When I started my sailing career, at first, it was a bit humorous to see senior officers, like 2nd Engineers and Chief Engineering Officer of the ships that I was sailing in, stopping by to listen to various engines, motors and pumps and occasionally brush their hands on them.
Similar to it was the mirth at first when I’d seen experienced Master Mariners and Chief (First) Officers, sometimes smell the air, take a hard look at the skies, or watch intently the sea for the swells, and of course the barometer.
About six months into my sailing career, I gathered enough courage to query them on it. Now, I’ve been fortunate enough to sail with great people who’ve always tried to teach me the good from the wrong and broaden my knowledge on maritime machines and weather. Even people who’ve to termed as absolute ‘princes’ (to get the actual meaning you’ve to leave out the ‘n’, the ‘e’ and substitute ‘k’ for the ‘c’) have given me lessons on safety and caution.
The fact is experienced sailors could read the sky, sea and air and take necessary steps to prepare for contingencies. Experienced engineers to sense the malfunctioning machineries by their sound or vibrations.
The importance of such understanding, teaching and experience was brought out when I became a shore manager. The first (of the many) incident was when I ordered an out-of-turn of a Microtechnica Mark V Gyrocompass, which didn’t sound ‘normal’ to my ears when I happened to pass through a ship in my care.
At first, ship board people and even my own superiors thought that I was out doing a ‘favour’ to someone. Later they all realised that my timely intervention saved the company a couple of thousand dollars and hours (if not days) in downtime, because the timely intervention which cost a couple of thousand Rupees, saved the Gyrocompass.
:-)
While I am still putting that knowledge and training to good use - for eg., other apartment owners in my complex are constantly vexed because I can sense, hear and point out when their taps or faucets are left open by the sound of water flowing down the drain pipes, when I take my usual walks around the apartment - I am a complete babe-in-the-woods when it comes to nature.
Thus it has been only for last 2 years that I’ve learned to understand the relationship between abundantly flowering Neem trees and the Indian monsoon.
Today, at around 12 noon, as I was shooting the air with a couple of neighbourhood teens, just near my home, two unidentified birds came to roost on the 40 foot yellow Gulmohar tree nearby. I was intimated to their presence by their constant calling, which was something like ‘cheek, cheek, cheek’.
At first when I pointed it out to them, and wanted to take a snap, the teens discouraged me saying they look like some myna birds. After a couple of minutes, I pointed out that the legs of the birds seemed to strong, big and tough, suggesting they were birds of prey.
We were debating whether they were kites, though kites aren’t of the smoky grey colour that they were and their calls are more ‘keee, keee, keee’. This went on well past half an hour, when a particularly aggressive crow decided to get into the act.
As the smoky grey birds were chased away by the crow, I realised that they were owls. The spread of their wings, their round heads and eyes seeming to turn around and look down on me (which was actually at the crow) and the repeated views thanks to Harry Potter movies, put us on the right track. Within a couple of minutes, all of us forgot about it, with the only regret that we didn’t rush up to the terrace to try and get a few snaps.
A couple of hours back, one of the teens called me up saying that he visited his friends house soon after and were idling away the time with a couple of more guys, watching TV. It seems around half-past One or so, the family dog suddenly started to bark making strange sounds.
The teens friend actually accused the 4 of them of stepping on the dog’s tail as he has never heard of such strange whining before from the dog. About half an hour later, the tremors stuck Chennai after the 8.6 Ritcher Earthquake off Sumatra, in Indonesia. Thankfully, there was no Tsunami, but it suddenly made me realise that the 2 owls probably were warning of tremors.
Is it so? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I’ve not seen Owls in my part of the city for last so many years. In fact, I’ve never seen a kingfisher or an owl in my part of town for last 10 years or so. There are a couple of woodpeckers which I’ve been unable to spot, but not owls, not kingfishers.
I am going to keep my eyes peeled for hooting Owls and I think so should you! That is one more native knowledge for you.
Similar to it was the mirth at first when I’d seen experienced Master Mariners and Chief (First) Officers, sometimes smell the air, take a hard look at the skies, or watch intently the sea for the swells, and of course the barometer.
About six months into my sailing career, I gathered enough courage to query them on it. Now, I’ve been fortunate enough to sail with great people who’ve always tried to teach me the good from the wrong and broaden my knowledge on maritime machines and weather. Even people who’ve to termed as absolute ‘princes’ (to get the actual meaning you’ve to leave out the ‘n’, the ‘e’ and substitute ‘k’ for the ‘c’) have given me lessons on safety and caution.
The fact is experienced sailors could read the sky, sea and air and take necessary steps to prepare for contingencies. Experienced engineers to sense the malfunctioning machineries by their sound or vibrations.
The importance of such understanding, teaching and experience was brought out when I became a shore manager. The first (of the many) incident was when I ordered an out-of-turn of a Microtechnica Mark V Gyrocompass, which didn’t sound ‘normal’ to my ears when I happened to pass through a ship in my care.
At first, ship board people and even my own superiors thought that I was out doing a ‘favour’ to someone. Later they all realised that my timely intervention saved the company a couple of thousand dollars and hours (if not days) in downtime, because the timely intervention which cost a couple of thousand Rupees, saved the Gyrocompass.
:-)
While I am still putting that knowledge and training to good use - for eg., other apartment owners in my complex are constantly vexed because I can sense, hear and point out when their taps or faucets are left open by the sound of water flowing down the drain pipes, when I take my usual walks around the apartment - I am a complete babe-in-the-woods when it comes to nature.
Thus it has been only for last 2 years that I’ve learned to understand the relationship between abundantly flowering Neem trees and the Indian monsoon.
Today, at around 12 noon, as I was shooting the air with a couple of neighbourhood teens, just near my home, two unidentified birds came to roost on the 40 foot yellow Gulmohar tree nearby. I was intimated to their presence by their constant calling, which was something like ‘cheek, cheek, cheek’.
At first when I pointed it out to them, and wanted to take a snap, the teens discouraged me saying they look like some myna birds. After a couple of minutes, I pointed out that the legs of the birds seemed to strong, big and tough, suggesting they were birds of prey.
We were debating whether they were kites, though kites aren’t of the smoky grey colour that they were and their calls are more ‘keee, keee, keee’. This went on well past half an hour, when a particularly aggressive crow decided to get into the act.
As the smoky grey birds were chased away by the crow, I realised that they were owls. The spread of their wings, their round heads and eyes seeming to turn around and look down on me (which was actually at the crow) and the repeated views thanks to Harry Potter movies, put us on the right track. Within a couple of minutes, all of us forgot about it, with the only regret that we didn’t rush up to the terrace to try and get a few snaps.
A couple of hours back, one of the teens called me up saying that he visited his friends house soon after and were idling away the time with a couple of more guys, watching TV. It seems around half-past One or so, the family dog suddenly started to bark making strange sounds.
The teens friend actually accused the 4 of them of stepping on the dog’s tail as he has never heard of such strange whining before from the dog. About half an hour later, the tremors stuck Chennai after the 8.6 Ritcher Earthquake off Sumatra, in Indonesia. Thankfully, there was no Tsunami, but it suddenly made me realise that the 2 owls probably were warning of tremors.
Is it so? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I’ve not seen Owls in my part of the city for last so many years. In fact, I’ve never seen a kingfisher or an owl in my part of town for last 10 years or so. There are a couple of woodpeckers which I’ve been unable to spot, but not owls, not kingfishers.
I am going to keep my eyes peeled for hooting Owls and I think so should you! That is one more native knowledge for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment