The Stream of Consciousness

In a shoreside job that is not always intellectually stimulating but often quite mundane, I frequently find myself being led by the uncontrollable force of memory to the sea.  While performing my appointed tasks largely on autopilot, thoughts of ships and voyages and ports and crewmen crowd upon my mind.  They come and go in a steady stream.  Some enter, pause only briefly, and then leave as quickly as they came.  Others linger longer and allow me some time to focus on them.  Still others remain for hours and induce me to take notes and look something up after I get home.  And a few special thoughts compel me to write about them.

Like a character in a Modernist novel, I do my work amid “the flow of thoughts of the waking mind”[1] with its “impressions, emotions, [and] reminiscences, often without logical sequence.”[2]  Thus I may start the day recalling a transpacific voyage aboard the Comet, then consider the calculations for the local hour angle of Aries, next remember taking evening stars aboard the Rigel in mid Atlantic, and finally recall the stability formulas for determining a ship’s center of buoyancy and metacentric height.  By then, it’s time for lunch.  I resume my seafaring stream of consciousness in the afternoon.  Often I think of people—crewmen full of tall tales because they’ve gone everywhere and done everything, and docksiders full of even taller tales because they’ve gone nowhere and done nothing.  And frequently, as interruptions from the job at hand arise, my mind flits idly from one thing to another “without logical sequence.”  Hence my meditations on the sight reduction tables may be cut short and replaced by recollections of my first transit of the Panama Canal aboard the Mercury.

Then, at the end of the workday, I return to the present, go home, and tend to the family.  It’s a good life.

For all these hours of idle reminiscing, though, there are greater hours of philosophical contemplation on what I think of as the mysticism of the sea.  The cargo ships that carried me across the oceans were, of course, man-made objects built for strictly utilitarian purposes.  There was really nothing spiritual or mystical about them, no matter how remarkable they may have been as works of engineering and technology.

The sea, however, is an element of Creation. As such, it abounds in spiritual and mystical qualities.  I think of this often.  In my mind’s eye I gaze upon the surface of the sea and then look upward to the dome of the sky.  I recall many dark starlit nights, and some nights with a full moon faintly illuminating the gray horizon.  I remember many sunrises and sunsets, some with extraordinarily colored cloud banks hovering in the distance.  I consider the action of the wind upon the water, and note the undulations of the waves and swells across the surface.  I feel these elements of Nature, too, as the ship rides through the water and as the wind blows through my hair.  The wildlife of the sea participate as well.  Dolphins frolic in the bow wave.  Flying fish dart from wave crest to wave crest.  Seagulls perch in the rigging,  The sciences of oceanography, meteorology, astronomy, and biology surround the ship and its crew, and their natural beauties bear witness to the genius of a Creator-God.

I contemplate this magnificence of Nature in Augustinian metaphysical terms.  On the great seas of this Earth, “the fields and spacious palaces of my memory,”[3] I am able to “see the invisible things of God,”[4] and begin “ascending by steps to him who made me.”[5]   Going to sea is thus a mystical experience, an opportunity to commune with the Deity through the medium of his Creation in its most pristine and unspoiled state.  The seemingly aimless and random musings of my idle mind on the sea—“without logical sequence”—also lead me to the Divine.  The mystique of the sea, then, like the constancy of the North Star, unfailingly provides the direction to the Summit of all human aspiration.

While my seafaring youth is now long past, my memory preserves it and reminds me of my great good fortune in having gone to sea all those years ago.  The experience of traveling by sea to distant countries and continents, to go where and how the typical tourist does not, to experience peoples, cultures, and languages vastly different from my own, and most significantly of all, to actually live on the sea and commune with it and practically be a part of it for extended periods, is to be educated and edified in the most sublime way possible.  It is an ineffable experience.  Fellow merchant seamen would naturally understand, but to the layman it remains incomprehensibly and immutably foreign.

The sea gives so much more to us than we can ever give back to it.  In considering the sea, there is much to think about but comparatively little to say.  Most often, it seems appropriate to simply maintain a reverent silence and let the sea speak to us.

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[1] Margaret Drabble, ed., The Oxford Companion to English Literature, fifth edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 944.

[2] Ibid.

[3] St. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine, tr. Msgr. John K. Ryan, Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1960, p. 236 (X:viii:xii).

[4] Op. cit., p. 235 (X:vi:x).

[5] Op. cit., p. 236 (X:viii:xii).

To the Lighthouses

After my seafaring career had concluded, and when the children were still quite young, we often went to the seashore to admire the ocean.  We had a number of favorite locations that were reasonably close to our house, to my parents’ house, or to my in-laws’ house.  Several of these spots contained lighthouses, and in the seasons of the warmer weather, we visited them regularly.

As a mate aboard ship, I had always viewed lighthouses as strictly utilitarian objects, although admittedly, many of them looked quite attractive architecturally.  But I was using them for navigational, not artistic, purposes, and so I gave their aesthetic appeal little attention.  

Miss Patty held another view, however.  While recognizing the lighthouses as important navigational beacons, she also saw them as emblematic in a metaphysical and spiritual way.  For as they shone their lights through the nocturnal darkness to guide seamen on their voyages, they represented the supernal “light that shineth in [spiritual] darkness” (John 1:5) to guide all people everywhere on their voyages through life.  By displaying artificial illumination of impressive intensity visible for many miles at sea, they represented “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9).  In this sense, one might say that they were “sent to bear witness of that Light” (John 1:8).

In the daylight hours, the lighthouses’ distinctive appearance—tall and slender and often white, the traditional color of purity—caused them to stand out clearly from their surroundings as beacons for passing ships.  They served the same purpose both day and night; only the method changed.  We visited these lighthouses in both daylight and darkness, although admittedly more often in daylight with small children.  But day or night, their metaphorical value and spiritual significance remained undiminished.  They always bore mute testimony of “the true Light.”

These lighthouses were usually situated in secluded places, far from the madding crowds of summer tourists.  This serene atmosphere enhanced their spiritual value, and we spent many happy hours quietly imbibing the combined ambiance of the sea, the shoreline, and the lighthouses.  They were precious times.

I’ve selected several photographs from our lighthouse-hopping travels with the children, and I’m happy to share them here: 

One of our many visits to the Portsmouth area took place on Saturday, July 23, 1994.  Posing placidly on the seawall in New Castle, New Hampshire, are James and Steven, with the Portsmouth Harbor Light watching over them.  To the right lies the open Atlantic.  To the left the Piscataqua River leads to downtown Portsmouth. 

Miss Patty’s favorite lighthouse is Nubble Light in York, Maine.  Situated on a small island just across a narrow channel from Cape Neddick, the Nubble has long been one of New England’s most popular and most photographed lighthouses.  Access to the island and the lighthouse itself is prohibited, so even on a busy day the view of the structure remains clear.  In this late afternoon portrait from Saturday, June 28, 1997, the western sun illuminates the Nubble perfectly.

Several miles offshore from the Nubble lies a cluster of rocks called Boon Island.  A treacherous outcropping that spelled doom for several merchant vessels in the colonial era, it was eventually fitted with a light to prevent further disasters.  Like the Nubble , it is not open to visitors, but we came close on Monday, July 24, 2000, aboard the tour boat Oceanic.  A very interesting spot with a long and colorful history,

Guarding the entrance to Portland Harbor is Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.  Merchant vessels arriving in and departing from Portland pass directly in front of Portland Head.  While a popular destination for summer vacationers, it does not become overly crowded but remains peaceful and quiet.  This is a noon time view on Wednesday, April 30, 1997.

A short walk from our house in Nashua lies the Merrimack River, and at the mouth of the Merrimack lies the city of Newburyport, Massachusetts.  The estuary where the Merrimack and the Atlantic meet is marked by the diminutive Plum Island Light, shown here on Friday, June 22, 2000.  As evidenced by the adjacent bird house, the light reposes in a bird sanctuary, a restful and quiet place to enjoy Nature, both maritime and avian.

Closer to my original home on Long Island, New York, the Fire Island Light stands on the barrier beach that separates the Great South Bay from the Atlantic Ocean.  For four generations this lighthouse has been an important landmark for my family, and we went to visit it every summer with the children and their grandparents.  After church on Sunday, May 29, 1994, the light tower stood up brightly in the strong southern sun.  A beautiful place to gaze seaward and contemplate the majesty of Creation.

Finally, at the easternmost end of Long Island stands the Montauk Light in Montauk Point State Park.  The family waded in the surf of the great Atlantic in front of the lighthouse on Monday, August 11, 1997.  Another outstanding location to enjoy the unparalleled beauty of the sea and sky.

The Concrete Ship

A few hundred feet offshore from Sunset Beach in Cape May Point, New Jersey, rest the visible remains of the cargo ship Atlantus.  She and several similar vessels were constructed as experiments in concrete shipbuilding during the First World War.  Their careers were short lived, however, as the extreme weight of the concrete made it impractical for shipbuilding for several reasons.  Under new ownership after the war, the Atlantus arrived at her final resting place by accident in 1926.  In the ninety years since then, she has enjoyed a second career as a tourist attraction.

Summer vacationers have long traveled to Cape May and its environs to enjoy the sea.  Situated at the southern tip of New Jersey, Cape May is surrounded by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Delaware Bay, and the Cape May Canal.  For someone who enjoys the ambiance of the sea, Cape May is an ideal location.  Sunset Beach forms part of this ambiance. Facing west on the Delaware Bay, it is famous for its views of the sunsets, the ferries sailing between New Jersey and Delaware, and the concrete ship Atlantus.  A novelty, a curiosity, and a relic of history, the Atlantus is almost never referred to by her actual name.  She is simply called “the concrete ship.”  And while she does attract tourists, it is all very low key.  Sunset Beach lies several miles west of the more populated Atlantic beaches and therefore is never very crowded.  People go there to sightsee, to fish, and to browse in the small gift shop.  There is no swimming and only limited wading because of the strong tidal current.  Photographers  sometimes gather and take pictures of the concrete ship as if it were a famous lighthouse.

In the years that my family vacationed in Cape May, it was not always easy to obtain any serious information on the concrete ship, its history, or its reason for running aground there.  With the arrival of the internet, this has changed.  The concrete ship now boasts its own Wikipedia article[1] and is included on a website devoted to the history of concrete vessels.[2]  My research into the subject started with collecting all the picture postcards that featured the ship.  Eventually there were four of these, and I’m pleased to present them here:

This is my favorite portrait of the Atlantus.  The view dates to the 1930s and is an artistic rendering made with some artistic license.  The little rowboat provides a good sense of scale, but the Atlantus is not really as close to the beach as she seems to be.  The painting also gives the ship a remarkably clean and neat appearance. 

I believe this photograph was taken about 1960 or so.  The painted-on advertisement for boat insurance was a local joke and not in very good taste. 

This picture shows the condition of the Atlantus when I saw her in the early to middle 1970s.  The sign was new then.  Clearly the ship had deteriorated a great deal by the time I came along.

A new sign and a further deteriorated hulk.  This view postdates my family's visits to Cap May.  The before and after scenes offer a good basis for comparison. 

In addition to the postcards, the local gift shop eventually offered a capsule summary of the concrete ship’s history printed on a small sheet of note paper.  I daresay this came out in response to endless inquiries from vacationers seeing the concrete ship for the first time.  For a few pennies, then, I added this item to my collection.  Until recently, it was my only source of information about the concrete ship, but it remains a good one, and I’m happy to share it here:

 

Finally, we have several pictures of the concrete ship that we took on our family vacations.  Most of them are amateur photographs of very mediocre quality, but a few of them turned out well.  These are the two best:

My father took this photograph of the Atlantus on the family's first visit to Sunset Beach in the summer of 1967.  I was a young child then, and this shipwreck was an intriguing sight.  Faintly visible on the horizon through the haze is the northbound ferry New Jersey, soon to dock at the terminal in North Cape May.

My father took this picture of the Atlantus from a nearby jetty in August of 1971.  This view looks northward, with Sunset Beach on the right.  We returned to this spot every summer through 1975.

More recent photographs posted on the internet show an even more deteriorated and broken up hull.  Much of the concrete is crumbled, and the steel reinforcing rods are exposed and rusting.  Most of the ship lies beneath the surface of the water now, and no doubt much of it has sunk into the sand of the bay bottom.  All this decay in 90 years.  In another 90 years, it’s likely that none of the concrete ship will be visible above the water.  Perhaps a buoy will be placed over it to mark the site as a fish haven.  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, as it returns to Nature the concrete ship is going the way of all material things. 

As we also must eventually do.  But in our case, though our mortal bodies must die and decay, our immortal souls will live on.  Our lives will thus continue despite physical death.  We are assured many times “that God hath given to us eternal life” (1 John 5:11), and further “that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body . . . are taken home to that God who gave them life” (Alma 40:11).  When the concrete ship is completely withered away, it will be gone forever.  Unlike this inanimate object, we will be gone only temporarily, until the resurrection, when “the spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form” (Alma 11:43).  Life will indeed go on, a happy prospect to consider.

Meanwhile, as the deterioration of the concrete ship remains a work in progress, we may rest assured that the Master and Chief Engineer of the universe is in charge of it all, and that his work is also in progress.  His Creation knows this, too, as one of our hymns states:

                                    Be still, my soul; The waves and winds still know

His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.[3]

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[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/Wiki/SS_Atlantus.

[2] See www.concreteships.org.

[3] Katharina von Schlegel, “Be Still, My Soul,” tr. Jane Borthwick, in Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985. p. 124.  A more literal rendering of the German (Dein Heiland wird zeigen,/ Wie vor ihm Meer und Gewitter muss schweigen) would be: Your Savior points out how before him sea and thunderstorm must be silent.

A Broader Canvas

Since childhood, I’ve collected pictures of ships.  Mostly postcards, these portraits were easily affordable and portable during travels.  The collection started with the passenger liners on which my grandparents sailed, and then continued with whatever seemed relevant to the family or historically noteworthy.  The result is an eclectic assortment, a little of this and a little of that, with a little from here and a little from there.

Each image has its own story, and in several instances, its own connection to our family.  With no further ado, then, let me present a dozen or so of what I think are the best and most interesting photographs:

The place where it all started.  An aerial view of the passenger piers on the West Side of Manhattan.  Shown at left are three Cunard ships, including the Queen Elizabeth in the center.  At right are the America of United States Lines and one of the twins Constitution and Independence of American Export Lines.  Note the overhanging fantail tern on the American Export ship.  This is a long gone aspect of the shipbuilder's art, a lovely finishing touch on a very attractive vessel.

The Constitution and the Independence were my grandparents' favorite ships.  They made unhurried voyages between New York and several Mediterranean ports, and while certainly first class operations, they did not engage in the movie star sophistication of some of the more famous liners.  This is my favorite portrait of the Constitution, one of a half-dozen that my grandparents collected.  She appears to be at anchor, probably off a Mediterranean port, judging by the shadows cast by a high summer sun.

  

Twice my grandparents sailed aboard the Cristoforo Colombo of the Italian Line in the late 1950s.  They mailed this portrait of the ship home from Italy following a voyage from New York to Napoli in October of 1959.

When the Cristoforo Colombo arrived in Napoli, she docked here at the Stazione Maritima.  Monte Vesuvio looms in the background across the bay.  The American Export ships also docked here.  Note the multi-colored twin stacks of either the Constitution or the Independence rising above the building.  Many years after my grandparents' travels, the Rigel docked here during my time aboard here in 1979.  More recently, the Nieuw Amsterdam, on which my oldest son got married, has docked here while on her summer cruises.

During my transatlantic travels of the 1970s, I happened across this souvenir log of the United States, which I gave to my grandfather.  He and my grandmother had made one voyage on this ship in 1955, and I thought he would find this item interesting.  He did.  He told me, however, that the United States went too fast--New York to England in three days--and he preferred a slower, longer, and more leisurely crossing.  The voyage data on the back of this card brag about speed, speed, and speed.  I've come to agree with my grandfather.  The ships I later sailed on typically took ten days to reach Europe.

The troop transport Upshur is about to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, most likely after departing from the Military Ocean Terminal in Oakland, California.  For years this vessel carried American military personnel, their families, and their belongings between the West Coast and the Far East.  She also carried South Korean troops during the Korean War.  Long afterwards, as the school ship State of Maine, notices stenciled in Korean remained on the bulkheads in the troop compartments.  I made two summer voyages on this ship as a teenager in the mid 1970s.  I also sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge several times, not on the State of Maine, but while aboard the Mercury and the Comet in the 1980s.

The ferry R. S. Sterling of the Texas Highway Department.  I rode this ferry on Monday, May 30, 1977, during the time of my apprenticeship aboard the tanker New Jersey Sun.  While she was drydocked at the Todd Shipyard in Galveston, I wandered around town on Memorial Day and found entertainment in free ferry rides between Galveston and Port Bolivar, Texas.

The aircraft carrier Lexington moored in her home port of Pensacola, Florida.  On another side trip during my time aboard the New Jersey Sun, my brother and I took a tour of this ship on Saturday, May 21, 1977.  Years earlier, as a student pilot, he had landed on and taken off from the Lexington at sea in the Gulf of Mexico.  I remember him remarking that the flight deck seemed pretty small.

A winter view of the first Queen Elizabeth at the Ocean Terminal in Southampton, England.  While such snow is unusual in southern England, the Queen Elizabeth and her sister the Queen Mary called at this spot regularly for decades.  Years after they reached the end of their careers, the oceanographic survey ship Wilkes docked at this same berth several times with me on board in the winter of 1980 and 1981.

Cunard's new flagship Queen Elizabeth 2 leaves Southampton for the first time in 1967.  The QE2 and I have followed each other along the American East Coast.  I saw her a few times in Fort Lauderdale when I was posted on the Bartlett and the two ships tied up across the pier from each other.  Years later, I took the children to see the Queen several times in New York and once in Portland, Maine.

An aerial view of the passenger ship piers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the 1970s.  I acquired this postcard in Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, in early November of 1979 when I was sailing aboard the General Hoyt S. Vandenburg.  I wanted very much to visit San Juan and see the old colonial city, but that would have to wait a few years.

The nearly identical twin sisters Caribou and Joseph and Clara Smallwood of Marine Atlantic.  These were two of the four vessels that connected North Sydney, Nova Scotia, with Argentia and Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland.  We sailed aboard the Joseph and Clara Smallwood from North Sydney to Argentia on Monday, June 21, 2004.  At the time, it was the longest voyage the children had made--fourteen hours--and they loved every minute of it.  I did, too.  I remember that it felt absolutely wonderful to sail out of sight of land and onto the open Atlantic again!

The cruise ship Nieuw Amsterdam of the Holland-America Line appears in a computer-generated image.  While the line of foam alongside the ship would lead us to believe she is underway and making way through the water, there is no bow wave, no side wave, no stern wave, and no wake.  There are also no passengers or crew out on deck.  My guess is that this is an artist's rendering made while the vessel was under construction in 2010.  Still it's a good likeness of a fine ship.  Our oldest son, James, was married aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday afternoon, February 5, 2012.  Three days later, with the whole family aboard, the Nieuw Amsterdam docked at the cruise ship piers in San Juan.  A dream come true, I happily spent the day exploring this beautiful city.  In one further family history connection, my grandparents' final voyage was a winter cruise to the Caribbean in January and February of 1968.  Sailing one last time aboard the Constitution, they visited San Juan and docked at the same piers as the Nieuw Amsterdam.

Since my childhood, then, ships have been important means of transportation as well as the centerpieces at family gatherings on many occasions.  From the bon voyage celebrations at the West Side piers to the wedding aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam and numerous voyages in between, these vessels have have served us very well.  Now, even though most of these ships are long gone, they live on in the photographic arts and in the family archives, and they bring back many happy memories.  The family and the ships thus form a dual blessing, and we are expected to “receive it from the hand of the Lord, with a thankful heart” (D&C 62:7).  In looking back on these happy times aboard these great ships, how could anyone not feel thankful?