Depart Baltimore

GPS Position : 36 13N , 075 02W

Another reason that I liked Baltimore was because it gave a feeling of a classic city. Sort of like a snapshot of an American city from the forties. Cities like New York seem to have lost their soul in the maze of concrete & glass.

Most of the High-rises in Baltimore are concentrated in the Downtown region as is the case with most American cities, but they do look beautiful. I'm not sure which any of these buildings are but I'm sure that almost any Baltimore resident would have
been able to recognize these buildings.

Another picture that intrigued me was this huge Sugar factory called "Domino Sugar". At least I think that is the factory & not an Advert Billboard. For some reason, a sugar factory in a major port of the US seems to be a bit strange. One would imagine
that All American sugar would be made elsewhere.

We did leave Baltimore today, but over the last few ports, I think Baltimore is one of the cities that I would enjoy walking around in.

Baltimore

Current GPS Position : 38 48N, 076 24W

I Liked Baltimore. At least the bit I saw from the five miles away. I had actually planned to roam about in the city, but circumstances pervaded & I stayed on the ship. The evening on the Baltimore River Front was beautiful. As the sun began to come
towards the horizon & people came out in the Sailing boats & small boats for a bit of a sail. As the Sun set, all of these boats came back to the Marina like birds to their nests. Any City that affords its citizens a sail on a weekday can't be all that
bad!

Norfolk Anchorage

GPS : 39 06 N, 076 14W

Norfolk anchorage is not really a very busy place. If you come from the major shipping lanes like the Malacca Straits and the English Channel, you would actually think it a bit deserted. The only things other then a few Container ships that keep
moving to & fro are the Naval Ships from The Norfolk Naval Base. Yesterday I had shown you the Princess I riding to her anchor. On the other side were rows of Aircraft carriers (I counted six!) being refitted. I even spotted the aircraft carrier that
had interfered with the movements of ships the other day. All it sported was a solitary & sad looking plane with no one for company.

In the other picture, you see the Warship 67 coming in the channel being escorted by her Tugs. I chose this picture because you see the Aircraft carrier in the background, & you can even see the sailors lined up on the deck. I'm not sure why all the
sailors are required to line up on deck whenever a Naval vessel comes to port, but I've found that theses Naval chaps are altogether funny chaps.

Princess I & the IALA buoyage

GPS :36 57N, 076 20W

We anchored near the Princess I at the Norfolk anchorage today. The Princess I looks like a Panamax bulk carrier & has five Hatches & four cranes. It's a bulk carrier of just the right size to go to great ports and it's a treat to handle a vessel of
this size. It looks like the chaps there are doing a bit of hatch cleaning as they have partially opened two hatches. In ships like these, you generally have two hatch covers over each hatch & they open by folding and stand up at either ends of the
Hatches. The hatch covers are opened by Hydraulics & waterproof the hatches by thick rubber packing. I remember the many-many times that we had to repair leaks in the hydraulic piping and the testing of the water tightness by hosing down by a fire
hose.

To test the water tightness, one team would go inside the hatch & the other team would start hosing down on the sides of the hatch with a fire hose at good pressure. The tricky part was to let the person inside the hatch know where the team above was
hitting the fire hose. For this purpose, a chap was deputed to stand on top of the hatch and keep hitting the hatch cover with an iron rod near the point where the hose was directed. These were the times when Walki-talkies were a luxury and the only
thing this incessant hammering produced in the team inside the hatch was a throbbing headache.

Another point of interest in the picture is the two buoys. There are two types of Buoyage system adopted by all countries. Region A buoyage is adopted by most of the countries, whereas the US adopts Region B buoyage. (A fact that has caused untold
misery to navigational cadets over the years). Under this buoyage, you are supposed to keep the red buoys to your Starboard & the Green buoys to the port as you enter the port. As you depart the port, the red buoys come on the port. The Princess had
anchored just across the channel and you can see the channel marking buoys with it. Some of the bouys have bells fixed to them and as the bouys wobble due to the weather or the wake of the passing ships, the bells ring. Over a quite sea or at night,
it's a pleasure to hear them ringing out to the waves.

Chesapeake

USA is beyond doubt one of the most beautiful countries in the world. We came into a place called Chesapeake today. It is a berth at the end of three hour long pilotage and passes through the Norfolk Naval Base. The base is one of the biggest naval
bases & also a very old & famous Ship yard. I saw more then twenty naval ships either under construction or being refitted out there. Today they were going to launch an aircraft carrier at 1000 hrs & they had decided to shut down the whole channel for
it. Luckily managed to sneak in just a few hours before the window began. As you pass the Norfolk area, the USS Missouri lies as a Museum on the Port side and a friend works in one of the offices near it. After the Norfolk area, you come to the
sparser countryside with green grass & wide fields. It's a little scary to pass underneath a few draw bridges, but it's a perverse fun to watch all the cars waiting for you to pass so that the bridge will be lowered.

At sea

Its a beautiful day. The sun is out & the visibility is fine. The weekend is on & the local people will start moving out of the marina's in a couple of hours. We were in port yesterday and the amount of boats out on a saturday evening was simply
amazing. They were like bugs moving all around the ship trying to get where ever they might be off to. I'm not sure if the Americans do anything productive on their boats over a weekend, but they sure did make the second mates day. I think he managed
to see three episodes of Baywatch in the Half an hours berthing.

Stuck in the middle of the Ocean

There have not been many entries in my blog over the last few days. The reason for this is that I have joined a Ship again and this particular moment finds me far removed from the Internet. But regardless, I shall keep trying to updating the blog by
email. The only problem with this is that I will not be able to check up on the stuff I write. Probably a good thing. :)

And they also eat!

After the post about the sparrow, I felt obiliged to atleast put out some food for them. They ahd a few pecks, but I'm not sure they are crazy about uncooked rice. :)

The legend of the house sparrow

A blogger I regularly read is Eric, who maintains a philately blog. He recently posted a stamp featuring the sparrow from Belarus. A further research informed me that stamps on Sparrows were around in some quantity. While I am not going to start another collection on sparrows, let me tell you the story of why the male sparrow has a darker chest then the female of that species.

It so happened that once Mrs Sparrow decided that she wanted to apply Kajal (Mascara) to her eyes, but sadly back then the sparrows didn't have any. So she told Mr Sparrow to get some. Mr Sparrow flew far and wide, but there was no Mascara to be found anywhere. After a long futile search, he finally came upon a big black rock. This was the perfect rock that Mrs Sparrow could use for her Mascara. But it was simply not possible for Mr Sparrow to take the big rock to the Mrs. And god forbid the thought of Mrs Sparrow coming out of the nest without her make up intact for applying the Kajal! So Mr Sparrow did the only thing that came to his mind then. He rubbed his chest on the rock with all his might till the color rubbed off. He then returned to Mrs Sparrow and since that day, every morning before Mr & Mrs Sparrow leave their nest, Mrs Sparrow takes a little bit of the Kajal from Mr Sparrows chest and applies it to her beautiful eyes.

There is a Sparrow couple that feels very much at home in the Kitchen. Today they were glaring at us from the Kitchen window as we were intruding in their Kitchen. I took a few snaps of them.

This is probably the reason why they stick so close to each other. You don't find too many women away from their make-up Kit!

A Blog on Philitaly

Hi All.

Over the past some time, people who read this blog would have realised my fondness for the Postal service. In view of this, I have decided to start a new blog solely dedicated to the postal dept and my stamps. The blog is called "The Stamps of Velu" (for lack of more imaginative title)

Please do drop by and spend some time there.


Regds,
Velu

More stamps

Some time back I had written about the Indian postal departments philately scheme to let you receive newly released stamps at your home after opening an account with them. This has proven to be very useful to someone like me who doesn't hang around the country for more then half the year.

On returning back home this time, I saw that the postal department has released some great stamps over the last few months. The Miniature sheet for the 2550 years of mahaparinirvana of the Buddha is one of the most beautiful pieces of work I have seen released by this country.

The first of the six postage stamps depicts a statue from the gandhara period of Siddhartha when he was a prince. The second stamp is a sculpture from Myanmar where buddha is an ascetic. The third stamp depicts the blissful head of the meditating Buddha from Sarnath, India. The fourth stamp is that of Buddha holding the nectar of immortality in a jar & the fifth stamp contain incarnations of Buddha past and future. The Hinayana symbols such as the lotus and dharma chakra is shown in the sixth stamp.

"Parinirvana" is the final deathless state where one abandons the earthly body and attains freedom from the cycles of birth and death. I don't think I know much about that, the sheet sure does look great.


The second set of stamps that is good is the set about the fairs of India. The four fairs covered in this miniature sheet are the Goa carnival, pushkar mela, sonepur fair, & the Baul Festival. Sadly I haven't been to any of them. I think I need to see more TV.


The postal dept have not come out with a miniature sheet for the Himalayan lakes, but only with a set of five stamps. The lakes covered by this set are the Chandratal in lahul & Spiti, Roop Kund , Tsangu on the Gangtok - nathula road, Sela Lake near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh & the Tsomoriri Lake in Ladhak.

Of these, I have only been to the Tsangu lake when I went to the Nathula. I missed seeing the Tsomoriri during this visit to Leh. I think I'll do it the next time I go by road.

Finally we wrap up with the set of scented stamps. As far as my memories go, only three other countries have released scented stamps. India released two of them over the last year. The first was the sandalwood stamps and they do smell really nice. The postal dept then released the rose stamps very fittingly on the Valentines day. :)

It feels unreal to think that the total cost of all the above gems is less then four dollars.

The wall

We had gone over to Puja's village home at Astha and I found a most photogenic wall.

I'm not really sure which of the pictures I like to most, so I'll let you people have them all.




I think the Cycle gives it a classic look. I should have clicked one snap off in black and white

The return of the Lego

I haven't been around for some time. I thought I should begin again with something else that I hadn't been doing for some time. The Lego blocks are something that have never lost their coolness as far as I am concerned. The Lego mindstorm Robotic invention system is something that takes these blocks to an all new level.

As a lego fan, I used to relish working on the technic sets. The gears & springs and interlocking parts would in my humble mind be ample proof of some genius at play. The fact that an assorted pile of stuff could be assembled into into something so obvious was magical.

The beauty of the Lego RIS is that not only can it be used to make what the Lego team wants you to do, but that the Lego team wants you to do what you want to do with the Lego RIS. At the heart of the RIS is the RCX module (That Yellow thingy on the top) that you can actually programme with your PC as you want. The RCX, powered by six AA batteries and assisted by gadgets such as Touch sensors, motors, light sensors and such cool stuff, allows you to make stuff such as cars, robots and other cool stuff that your mind and additional lego blocks might allow. Look at the sort of stuff that JP Brown here has come up with.

I doubt that I will come anywhere as cool as good ol JP back there, but I did come out with this creation. This is a double bumper truck with touch sensors below the bumpers and after the truck reaches a wall and the touch sensor is depressed, the vehicle stops, reverses, turns and then proceeds till encountering another obstacle.

Very cool.

:)

The Local Airport

As I lugged my suitcase to the taxi stand in Mumbai, the gang of Taxi drivers standing besides the paan Shop perked up and crowded around me.
"Where do you want to go sir?" One of them asked
"To the domestic airport."

This produced some confused looks and a bout of vigorous murmuring. After much ado, the enterprising man questioned me again.

"To where might you be catching the plane for sir?"
"Er, to Nagpur."

His brows cleared and he glowed with satisfaction.

"Ah! You will be wanting to go to the Local airport then."

The walls of Cafe Mondegar

Last in the series of stiched images, Let me present to you, the walls of the famed Cafe Mondegar. This is where the end of the walk found me. Cafe Mondegar, or "Mondy's" as it is fondly called by its admirers is a landmark in Colaba and is one of the oldest pubs in Mumbai. The walls have been painted by the great Mario Miranda and his signature style is evident. You will need to click on these to actually see some detail.

The pictures were taken after a couple of beers, so You'll have to forgive the blurriness. I will make it a point to take better pictures on a dry day.

Cheers!