All your favorite Sailing Songs & Sea Shanties in one place
A few months ago I wrote an article about some of my favorite sailing songs and I shared it with a number of sailing groups. The response was overwhelming and it was a lot of fun. I got hundreds of suggestions from sailors all over the world. They all had their favorite sailing songs and sea shanties, some of them I had heard of, some of them were new to me. So I decided to do another Sailing Songs article and share all the suggestions I received. You’ll probably be surprised with some of them, as I was.
There were so many songs, I’ve decided to split the songs up into categories. Traditional, Special Groups of Traditional, & Non-Traditional. …
The word of the day
I’m one who really likes to get
A special word each day
A word I’ve never heard before
To prop up words I say
Well yesterday I got this word
It made me scratch my head
“Tohubohu,” an actual word?
In English, it is said
Apparently, it’s been around
At least since 1610
It means chaos or confusion
Although not used often
It comes from Hebrew which was dead
Until not long ago
The nineteen hundreds brought it back
Nine million speakers, woah! …
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Having just been accepted as a writer for Snapshots, I decided to take their challenge of writing something that included pictures of “something old, new, borrowed, and blue.”
Back in 2016, I settled on a plan to pursue my passion for sailing by going to Spain and getting my YachtMaster Certificate. After completing that, I realized I needed more sailing experience, so I started crewing on sailboats, something I call Global Hitchhiking. I ended up global hitchhiking around the world! These are some of the pictures from that journey.
Something Old
First up, something old. On my circumnavigation, I ended up staying in Malaysia for 6 months and visiting much of SouthEast Asia. Cambodia was on my list and I visited several cities there, including Sihoukanville, Phnom Penh — the site of the Khmer Rouge Massacre of 1975 — and finally I visited Siem Reap, home of the temples of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat was a large complex built by the Khmer King, Suryavarman II, in the first half of the 12th century. That would make it very old. It took 40 years to build, from 1110 to 1150. Here are a few of the pictures from that visit, although I have hundreds. …
A Miscredited Mark Twain Quote
Many people through the years have used a quote and attributed that quote to Mark Twain.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines! Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover!
As a sailor, I’ve often referred to this quote and have heard it many times in my life. And almost every time I’ve heard it, it has been credited to Mark Twain. It has even been listed as his quote in The New Yorker. It’s actually surprising to me how many times it has been quoted by serious organizations without ever checking to see if it was accurate or not. In fact, this week I spoke to a writer who said this was her favorite Twain quote and it had been on her desk for years. …
Dangers of Swimming in the Indian Ocean
Last week I awoke, with a pain in my throat.
I assume it was seaborne, for I am on my boat.
At first it was small, a most delicate scratch,
But it grew to a much more developed batch.
I’ve tried everything from my medicine kit
Some soothers, some doozers, though none helped one bit.
The scratch it continued, continued all day,
I drank tea and toddies, but it won’t go away.
Took vitamin c, some zinc, and some d
It just doesn’t care what I take, my-oh-me! …
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