g....is for
Following along with Toni and her "a....is for" meme,
today's letter is G
g....is for Galleons.
I love books and movies that have galleons and other treasure ships in them.
Like Pirate ships. (Captain Jack Sparrow-Johnny Depp)
I googled for information about galleons, but only found a bunch of stuff that wasn't very useful in terms of blog posting. Dusty old university papers.
I was looking for tales of ships carrying cargoes of gold, gems, etc to a loved one, you know, the romantic stuff.
I guess that's just in the fiction novels.
I recently watched a movie titled Fool's Gold, (Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson).
They were diving and searching for a ship that had sunk a couple of centuries ago, blown off course by a storm, somewhere in the Caribbean.
The Aurelia.
Now there's a place I'd love to go!
Not to dive for wrecks though, I can barely hold my breath in a pool, I'd be useless way down deep.
Dreaming of doing it is enough.
Many wrecks found have cargoes that are more mundane, there aren't many that have chests and chests filled with gold, rubies, emeralds etc.
These things end up in museums for all of us to see and marvel over.
Imagine doing a casual reef dive and finding something like this, above!
anyway, Galleons.
I think they are much more romantic looking than those giant cruise liners that travel the world today.
They did have the unfortunate habit of sinking though.
They'd set sail and head right into an unexpected storm, and down they'd go.
Or they'd hit a reef and down they'd go.
Maybe they'd get fired upon by pirates and again, go down to the bottom of the ocean.
Where they would lie for centuries gradually becoming completely covered with sand, barnacles and marine growth, until one day the ever shifting sands would move on enough and the wreck was exposed.
Like this one in the beautiful clear waters of the Caribbean. (I think, could be anywhere)
Divers would go down and salvage what they could, hoping to identify the ship, and find out when and why it sunk.
Urns, cups, bowls, anything at all that was on such a ship could possibly hold the answers.
g....is for Galleons.
All images were taken from Google Images, (thank you to the owners), over a period of about three days.
Why three days?
Because I would choose a picture and google would be "yes of course you can borrow that one", then I'd choose another and google would say "another one? nuh-uh, in your dreams lady, come back tomorrow".
Pffft!!
Good thing I started working on this last week.
today's letter is G
g....is for Galleons.
I love books and movies that have galleons and other treasure ships in them.
Like Pirate ships. (Captain Jack Sparrow-Johnny Depp)
I googled for information about galleons, but only found a bunch of stuff that wasn't very useful in terms of blog posting. Dusty old university papers.
I was looking for tales of ships carrying cargoes of gold, gems, etc to a loved one, you know, the romantic stuff.
I guess that's just in the fiction novels.
I recently watched a movie titled Fool's Gold, (Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson).
They were diving and searching for a ship that had sunk a couple of centuries ago, blown off course by a storm, somewhere in the Caribbean.
The Aurelia.
Now there's a place I'd love to go!
Dreaming of doing it is enough.
Many wrecks found have cargoes that are more mundane, there aren't many that have chests and chests filled with gold, rubies, emeralds etc.
These things end up in museums for all of us to see and marvel over.
anyway, Galleons.
They did have the unfortunate habit of sinking though.
They'd set sail and head right into an unexpected storm, and down they'd go.
Or they'd hit a reef and down they'd go.
Maybe they'd get fired upon by pirates and again, go down to the bottom of the ocean.
Where they would lie for centuries gradually becoming completely covered with sand, barnacles and marine growth, until one day the ever shifting sands would move on enough and the wreck was exposed.
All images were taken from Google Images, (thank you to the owners), over a period of about three days.
Why three days?
Because I would choose a picture and google would be "yes of course you can borrow that one", then I'd choose another and google would say "another one? nuh-uh, in your dreams lady, come back tomorrow".
Pffft!!
Good thing I started working on this last week.
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Great photos and nice thoughts of diving the wrecks of old. Ive dived PNG a couple of lifetimes ago and the pics of WW2 wrecks, planes and even skulls is on my Flickr site. Didnt find any treasure though...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/28816913@N08/page1/
Now was it corn flake cereal packets? Various sailing ships were shown on the cereal packets, for collecting, and I did. Wish I had kept them. I recall one was a galleon.
ReplyDeleteDo you know why a particular ship is called a galleon? I don't.
I hate rain on your parade but do you think you could manage toileting off the end of a plank, in a howling wind and a rising sea and no paper. Not so different to being on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico.
ReplyDeleteGalleons....the word reminds me of a poem we learned in grade school and of which I can only remember the first line..."The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas, when the the highwayman came riding..." A word from a more romantic and dangerous time.
ReplyDeleteMy father was an Irishman with black hair. They were called black Irish. From the great Spanish armada breaking up off the northern coast of Ireland and sailors who didn't go back right away. Or ever.
ReplyDeleteEven the name 'galleon' sounds mysteriously romantic - and the poem mybabyjohn/Delores refers to is one of my favourites! It's called 'The Highwayman' and it's a ripper!
ReplyDeleteHere's a link if you are interested: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-highwayman/
Tempo; you've been diving wrecks? I'm impressed. I don't imagine there'd be treasure on WW2 wrecks, but any artefacts that could be returned to grieving families would be regarded as treasure by them.
ReplyDeleteAndrew; I don't remember sailing ships on cereal packets, but that may be because I always had my face buried in a book while eating. And because my brother usually got to the packets first.
I thought a galleon was called so because they carried gallon kegs of rum along with their other supplies which may also have been in gallon kegs.
JahTeh; I would probably have a covered chamber pot in my cabin and a lackey to empty it. I thought that perhaps one of the portholes was actually a chute connected to a seat for ladies, but maybe ladies didn't travel by galleon, they just waited at home for the chests of jewels to arrive.
Delores; I was going to say the poem is called "The Highwayman", but Red down below beat me to it. I remember reading it in high school.
Joanne; my high school math teacher was a Black Irish with the most amazing blue eyes. He also taught science.
Red Nomad; you're right, the name galleon has a lot to do with the romance. "Big wooden ship" just doesn't sound as good.
Thanks for the poem link, I'll use it to look up A Bush Christening, I can only remember a few words of the beginning of that.
"On the outer Barcoo, where the houses are few, and men of religion are scanty...."
Oh I absolutely adore sailing ships of all kind. I had a beautiful large print of one that I gave my son years ago 'cos he liked it so much. I have regretted that since as have not seen him for over 11 years now. Had thought I'd see it when I visited his home but he doesn't want to see us so no more sailing ship. Sad!!
ReplyDeleteMimsie; perhaps you could find a similar print online and have it enlarged at a print shop.
ReplyDelete