Lucky

Things were looking really scary for a while with hurricanes Madeline and Lester headed for Hawai‘i. Fortunately, Madeline turned to the south and Lester to the north of the islands. Whew!

Due to the hurricane threat, there was no harbor traffic in the morning, but things picked up in the afternoon after it became clear Lester was moving away from O‘ahu.

Kinei Maru No. 83 arriving at Pier 9:

Crew handling mooring lines at the bow:

Tug Hawaii and barge Capella with Pi‘ilani assisting:

Tanker Ross Sea heading to the offshore anchorage:

Ross Sea draft marks:

View from offshore:

Back in the harbor with another tanker, St. Joseph:

Mikioi at the bow:

Pi‘ilani:

St. Joseph tying up at Pier 51:

Salishan with Matson barge Mauna Loa:

Job done. Mikioi headed back.

Mahalo to Captains Enos, Hopkins, and Demuth. Special thanks to Paul.

Forces of Nature

Here is another small, interesting tidbit in the long story of Falls of Clyde. I found it during a search for information about Captain Crispin, one of the ship’s masters during the 1880s.

The following appeared in the The Dundee Courier and Argus after the ship’s arrival.

ANOTHER STORMY PASSAGE OF A GLASGOW SHIP.—The ship Falls of Clyde, which arrived in the river on Sunday night from Calcutta, was yesterday placed alongside the Low Water Jetty. She has experienced very stormy weather on the passage. While she was in the North Atlantic a severe hurricane was encountered, being one of the fiercest that Captain Crispin has experienced during his twenty-eight years as commander of a vessel. Captain Crispin has on board a small quantity of pumice-stone which he picked up about 1500 miles from the land, the sea being then covered with pumice-stone, which was supposed to have been thrown up by the volcanic eruptions at Java. — The Dundee Courier and Argus, 5 Feb 1884, p. 4

The “volcanic eruptions at Java” refers to the catastrophic series of explosive eruptions of Krakatoa that took place in August 1883.

Summary of events: The Eruption of Krakatoa, August 27, 1883

A few days later, The Dundee Courier and Argus (12 Feb 1884, p. 8) noted that Captain Crispin had donated “9 specimens of pumice-stone, and one jar of small pieces thrown out of Mount Krakatoa” to the Dundee Free Library and Museum. According to the paper, some of the smaller samples of pumice were “swept by the waves on board the Falls of Clyde.”

I wonder if those samples still exist somewhere in Dundee?

Crazy Day

I thought Wednesday was going to be a mellow day. I had some things to do related to my trip to San Francisco and I thought I would have a lot of time to do them. Ha!

With hurricanes Iselle and Julio threatening the islands, there were a number of things that needed to be done to secure the ship.

Soooo…instead of packing I ended up at the harbor.

Small papio beneath the breadfruit tree. Intended as food for the fairy tern chick, but dropped on the ground:

Pre-work ship spotting. Emsland:

The most important task was to set up a spring line. We managed to jury rig the old one and get it in place with a lot of sweat and some cursing. The result wasn’t perfect but it was better than nothing.

I disconnected the water to the ship and then waited for Paul, who arrived to disconnect the power. He showed me how to do it (pretty simple), so in the future I can do it myself.

Oh Crap!