarding the possibility of secession
The tallest flagpole features the current US flag with 50 states
6 December 2014. iPhone 4S.
Georgetown, the largest rice-exporting port in the planet in 1840, back when South Carolina produced 75% of the U.S. crop. "Carolina Gold" rice may now come from Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, but there are reasons for the name..
The town is very friendly to sailors. If you go, visit the Rice Museum, housed in the 1842 building attached to the clock tower.
3 December 2014. iPhone 4S.
One day, these wrecks stood proud and shiny in a dealership's lot, each someone's desire and coin. Today, they amuse and invite reflection. As Shelley wrote in 1818:
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
Click the image for some fooling around. Cape Lookout, 25 November 2014.
"Today, old cars lie half buried, their rusted hulks creating a kind of abstract metal sculpture rising up from the sand. As late as the 1960s, people commonly bought a car for $50 or $100, usually with bald, tubed tires, and they took the cars over by ferry, let the air out of the tires until the walls sagged, and drove on the beach. If the car died, the owner would leave it, figuring he had gotten his money's worth. The Park Service estimated in the mid-1970s that some 2,500 junk vehicles were on the beach." ———An Outer Banks Reader, David Stick, Editor (1998).
Doctor Candray was a recent medical graduate in 1926 (before he went to Paris for his specialisation) and had come back home to San Vicente, then a prosperous center of commerce in the road to the Orient.
One day that year, he was called to attend on a patient in Sensuntepeque. The drive was circuitous and lonely —the Pan-American highway was still a dream only politicked three years prior, in Santiago—, so just before leaving early that morning, he asked one of the young kids hanging around if he'd like to come for a ride.
As they were coming home in the stifling afternoon heat later that day, and having passed San Ildefonso, the doctor turned to his young companion:
—I'm dead tired, Alonso. The he road is flat. Here, take over the wheel. Now, you won't have to change gears, but don't go faster and don't go slower. This here is the brake pedal. And wake me up as we approach Apastepeque, as there might be Guardias there, so I'll need to take over before then.
Alonso was twelve years old and never got much schooling afterwards, but knowing how to drive was a valuable skill for a maidservant's kid. A few years later, he became a taxi driver, and was on his way to eventually setting up San Vicente's first gasoline station, with the bit of cash left from grandmother's inheritance, and with a generous —and visionary— loan from the gringo who ran The Texas Company's office in San Salvador.
This story Alonso told his grandson earlier this year, the day of his 100th birthday.
Alonso passed away today. He was the last of his generation in San Vicente de Austria y Lorenzana, and so 1926 is no more a living memory, but instead a sketch of a world that was, and is no more.
1924 Packard Seven-Passenger (Touring Sedan), the same model Dr. Candray drove in 1926.
Peregrinus lies at anchor tonight on the Back River, downstream of Newport News and of Hampton, and almost below the landing path to Langley Field, established in 1916 and named after astronomer and aviation pioneer Samuel P. Langley.
We got our own little airshow as a squadron of four of these F-22 practiced a bunch of aborted landings and go-arounds.
The trailing edge of Peregrinus' new mainsail and a screaming F22 above. 4:24PM, 18 November 2014, iPhone 4S.
Union Station, Baltimore, built in 1911 by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in Beaux-Arts style. K. M. Murchison, architect.
The station was renamed as Pennsylvania Station in 1928.
7 November 2014. iPhone 4S.
The Peabody Institute Library (1878). In the lobby, they had an amusing exhibit on Fakes, Lies, and Forgeries. That evening, we went to a Peabody Modern Orchestra concert.
5 November 2014. iPhone 4S.
Henri Amel liked to name his boat models after the winds he sailed.
The boat on the left, Fiasco, is an Amel Sharki. The Sharki is a seasonal wind of the Middle East that comes from the south and the southeast. It blows from April to June, and again from September to November.
Peregrinus is an Amel Super Maramu. The Maramu is also southeast wind, but it blows in Polynesia. It often brings good, dry weather.
9 November 2014. iPhone 4S.
Fiasco, an Amel Sharki, and Peregrinus, an Amel Super Maramu, docked at the Recreation Pier in Fells Point for a quick breakfast at Jimmy's, one block away. Yelp tells you all you need to know about Jimmy's:
Politically incorrect times are good times.
Photo by Jian Feng, 12 May 2014. Canon EOS 70D, ISO 100, 1/1600". In the far shore: NE Brasil, U27. This Navio Escola is a modified Niterói-class frigate. We wanted to visit it, but the Brazilians began the tours at 2:00pm. On the other hand, we visited the KNM Statsraad Lehmkuhl. The Norwegians were open for business from 10:00am and onwards.
