Dusky Dolphins
by Richard J. King The French sailor Bernard Moitessier is perhaps best known for sailing alone a full one-and-a-half times around the world, nonstop, in the Golden Globe Race of…
Read MoreMarine Geochemist
Renee Takesue is a marine geochemist for the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center of the US Geological Survey (USGS). “Geochemistry is a field that combines chemistry and geology. The…
Read MoreNoddy
By Richard J. King When on his outbound passage aboard HMS Beagle, 22-year-old Charles Darwin failed to see the beauty, intelligence, and the usefulness to humans of the seabirds he…
Read MoreAHOY Students! Follow The Voyage—Share the Experience
AHOY Students! Follow The Voyage—Share the Experience Since 2008, we’ve been printing profiles of maritime professionals in Sea History to show you all the kinds of careers out there that…
Read MoreFor I Knew a Ship from Stem to Stern
For I Knew a Ship from Stem to Stern Frederick Douglass Abolitionist, orator, and statesman, Frederick Douglass had been born into slavery. By the time he was a young…
Read MoreGreen Turtle
By Richard King A sea turtle was once caught by a fisherman, caught his own lucky break, but then had the miserable misfortune to be captured a second time by…
Read MoreTo Sail the Seven Seas
Most people use the terms sea and ocean interchangeably. Someone going on an offshore voyage might say they are “going to sea” or sailing on the “high seas,” but in…
Read MoreShark Biologist
Lots of people go fishing in the summer in the waters surrounding Cape Cod, usually for striped bass, bluefish, black sea bass, and the occasional tuna. Greg Skomal does his…
Read MoreEveryday Speech from Sailors of Yesterday
Seafarers speak in a language all their own. They don’t look left and right, but rather port and starboard. Ships’ cooks don’t work in kitchens, they cook in galleys. Boats…
Read MoreQuahog
by Richard King The quahog, a clam, has had a diverse role in human history, but it’s one that has often been misunderstood. Pronounced kō-hog—derived from the names common to…
Read MoreProvisioning for an Ocean Voyage
Feeding the Ship’s Crew: Provisioning for an Ocean Voyage When Teddy Seymour was preparing for his sailing voyage around the world, he had to strategize to bring enough food for…
Read MoreOrca
By Richard King “This peacefulness was interrupted,” wrote Teddy Seymour, “by a strange encounter of an animal kind.” Sailing alone in his boat Love Song in 1986, he was cruising…
Read MoreParrots
By Richard King In Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island (1883), Long JohnSilver shows young Hawkins his pee parrot in a cage. Silver’s female bird, which he gives sugar snacks…
Read MoreMaritime Museum Executive Director
“I’ve got the keys to the submarine!” When Cathy Green took over as executive director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum a few years ago, she joked about assuming responsibility for…
Read MoreAbalone
By Richard J. King For the haenyeo, the traditional female divers of Korea’s Jeju Island, the abalone is not only a prized source of food and security, but is also…
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