amazing sights

[Lou Barron]

Having seen Table Mountain ,volcanoes,flying fish and a lot of othe nice scenery.The sight i most enjoyed was during the war in convoys and seeing the escort destroyerssteaming at 25 to 30 knots dropping depth charges on the u boats and battle ships firing a broad side it was a sight to see

[Tony Wilding]

Hi Lou, must have been some sight, You have seen things we can only see on movies, must have been a good feeling seeing the Navy giving pay back, but scary also knowing U Boats were close, never knowing who was the next target, makes me wonder how you blokes did it,

[Tony Morcom]

Mount St Helens 3 days before it blew, Istanbul, the view from the top of Rock of Gibraltar across to Ceuta and Tokyo City by night are the ones that stand out for me plus the privilege of seeing so many awesome sunsets / rises across the world. On deck we truly saw the best of the best and the worst of the worst and to think that people pay £1000's for that same opportunity.

[happy daze john in oz]

Seeing Table Mountain with a table cloth on it, waterspouts and flying fish. Seeing the sea go red whan the mistral blew the sand across it. Cape Rollers and the force of the Great Australian bight seas when angry. Sailing into Hong Kong and sailing under sydney Harbour bridge. there were so many and yes we were the lucky generations to see it all.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Agree with all the above John, and I think tramping men were more privileged than those on regular runs, the sights were too many to remember all at once, they keep coming back to you as the varied subjects are discussed on this "Amazing Site". Only yesterday we were discussing logging and my time in Pontianak came flooding back to me, a lone ship anchored in mid stream in dense jungle with not another human in sight, may not sound amazing but it certainly was different. Having visited in excess of ninety different countries in a 60 year travelling career afloat and ashore, it would be impossible to say what was the most amazing, as so many had qualities that were not replicated elsewhere but left indelible memories within the old noggin. Thank god I chose the path in life I did, it gave me a bank of memories to treasure that money cannot buy.

[Captain Kong]

Mount St Helens 3 days before it blew, TONY
..
. Hi Tony,
I was travelling on my own across Washington State and Oregon after visiting my son who was a Doctor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. He had been up there and told me to go when I was on my way to Oregon.
So on my way to Portland, I climbed Mount St Helens in August 1990, along the top ridge overlooking the crater, I had to spend the night up there, as it was almost night fall and couldnt get down in the dark, but I did have my`swag` with me. The mountain was alive and trembling, like sleeping on the back of a huge animal. Looking down into the crater was a huge dome that was over one mile wide and growing and a lot of Sulpher gas. The most Awesome sight I have ever seen, the opposite side of the crater had been blown away and over 1500 feet had been blown off the top of the mountain in the 1980 blast.
The Forests had been flattened for many miles around, the trees had been petrified, stripped of all branches and bark, lying in a huge fan shape around the mountain as far as the eye could see, all over the other mountains. All vegetation had ceased to excist, it was like a Nuclear war zone and everything covered in the Grey ash which went as far as Portland. The lake opposite the side of the crater that had blown away and caught the blast had a side of a mountain with a `Tide` mark 800 feet high, that was some wave to do that.
A couple of years later it blew again but without the same devestaing results.
That has to be my most Awesome sight.
.
.
I have also seen most of every great sight everyone else has seen, brings back a few memories of things I was starting to forget.
I was awestruck watching the giant Icebergs looming out of the freezing mists in the Weddel Sea in Antarctica.
To see Cape Horn, the graveyard of many a brave sailorman,
A night spent with the Dyaks and watching their way of life in Borneo.
To stand next to the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx,
To see Grand Canyon and Monument Valley in Arizona and Utah.
To see the Members in the Queen Mary, Long Beach, Monties in Sydney, Melbourne and Lou in Dunedin
.
One phenominon that realy sticks in my mind and I was contacted by another seafarer not long ago to see if I had seen the same as him as it was an unbelievable sight.
I was on the 12 to 4 night watch with old George AB on look out. It was on the ESSO Dalriada, we had loaded in the Gulf and sailing round the `block` past the coast of Yemen for the Red Sea to Ain Sukhna at Suez.
It was a very hot humid night, no moon, black, the phosferous was showing alongside of the ship, the sea was as smooth as glass not a breath of wind or a ripple on the sea. George called me from the chart room, the Horizon had a white light across in a line. We watched this, it got bigger and bigger, and soon it enveloped the entire ship we were in a luminous glow everywhere, we could not see the sea, everything was just glowing white as if we and the ship were just, floating in a white luminous space with no sence of movement, that was awesome, then the white lumious mist slowly disapeared and out VLCC became a ship once more on the sea. and it all disapeared astern. The cause was the warm mist above the sea had picked up the phosferous and the whole atmosphere lit up. Old George said he had seen nothing like it in 50 years of seafaring.
Ther are many other memorable and awesome things in the world, it realy is a fantastic world we live in. I would have hated to have been a shore worker all my life and seen nothing.

Cheers
Brian.

[stevesherratt]

I shall never forget steaming up the East River New York on our way to discharge at the ConEd Power Station and like Tony, seeing Stromboli erupting at night and passing through the straits of Messina. Finally at night steaming through the eye of an Indian Ocean Storm it was like day as it was lit by multi lightning flashes.

We saw a thing or two even in Tankers!

Happy Days good memories

Steve

R770014

[alf corbyn]

i also think table mountain and sydney harbour bridge take some beating. plus the suez and panama canals, there was also one canal that leads to new jersey and the bethlehem steel works. i also saw a giant ray that one of the seamen said was a blanket fish, which was huge, i think about a hundred feet.
it came out of the pacific and went a fair way up, then slammed down flat. making a noise like a large cannon.. the old seaman said it did that to get rid of parasites.

[Captain Kong]

Another fantastic sight was when I was on the GEORGIC homeward bound up the RED SEA with the French Foreign Legion from Viet Nam.
The whole sea from horizon to horizon and all around the ship was covered nose to tail and wing tip to wing tip , Were giant Rays, Blanket Fish. all moving North with us , they were there all day from sunrise to sunset, Millions upon millions of them, you could walk on the water so solid. Then next day All gone.

[Duke Drennan]

The galley boy dumping the Rosie on the weather side.