Booze and Boat Bits #7 (5 Short Items of Interest)

And now it's time to return to Blue Lou's quick entries on happenings in the world of piracy, vessels, and alcohol!  It's been a while for some of these topics, starting with...

washed up?

1.  Somalia update:  There are numerous signs that piracy in Somalia has been, if not eradicated, at least brought under a reasonable amount of control.  Signs of its demise began earlier this year.  A September 25th article for the Huffington Post described how Hobyo, historically one of the key pirate dens, is now back on hard times.  You know the boom is over when "most of the prostitutes are gone and luxury cars (are) repossessed."  At that time, 5 vessels had been seized in 2012, compared to 25 in 2011 and 47 in 2010.  December 17th news was even better:  NO ships have been seized by the Somalis in the last 6 months!  Many factors have been credited for the increased success in averting successful pirate attacks--on-board defenses, better and more constant communication between merchant vessels and naval patrols, and air reconnaissance over the shoreline.  Nevertheless, Somali piracy is far from over.  5 ships and 136 hostages are still being held.  In an article for Reuters, Dutch Commodore Ben Bekkering, now commander of NATO's Operation Ocean Shield, told the press, "I am convinced, if navy ships would disappear, the piracy model would still be intact."  He insisted that a minimum of 16 to 18 ships need to be on patrol at any one time just to cover the broad area of the pirates' hunting ground.  Out-of-work pirates, meanwhile, are not treated warmly in the towns where they live, many citizens blaming piracy for what Hobyo mayor Ali Duale Kahiye calls "inflation, indecency, and insecurity."  Even the investors that used to fund pirate expeditions are backing off, seeing decreasing returns.  It is important to keep in mind that poverty and instability will still make the pirates' life appealing.  Yet it seems that...just maybe...we're winning.

washed up?

2.  Kalakala update:  Our dear old ferry has entered a new phase of limbo.  As reported at the Tacoma News Tribune, in November the Kalakala passed from Steve Rodrigues to Karl Anderson, who owns the moorage where the ferry resides and who invited Rodrigues and his boat back in 2004.  The transfer was a "quietly arranged lien foreclosure sale," as Rodrigues owned $4,000 in past due rent.  Kalakala remains in its conundrum:  The Coast Guard still considers it "a hazard to navigation," but, at the same time the Coast Guard has declared it too fragile to move, environmental regulators have forbidden repairs on the water.  Call me a perpetual optimist, but, honestly, I am hopeful about the new ownership.  Rodrigues' heart was in the right place, but he was a dreamer not a planner, and certainly no businessman.  Anderson has made clear that he'd rather restore than scrap, and, besides, the only graving dock up to the task of dismantling the big ferry--a dock that also happens to be owned by Anderson--is tied up with making pontoons for the 520 floating bridge for two years.  Anderson may not be the one to bring back the Kalakala to its former glory, but, at the very least he seems to care about her.  The waiting game continues, same as it ever was.

washed down!

3.  'Tis the season to give beer.  Last week at work, we had "Secret Santa" exchanges.  My Secret Santa scored perfectly, supplying me with toys, a huge one-pound bag of Pirate's Booty cheese puffs, the book Dead Men Tell No Tales on the 18th century pirate Charles Gibbs (a book I didn't even know existed), and finally a gift box with three pint glasses she hand etched with skull and crossbones and two big bottles of ale!!  The beer was from a brewery I was unfamiliar with, Minhas Craft Brewery of Monroe, Wisconsin.  Minhas traces its origins to the Blumer Brewery, founded way back in 1845 during the Midwest's lager boom, and today makes its way out of Wisconsin via Trader Joe's.  Although it is in a little town in rural cheese country, they style themselves nautical under the brand name "Boatswain."  The two beers I was given were a double IPA called Twin Screw Steamer and a strong ale called Heavy Lift Vessel.  The former was unremarkable, simply because I really could care less about IPA.  The latter, however, I would recommend as a sturdy, hearty brew, one that I would not only drink again but also could see myself trying to adapt into a homebrew recipe.  More importantly, I would like to suggest that my coworker Juanita had the right idea:  Don't waste your Christmas money buying socks or a gift card, show someone you care by giving them good ale!

4. It may be a wee bit wet and cold for sailing, but what does that matter to underwater archaeologists?  Between diverticulitis, work, and the coming of fall weather, I have not been to the Center for Wooden Boats in months, but then the CWB livery does tend to hibernate, too.  Nevertheless, the CWB's blog "Bearings" tells of restoration work, a new exhibit on boathouses and fishing resorts of Puget Sound, and the ongoing survey of shipwrecks on the bottom of Lake Union.  I have embedded a nicely made 9-minute video about the project above, and you can learn more at the Lake Union Virtual Museum.  I have written about this before.  It is not just of local interest:  It is a remarkable work of archaeology because of the extreme conditions it takes place in and the treasure trove of vessels found.

not a wash, a wish

5.  A month ago, I posted on how I was going to 'pretend' to take Mystic Seaport's summer seminar at the Munson Institute.  Well, all of the books have arrived from Amazon as well as two thick readers from Dr. Glenn Gordinier.  Dr. Gordinier told me that the seminar did not have any assignments; this was not a graduate seminar but an educators' seminar, and not only was the reading list too intense for weekly papers, but, really, teachers probably don't need the practice when they're too busy writing articles for actual publication.  So, by comparing the reading list to the draft syllabus posted online, I have created my OWN assignments.  In the upcoming weeks (or, rather, months), I will be posting here what I am already calling, perhaps presumptuously, "The Munson Papers."  Some of these will be topic only until the reading is done.  These subjects include the definition of maritime studies, the relationship between maritime labor and slavery, and the end of the age of sail.  Others, drawing partly from the actual seminar and partly from my own library and interests, already have initial titles:  "Blackbeard in Colonial Context," "Late Piracy and the Early U.S. Navy:  The Case of Charles Gibbs" (thanks again Juanita...you had no idea), and "Scholars and Scavengers:  Archaeology vs. 'Treasure Hunting'."  As you can tell, my brain is all buzzing.  The bad news is that it might be a while 'til you see a post here on the blog, as I lose myself in hundreds of pages of literature; Hell, I might even take a break from O'Brian (*gasp*)!  The good news is that there are over a dozen 'papers' you can look forward to reading...and, for me, perhaps the seeds of a new academic career.  Plus, you know, I'm a pirate, and thus likely to be distracted by something shiny that I think is worth writing about.

Stay roguish, my friends...

Blue Lou's Top 10 Moments in Beer History

Stones of Göbekli Tepe

Readers will have noticed a significant slowdown in posts.  There are a number of reasons for that.  One, the summer is actually not when I generally end up at the Center for Wooden Boats, other than for the Festival.  It's hot, it's busy on the docks, and I'm generally doing something else (even if that's just trying to cool down on the deck with a Negra Modelo).  Two, most of my recent posts have been lengthy essays that take a while to research and write, my latest on Jay Bahadur's book being a prime example.  Three, I've been cut off from blogging at work, or at least "while working."  Distraction?  What distraction?  This limitation, however, has led to this post, because my new time killer at my desk has been catching up on National Geographic.  The June 2011 issue has a fascinating article, "The Birth of Religion," on the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey.  This site, radiocarbon dated to as early as 11,000 BC, is turning anthropological theory on its ear, because it is the earliest ceremonial structure yet unearthed and yet has no signs of agriculture.  This could mean that "religion" may have led to sedentarism, not vice versa.  It was these two sentences, however, that set my mind working:  "One imagines chanting and drumming, the animals on the great pillars seeming to move in the flickering torchlight.  Surely there were feasts; Schmidt [the chief archaeologist] has uncovered stone basins that could have been used for beer."  So was launched my self-education on the (pre-)history of the beverage tied with rum as my favorite.  I have condensed it down to the following, unapologetically subjective (and not really very condensed) Top Ten List.  Credit goes to Chris Rowley at Foaming Head for laying the groundwork.

Reconstructed beer jar of Godin Tepe

1.  ca. 8,500 BC:  Barley is domesticated.  Anthropologists call it the "Neolithic Revolution"--the first transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and established villages.  This occurred in a variety of places at a variety of times, but one center was the "Fertile Crescent" that arches from the Nile Delta through the Levant to the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq.  Barley was one of the first grains domesticated, based on evidence from sites like Jericho and Abu Hureyra.  Beer and bread, or something in between, were not far behind.  The Godin Tepe site in Iran has even given chemical evidence of beer dregs from 3,500 BC.  The Sumerians were especially big beer drinkers.  6,000 years they ago wrote a hymn to the Goddess of Beer, Ninkasi, which also functions as the world's oldest brewing recipe; Ninkasi is now the name of a very fine brewery in Oregon.  The brew of the time was "porridge beer," really a sort of mildly alcoholic bread that was drunk through straws from a tall pot.  The first beer was really the first "ale," i.e. beer made from malted barley fermented at warm temperatures.  This was the booze of choice from the Egyptian pharaohs to the kings and priests of Mesopotamia...and the peasants below.  Unfortunately, two things killed the early reign of beer:  the expansion of the Greeks, among whom wine was preferable, and the expansion of Islam, among whom no one drinks (legally) at all.  But...