Showing posts with label sea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sea. Show all posts

Monday, 15 March 2010

Glasgow and the Highlands – SS Dunara Poster

"Dunara Castle every ten days to Colonsay, Iona, Bunessan, Tiree, Struan, Carbost, Colbost, Dunvegan, Stein, Uig, Scalpay, Tarbert, Finsbay, Leverburgh, Lochmaddy, Kallin, Carnan, Lochboisdale, Barra."

The cost of sailing to Skye and the Outer Hebrides was £5 with a cabin or £1.15 "steerage" class (equivalent price today is around £60 / £34).

SS Dunara Castle - from Glasgow to St Kidla

The S.S. Dunara Castle, named after a ruined castle on the north west coast of Mull, was built by Martin Orme. Her maiden voyage was on 21st July 1875. The 423 ton steamer originally had two funnels, but was refunnelled in 1899. As well as carrying cargo the Dunara Castle had accommodation for 44 cabin class passengers. She sailed weekly between Glasgow and the Hebrides in the summer months, and during the high season the trips were extended to St. Kilda. She was used in the evacuation of St Kilda residents in 1930. Most of the crew were Gaelic speakers from the highlands and islands, with three generations of one family serving on the steamer. The Dunara was scrapped in Glasgow in 1948 after 70 years of service.

above from Am Baile webiste




St. Kilda Mailboats



By mid 19th century there was increasing contact with the outside world: A steam yacht - the Vulcan - visited St Kilda in 1838. From 1877 the SS Dunara Castle (brought supplies--twice? a year) began regular summer cruises to St Kilda, and was soon joined by others such as the SS Hebrides (tourist ship as per brochure below).

The gradual loss of self-sufficiency and morale had begun - this was to end with the evacuation of the islanders in 1930.

Brochure advertising cruises to St Kilda Photograph: Glasgow Museums

Posting the mailboat in 1897 Photograph: Cherry Kearton


Monday, 4 May 2009

GARS O'Higgins/ANTARCTICA webcameras, +NeuMayer

Above: Penguin cam to the right and station cam 2 on the left. Both webcams are mounted on the outside of a container without any additional shelter in a standard fitting, just as you order them at the factory! These cams (made by MOBOTIX) are extraordinary robust, have lots of unique features and provide a fantastic picture quality! For example the new software enables each camera for IP Telephony. Each cam has a weatherproof microphone and loudspeaker. And the quality of the pictures speak for themselve! Our cam has two fixed lenses onboard. The best cams I can imagine for any outdoor surveillance, even in an extreme environment like the north antarctic (but they also have brands for indoor use).

If you want to see another MOBOTIX cam in the antarctic, then have a look on this stand-alone-solution on the Larsen shelf ice. As far as I know this is the most isolated webcam on the Antarctic continent at the moment! Energy supply comes from a combined windpower and photo-voltaic system, pics are sent via WLan over a distance of several kilometeres to the German Antarctic Base "NeuMayer"

website

Saturday, 2 May 2009

The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens

WS reading the poem
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
The sea was not a mask.  No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard.
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang.
And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.