Category Archives: sea

NOTHING LIKE IT AT ALL – FEBRUARY 28, 1991 – TERNATE – JOURNAL ENTRY

Nothing like it Standing at the stern of a ferry The wake fanning out a ‘Selamat Tingaal’ To Ternate and Tidore The Spice Islands. We are crossing the Moluku Sea Nothing like it As the evening mist rises from the gentle waves And electric light illuminate a shore village The twin volcanos rising from the […]

A FINE DAY FOR SAILING by Peter Nolan Smith

My grandmother hailed from County Mayo in Ireland. Her last name was Walsh. Nana traveled by ship to Boston at the age of fourteen. Most of the other passengers were cattle. “We sailed in the Year of the Crow,” she told her grandchildren in her lovely Gaelic accent. “When was that?” I asked to pin […]

GHOST OF THE STUMP by Peter Nolan Smith

In the early 90s diamonds were priced to the advantage of the dealers on 47th Street. 50% profit was normal for most stones and my boss Manny gave his sales staff commission based on 5% of the gross. In February of 1991 I had the luck to hook a middle-aged woman looking to buy a […]

Attention: Impending Collision

Aircraft Carrier USS LINCOLN This is the actual radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. Radio conversation released by the chief of naval operations, 10-10-95. CANADIANS: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision. AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your […]

HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD by Peter Nolan Smith

Distances around the world have dramatically shrunk with the spread of jet transportation. Columbus’ voyage to the New World lasted almost two months. That trip from the port of Palos in Spain to Plana Cays in the Bahamas would now take about twenty-hours with a train to Madrid, flights to Miami and Nassau followed by […]