The USCGC Salvia (WLB 400)

"I have said before
That the past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations—not forgetting
Something that is probably quite ineffable"

-T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages

Last night we ended up at the Pizza Joint over on the Island with the typical Halloween leftovers and wreckage including Bob Marley (Rasta-mon-viber-ation!), Dorothy and her dog, along with the Piano Man and a definitely shadowy looking CIA operative.

My friend Bobby was there. Bob is really Jerry Garcia, who I suspect didn’t actually die, but instead migrated to the third coast and lives in relative anonymity by choice…..at least that’s my suspicion….

Bob said he’s been here reading some of the rants I’ve offered in the past couple of years, and said quite surprised; “ I didn’t know you were in the Coast Guard!”

Along with Jerry….errrr…I mean Bob and his son, I hoisted several grogs and reflected on my life as a man of the sea as naturally, in costume I was asked the pertinent and impertinent.

If you’ve read any of these entries at all you probably know that here in the last few years I’ve received “classical” training as a marine scientist, and have been a passionate defender, and investigator of the lower Laguna Madre of South Texas, a unique hyper saline Lagoon, a gossamer and delicate underwater savanna (hey, that’s almost one of my twins names……but as usual….I digress….).

Years before that I worked in the commercial fishing industry in Alaska, never wanting to touch dry land at all.

Rewinding the video of my existence, directly out of Coast Guard boot camp and as a young and fearless (and quite stupid) pup I found myself stationed in Mobile Alabama aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Salvia (WLB 400), a 180 foot buoy tender which serviced aides to navigation (ATONS) from Port St. Joe Florida to the Mississippi River Gulf outlet, or “Mr.Go” as it was referred to. I only served a short while aboard the old girl before being transferred to Alaska, and had I been smarter I would’ve absorbed principals of celestial navigation still used supplementally in those days, instead of torturing myself in learning this vital skill in later life. Oh well, at least I can take a noon shoot…..

The Salvia had a sister ship named the Blackthorn moored behind her there at the industrial docks in Mobile. The Blackthorn sunk in Tampa Bay after colliding with a tanker in 1980, killing 23 crewmembers.  The Salvia, like a good many things from my checkered and sometimes lamentable past has long been retired, and now serves as a training hulk, a fine retirement for such a useful piece of steel….

Still further back, as a young child growing up in Southern California, my father would come home from sport fishing trips off of Point Loma with yellowtail, bonito and Pacific barracuda in burlap catch bags. The smell of wet burlap still carrys me back to those days on currents of simple delight to a more innocent and less complicated time.

My first offshore experience was on a boat belonging to one of my fathers work mates, a small cabin cruiser. We motored out to the kelp beds off of La Jolla, rolling around in the usual Pacific groundswell. I fought to keep from throwing up, and by the end of the day, my own rolling stomach had quieted, and I was maniacally intent on catching the leviathans lurking in the forest of seaweed deep down in the blue water.

I have not been seasick to this day.

After that, I would pester my father incessantly to take me fishing offshore, where I fell in love with the roll of the ocean, the smell of diesel and the song of the wind unfettered by building, tree, hill or valley.

When I was 8 years old, I saw the Disney movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I knew then that not only did I want to be like Captain Nemo, I wanted to be Captain Nemo. I dreamed of living off of mother Ocean, vagabonding from place to place. I developed an insatiable appetite for food from the sea, and to quell my ceaseless whining, my parents took me to every seafood, Japanese and Chinese restaurant in San Diego County where I indulged myself in everything from seaweed to abalone. I would still rather consume things that come from the sea than things farmed or raised on land……

I’ve come full circle over the years, but I still dream of being Captain Nemo. Only now the dream is all that much closer.