Nautical Wit 'n Wisdom.....

[the Royaliste]

Sometimes for brief periods it's kind of fun to make believe that you don't own a boat.

-Joe Richards

The sailor is well aware that the stalls are filled with sea books written by landlubbers.

-Lincoln Colcord

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

-Groucho Marx

[Zephyr]

Sometimes for brief periods it's kind of fun to make believe that you don't own a boat.

-Joe Richards

The sailor is well aware that the stalls are filled with sea books written by landlubbers.

-Lincoln Colcord

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

-Groucho Marx

One of me favorite philosophers!

Were if W. C. Fields or the blessed Groucho who said...(seriously miss-quoting).....

"I'd never be so undiscerning as to belong to a club that would have me as a member......"

PUB appropos

[the Royaliste]

:) Groucho :)

[Zephyr]

[Blind Rhoid Pyle]

"I'd never be so undiscerning as to belong to a club that would have me as a member......"

Groucho actually lifted that line from British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

But he did say...

"Ah, I can see you right now bending over a hot stove. But I can't see the stove!"

[Zephyr]

[the Royaliste]

Were it not for sea-sickness, the whole world would be sailors.

-Charles Darwin

At sea I learned how little a person needs, not how much.

-Robin Lee Graham

[Cap'n Coyote]

Continuing with the song lyrics:

COOL CHANGE

Little River Band

If there's one thing in my life that's missing

It's the time that I spend alone

Sailing on the cool and bright clear water

Lots of those friendly people

And they're showing me ways to go

And I never want to lose their inspiration

It's time for a cool change

I know that it's time for a cool change

Now that my life is so prearranged

I know that it's time for a cool change

Well I was born in the sign of water

And it's there that I feel my best

The albatross and the whales they are my brothers

It's kind of a special feeling

When you're out on the sea alone

Staring at the full moon, like a lover

Time for a cool change

I know that it's time for a cool change

Now that my life is so prearranged

I know that it's time for a cool change

[Rosalinda]

Crossing the Bar

Alfred Lord Tennyson

From: Demeter and other poems

(I think this is about dying...not sure what the last line means?)

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there by no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

[Rosalinda]

Sea-Fever

John Masefield

From: Salt Water Ballads (1902)

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the sea again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying

I must go down to the sea again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Argh, I know this isn't the poetry thread, but anyway....

[the Royaliste]

A capital ship for an ocean trip was the Walloping Window-blind-

No gale that blew dismayed her crew or troubled the captain's mind.

The man at the wheel was taught to feel contempt for the wildest blow,

And it often appeared as the weather had cleared, that he'd been in his bunk below.

The boatswain's mate was very sedate, yet fond of amusement too;

And he played hops-scotch with the starboard watch, while the captain tickled the crew.

And the gunner we had was apparently mad, for he sat on the after-rail,

And fired salutes with the captain's boots,in the teeth of the booming gale.

The captain sat in a commodore's hat and dined in a royal way,

But the cook was Dutch, and behaved as such; for the food he gave the crew

Was a number of tons of hot-crossed buns, chopped up with sugar and glue.

And we all felt ill as mariners will, on a diet that's cheap and rude;

And we shivered and shook as we dipped the cook in a tub of his gluesome food.

The nautical pride we laid aside, and we cast the vessel ashore on the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpooh smiles, and the Anagazanders roar.

Composed of sand was that favored land, and trimmed with cinnamon straws;

And pink and blue was the pleasing hue of the Tickletoeteasers claws.

And we sat on the edge of a sandy ledge,and shot at the whistling bee;

And the Binnacle-bats wore water-proof hats as they danced in the sounding sea.

On a rubagub bark, from dawn to dark, we fed till we all had grown

Uncommonly shrunk-when a Chinese junk came by from the torriby zone.

She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care, and we cheerily put to sea;

And we left the crew of the junk to chew on the bark of the rubagub tree.

-'A Nautical Ballad', by Charles Edward Carryl

Misplaced earlier, moved by request

[Coastie04]

Eyes of A Wolf

-Wendy Joseph

The ocean watches

With the eyes of a wolf

Follows the ship as she puts to sea

Strong bones and strong hands to guide her

But the eyes of the wolf, they watch, and wait

Tanker northbound, trawlers ahead

The eyes of the wolf are watching

Purple tides rush forward faster than plotted

And eight million barrels meet fish holds

The eyes of the wolf, they gleam

A silent watchkeeper updates the log

Radar says all is clear ahead

Below a submerged container awaits

New delivery for the contents

The eyes of the wolf watch it near the bow

A bare pole zig-zags fifty degrees

The mast of a single-hander

At the helm, unaware dark bilge water's rising

The skipper thinks of a shower at home

And the eyes of the wolf, they dance

Northwater blue meets indigo south

And two weather systems combine

Force ten gale turns blue to white

And canyons to mountains they rise

The eyes of the wolf pierce the spray

Ashore they watch the sky

And think out six hundred miles

Where is the soft wind to blow mine home

Let the wolf hurl savage howls round my ship

Let the eyes of the wolf draw away

The eyes of the wolf be devil

Side stove in, stern going low

Dark undershores wait as the Mayday goes out

Final arced wave silver green dashes all

And the eyes of the wolf delight

There is no safe sea

Pitch bottomed sun blue waters

Drawn into a current no one can claim

Vanish the soul past last breath's chill

Under lantern glowing eyes of the wolf

Dawn comes again to safe harbors

The chief brings the engines to life

Cook's beating eggs in the galley

Deckhands cast off the last line

And the eyes of the wolf, they watch, and wait

[Blind Rhoid Pyle]

Sailor

Kevin Godley & Lol Creme

Sailor, I love you, but you only love the sea

Sailor, why don't you love me?

Like a ship in a bottle, you ache for the sea,

Sailor, ache a little for me.

I'll haunt every harbor 'til the sea decides,

If our love goes in or out with the tide,

I'll still be here when the ocean's dried,

Oh Sailor, you're still my man.

Sailor, I love you, but you only love the sea

Sailor, why don't you love me?

[Rosalinda]

Waterfront

John Lee Hooker

I cover the waterfront, watchin' the ship go by

I could see, everybody's baby, but I couldn't see mine

I could see, the ships pullin' in, to the harbor

I could see the people, meetin' their loved one

Shakin' hand, I sat there,

so all alone, coverin' the waterfront

And after a while, all the people,

left the harbor, and headed for their destination

All the ships, left the harbor,

and headed for their next destination

I sat there, coverin' the waterfront

And after a while, I looked down the ocean,

as far as I could see, in the fog, I saw a ship

It headed, this way, comin' out the foam

It must be my baby, comin' down

And after a while, the ship pulled into the harbor,

rollin' slow, so cripple

And my baby, stepped off board

I was still, coverin' the waterfront

Said "Johnny, our ship had trouble, with the fog

And that's why we're so late, so late

Comin' home, comin' down'

[the Royaliste]

As I drift in my boat on the harbor, in the calm of the summer night,

The moon in the arms of the crescent floods all with its misty light.

The water reflects the moonbeams in a wavy, twisted band,

Like a mirror of polished metal from some distant Eastern land.

No sound but the click of the rowlock, and the measured dip of an oar,

And the lisping plash of the ripples, as they break on the western shore.

-Dexter Carlton Washburn

[the Royaliste]

You may delay, but time will not.

-Benjamin Franklin

[Coastie04]

You're planning to make a ship sail against wind and tide by lighting a fire below deck?? I don't have time to listen to that kind of nonsense!

- Napoleon, about Robert Fultons plans to make a Steamboat

[Captain of the 'REVENGE']

"The nearer the land,

The greater the danger."

To command is to serve,

Nothing more and nothing less.

-Andre' Malraux

[Blind Rhoid Pyle]

"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

-Ratty said to Mole in Kenneth Grahame's beloved 1908 classic, The Wind in the Willows.

[Captain of the 'REVENGE']

To me, nothing made by man is more beautiful than a sailboat under way in fine weather.

-Robert Manry

[TalesOfTheSevenSeas]

Here's a jazzy WWII era song which was sung by the Andrews Sisters in the 1940's-

Shoo Shoo Baby

You've seen him up and down the avenue

And now he's wearin' the navy blue

She had a tear in the corner of her eye

As he said his last goodbye

Shoo, shoo, shoo baby

Shoo, shoo, shoo baby

Bye, bye, bye baby

Do-dah do-day

Your papa's off to the seven seas

Don't cry baby

Don't sigh baby

Bye, bye, bye baby

Do-dah do-day

When I come back we'll live a life of ease

Seems kinda tough now

To say goodbye this way

But papa's gotta be rough now

So that he can be sweet to you another day

Bye, bye, bye baby

Don't cry baby

Shoo, shoo, shoo baby

Do-dah do-day

Your papa's off to the seven seas

(Shhh-shoo baby) Do-dah do-day

(Shhh-shoo baby) Do-dah do-day

(Shhh-shoo baby, shoo, shoo)

QUIET!!

I want a little bit o' quiet in the house, please

(She wants a little bit of quiet in the house)

So your papa's on his way to cross the seven seas

So don't you cry, oh, don't you sigh goodbye now

Shoo, shoo baby Shooo-oo-oo

Shoo, shoo my baby Shoooo

Goodbye baby, don't you cry no more

Your big tall papa's off to the seven seas

Seems kinda tough now

To say goodbye this way

But papa's gotta be rough now

So that he can be sweet to you another day

Shhhh baby, shhhh baby

Shoo, shoo, shoo baby

Goodbye, goodbye

Your papa's off to the seven seas, the seven seas

Your big tall papa's off to the seven seas

[Coastie04]

To me, nothing made by man is more beautiful than a sailboat under way in fine weather.

-Robert Manry

You forgot the best part of the quote...

To me, nothing made by man is more beautiful than a sailboat under way in fine weather, and to be on that sailboat is to be as close to heaven as I expect to get. It is unalloyed happiness.

-Robert Manry

[Coastie04]

Cruising is more than a sport. The mood of it comes over you at times, and you can neither work nor rest nor heed another call until you have a deck beneath your feet and point a bowsprit out to sea.

-Arthrur Sturgis Hildebrand

[the Royaliste]

It has always seemed to me that a bit of historical or romance reading about strange coasts adds much to the enjoyment of a cruise.

-Carl D. Lane

[Captain of the 'REVENGE']

I have hunted wild boars and watched wild lions, built boats and killed many men.

-T.E. Lawrence