Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Message in a Bottle

C and I made a ship in a bottle at the  Woods Hole Historical Society last Saturday. The workshop was advertised as taking place from 10 AM to 12:30 PM. We were the second family to leave (read that as we were the second family to finish - woohoo!) and we didn't leave until almost 2 PM.
Just for the record - putting a ship in a bottle is hard. Really hard.
You think there's some sort of trick to it like the back of the bottle comes off or the ship folds down flat and then pops up once it's inside the bottle. Alas no. There is no trick. Only a few handy tools you have to make yourself and a lot of patient perseverance.
This is hard. Really hard I thought while we struggled repeatedly to get our sails into tiny holes on the ship's deck. On the other hand I thought how lucky it was that sailors didn't have cell phones back in the day. If they had you can forget about a rich naval history full of intricate ships inside bottles, turks head knot bracelets, scrimshaw or lightship baskets. With smart phones all sailors would have to show for their months at sea would be a lot of high scores on Angry Birds.

song: Message in a Bottle • artist: the Police

2 comments:

Winnie said...

Always wondered about the ships in a bottle. I see you mentioned Woods Hole historical Society. I got up to Woods Hole for a week awhile back and love it. Stayed there and got to go to Martha's Vineyard too.

Joanne said...

There's always something good going on in Woods Hole - provided you can find yourself a parking spot.
Glad you got over to the Vineyard. My father used to captain some of the ferry boats from Falmouth to MV, the Island Queen (Falmouth to Oak Bluffs) and the Pied Piper (Falmouth to Edgartown). Sounds like you might have taken the Steamship. Hope you had fun!