Merry Christmas

Christmas in Porto Santo island.

Picture taken at dawn, in Vila Baleira central square, with Nikon P7100 secured in a cheap Polaroid 42" travel tripod and post-processed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Luxuriant

The dense and luxuriant Laurissilva forest in Pico das Pedras, on the North coast of Madeira.

Picture taken with Nikon D300 and Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Macro lens. Manfrotto tripod and Junior geared head. Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Sophisticated weather station

Looking for a replacement for my cheap digital no-brand cr.. weather station, which I bought six years ago in a general store, I began a few weeks ago to do a bit of searching.

In the Funchal Pilot station we have the trustworthy (for advanced amateur standards) Davis Vantage Pro 2, well renowned by weather buffs worldwide. For use at home, however, the price of nearly 700 Euros is a deal breaker, since I also don't need so much complexity and parameters. Now I'm looking for accurate, simpler and cheaper. A few days ago, aboard the Icelandic research vessel Neptune, I've noticed this advanced equipment that seems to fit the bill. The only drawback is the inexistence of a reseller in Portugal.

Picture taken aboard the RV Neptune (IMO nº 7504237), with Panasonic DMC-FT3 compact digital camera.

Summer diet

Only our natural and ever-present human arrogance allow us to, sometimes, forget our actual position on the food chain: somehow nearby the middle.

For many of our fellow inhabitants, within this tiny blue ball drifting around in the universe, we are nothing more than a nice and tender snack.

Picture taken along the shoreline of Olinda, in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, with Nikon D40X and cheap Nikkor DX 18-55mm standard zoom lens. Post processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Summer weather

During my seafaring career, we used to pray for days like this. At sea the weather simply cannot be better than this. The sea surface with the texture of olive oil and the "good weather cumuli" reflecting on the calm surface below. Sea of ladies, we used to call it. Because if it was always like that even (more, I add) women would be seafarers.

Sea of ladies indeed.

Picture taken on the mountains of Madeira, facing the North coast and the town of Santana, with Nikon D300 and Sigma EX 18-70mm f/2.8. Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Perfectly Clear Lightroom plug-in.

Facing hell

Besides the danger of sinking or capsizing, fire at sea is, probably, the most dramatic event that a seafarer may face while on duty at sea. To the layman a fire at sea doesn't sound so different as the same scenario ashore. Nothing could be further from the truth. When a fire erupts on a ship at sea, the crewmembers can't go anywhere. They can not retreat to a safer distance, assess the situation and then return to face it, already in the possession of a solid strategy and probably assisted by professional fire-fighters. No. At sea, at two days voyage from the nearest port and unable to be assisted in a short practical amount of time, they have to face the monster themselves. Or resign. And watch the vessel burn to ashes.

Since only a few Merchant Marine units worldwide have a team of professional fire-fighters on board, merchant mariners worldwide have to perform that duty if the divine providence puts them in the presence of such a scary moment. The Advanced Fire Fighting Course was one of the several courses we had to take before our seafaring books were issued and we were considered ready to surf the mighty ocean.

When we made the AFFC, in the early nineties, in Alfeite (Lisbon Naval Base), we were all far from imagine how stressful a real fire-fighting situation could be. A few years later I would recognize the valuable instruction that we received in those two intensive days, when we had a small (it was really small!) fire in the ship's galley. Nothing special. Just a paint of oil from the roast chicken that slipped from the tray and ignited the moment it touched its heating elements. In took us a mere ten seconds since the cookie screamed "fire" to storm the galley with a Chemical Powder Fire Extinguisher and we had already to find our way to the source of the fire like blind people, unable to see more than two fingers in front of our faces. From that moment on, surrounded by a black, thick and impenetrable smoke, I developed a deep respect about fires on liquid fuels. One could only hardly imagine the same scenario in the engine room.

Picture:

Bulkhead in flames for a demonstration of fire suppression techniques using ABC Chemical Powder Fire Extinguishers, in Lisbon Naval Base. The correct technique is here demonstrated: you have to fight the fire from the lower level to the higher one, pointing the fire extinguisher's nozzle from down to up. The smart use of the fire extinguisher's available capacity is the most important factor while fighting a fire.

Picture taken with Pentax SF1 and Pentax 50mm f/1.7 KAF lens on Fujicolor HR100. Scanning in Nikon Coolscan V ED and post-processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Echoes of the past

When we visited it, in 1992, nearly a quarter of a century ago, the Natural Park of Alvão was one of the most remote places in the continental Portugal. At the time, it was short on the famous connecting highways that are today a cause for political controversies.

In those days, however, we'd gladly enjoy their convenience if one existed that could reduce the long voyage from Lisboa to the massif, deep inside the Trás-Os-Montes province, on the NE Portugal. After a ten hour voyage that looked to us, still youngsters in the mountaineering business, like an expedition in itself, we finally arrived, late in the evening, to the high plateau of Serra de Alvão and to a remote small village called Lamas de Ôlo, where we improvised a bivouac in an old and abandoned watermill.

A perfect example of a Portuguese mountain village, this small place, now home of barely one hundred souls, surprised us by the beauty of its archaic architecture, with most houses built with granite and schist.

On the village's highest place stood tall, as a lonely sentinel, the community bell. A remainder of a not-so distant past, when the village had to depend on itself against the many menaces their inhabitants could face. And when words as solidarity, teamwork and union were used on a daily basis.

I have never returned to Alvão.

Old picture taken with a Pentax SF-1 film camera, with the, at the time, standard 50mm f/1.7 Pentax KAF lens and with a Agfapan B/W 100 ASA film. Scanning in Nikon Coolscan V ED and processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.