I should be joining the rest of the world and making whoopee on the 'Day of the Seafarer', 25th June. But I won't. I will spend the day quietly and alone like the monk in Caspar David Friedrich's circa-1809 painting 'Der Moench am Meer / The Monk by the Sea' (pictured...
This Sunday, the 25th of June, is the 'Day of the Seafarer'. I thought I would chat with Frankie the Philosopher Cat and see if he's in a mood to celebrate. Frankie is not much into festivities, but you never know. The slogans and tributes to mariners have been so...
Yesterday I took the plunge and released my first e–book, Maritime Double Shots. It's a collection of aphorisms and reflections gathered from hundreds of articles posted in Marine Café Blog over the past several years. This little project was not motivated by any...
Today, the 1st of May, is Labour Day in many countries. I thought I would pay tribute to housewives instead of seamen and seawomen. Housewives are not considered part of the working class since they do not receive wages. The tools of their...
Unlike the ancients, modern man does not see Mother Earth as some kind of goddess like Gaia, the ancestral mother of all life in Greek mythology. He has de-mythicized her, reduced her to an object, a specimen, to be studied by scientists and exploited by corporations...
Marine Café Blog is now being updated twice a week at most. This is to give myself more time for certain projects I had put on hold for too long, including two upcoming books. Nonetheless, I hope readers will enjoy the flavour of what is served and maybe talk about it...
Call me a grinch, a spoilsport. But I have never felt the urge to observe the Day of the Seafarer (25th of June). It's not just the empty slogans and tributes from the very people who have commodified seamen that dampen my mood. I am dismayed by the mere fact that the...
After a long absence due to personal matters, Marine Café Blog is back with a couple of changes. Not the least important: the blog is completely dropping the use of the term “seafarer”. Henceforth, those who sail and work on board merchant ships will be referred to by...
It is five days before Christmas. In the collective delirium of holiday shopping, few Filipinos will remember that today, the 20th of December, is the 28th anniversary of the Doña Paz ferry tragedy. And yet, the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster will forever...
"The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion," Albert Einstein once said. He is absolutely right. Still, it strikes us that Marine Café Blog is six years old today. This is equal to 72 months or 2,191 days. The...
No television cameras are present whenever seafarers pluck boat refugees from the sea. So we're pleased to note that the Vatican-based Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care for Migrants and Itinerant People has drawn attention to these good Samaritans in its...
With more than 50 international protocols now governing the shipping industry, the theme for World Maritime Day 2014 couldn't have been more appropriate: "IMO Conventions: Effective Implementation". It also couldn't have been more ironic. Seafarers are still denied...