CHRISTMAS AT SEA

 21 December 2024: Well, here we are - another year in the books (at least for Maritime Maunder) and it's time to present the perennial favorite poem written by Robert Louis Stevenson, Christmas at Sea. Enjoy and we wish you all (who observe) a most joyous Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year!

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Christmas at Sea 

·  Robert Louis Stevenson

1850 –1894

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;

The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;

The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;

And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

 

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;

But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.

We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,

And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.

 

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;

All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;

All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,

For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

 

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;

But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:

So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,

And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

 

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;

The good red fires were burning bright in every 'long-shore home;

The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;

And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

 

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;

For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)

This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,

And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.

 

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,

My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;

And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,

Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.

 

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,

Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;

And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,

To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

 

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.

"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call.

"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate Jackson, cried.

..."It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.

 

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,

And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.

As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,

We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

 

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,

As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;

But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,

Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

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 There you have it, friends! We thank you for your attention this year, and for the many pleasant comments you have offered  on the posts. Again, a most joyous Christmas and all the best in the new year!

Until next time (next year!)

                                 Fair winds,

                                      Old Salt

TRADITION

 8 December 2024: Well, here we are in December and counting down the days to a new year and all the [hopefully] good things it will bring. As in the past 5 or 6 years, in the penultimate post of the year, we will continue to bring you a special version - Christmas-y if you will, of a traditional melody performed by members of the U.S. Navy Band. Responses are always positive and we hope you continue to enjoy this fun musical offering.

 

Happy listening. We'll see you next time with another perennial offering for this time of year.

                              Fair Winds,

                                   Old Salt

BLACKBEARD'S DEMISE

 26 November 2024: With the American holiday of Thanksgiving in two days and the general mayhem and chaos that often ensues, we decided to advance our program by a couple of days as it is unlikely the weekend (when we normally post) will be productive! And we're also thinking about the fact that there are barely 35 days left in the year 2024.... and that could be a good thing, depending on one's perspective! So, from Smithsonian Magazine an interesting article commemorating the capture and death of the infamous Blackbeard, AKA Edward Teach. The anniversary was a couple of days ago.

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How British Authorities Finally Caught Up to the Most Notorious Pirate in History

On this day (23 November) in 1718, the Royal Navy attacked and killed Blackbeard, also known as Edward Teach, off the coast of North Carolina

Something unthinkable happened during the summer of 1718. Edward Teach, the infamous pirate known as Blackbeard, decided to give up piracy—at least ostensibly—in exchange for a royal pardon from the governor of North Carolina absolving him and his men of all wrongdoing.

This was a great deal for the pirates, whose wrongdoing was extensive. But Blackbeard’s lawfulness—and his life—didn’t last long.

Just a few months prior, Blackbeard and his small pirate flotilla had blockaded Charleston, South Carolina, for close to a week. He plundered ships, took hostages and “struck a great terror to the whole Province of Carolina,” according to the pseudonymous author Captain Charles Johnson.

But with his new veneer of legality, Blackbeard appeared to settle down. He married the daughter of a local planter and moved into a house in Bath, North Carolina, just down the street from the governor who’d pardoned him.

Blackbeard “had bought the loyalty of a colonial governor,” writes historian Colin Woodard in The Republic of Pirates, “but had yet to accumulate the sort of fortune that would allow him to live like a king for the rest of his days. Therefore, after a few weeks of rest, he returned to work.”

Alexander Spotswood, lieutenant governor of the Colony of Virginia, had no patience for Blackbeard, especially after he trampled over the terms of his plea deal in late August to capture two unarmed French ships.

In November 1718, Spotswood issued an official proclamation offering 100 pounds to anyone who could produce evidence of having killed “Edward Teach, commonly called Captain Teach, or Blackbeard.” (The reward for any other pirate captain was just 40 pounds.)

To ensure Blackbeard was neutralized, Spotswood gave Robert Maynard, an officer in the Royal Navy, control of 60 men and two sloops—small sailboats that lacked cannons but could pursue Blackbeard in the narrow inlets and shallows of the coast.

On November 17, the Ranger and the Jane made their way north from Virginia’s James River toward the barrier islands of North Carolina.

“This expedition was made with all imaginable secrecy,” Johnson wrote. On the night of November 21, Maynard and his men spotted Blackbeard’s boat near Ocracoke Island.

Although they were far outgunned, they attacked the next morning as Blackbeard’s crew slept off a night of rowdy drinking. The advantage of surprise only lasted briefly: The Jane ran aground, and once Blackbeard’s boat got going, it was deadly.

“Damn you for villains, who are you? And, from whence came you?” Blackbeard reportedly yelled as his boat pulled close to the Ranger.

“You may see by our colors we are no pirates,” Maynard, whose sloop was flying the British flag, responded. Blackbeard taunted Maynard to come aboard his boat, to which Maynard implied that he would—but only by force.

“Damnation seize my soul if I give you quarters, or take any from you,” Blackbeard said, taking a swig of liquor. Maynard then said he “expected no quarters from him, nor should he give him any.”

After pulling close enough to Maynard’s sloop to conduct this conversation, Johnson reported, Blackbeard’s better-armed boat then launched a salvo of grapeshot—“A fatal stroke to them!” Twenty men on Maynard’s sloop died, and Blackbeard presumed the rest of the crew dead. With victory at hand, he and his men boarded the Ranger to finish off the stragglers and claim the sloop.

But Maynard and his men were not dead—they were hiding on the deck and in the hold and leapt up for close combat with the pirates. In a melee of swords, daggers and pistols, Maynard’s men, most of them injured, overwhelmed Blackbeard, leaving him shot five times and cut 20.

 

As the pistol smoke settled, Maynard “caused Blackbeard’s head to be severed from his body,” Johnson wrote. He strung the pirate’s head from the boat’s bowsprit, where it dangled as the sloop sailed back to Virginia with 14 prisoners. Blackbeard, the scourge of the seas and the Southern Colonies, was at long last dead on this day in 1718.

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OK - that was kind of a grisly end for ol' Captain Teach, but yet another lesson in "crime doesn't pay!" Interestingly, Teach was not the last pirate captured and killed, but he was perhaps, one of the most notorious.

We wish all our American friends, here in the U.S. and abroad, a most happy Thanksgiving and a pleasant time with family and friends.

Until next time, 

                                           Fair Winds,

                                                  Old Salt