PENNEY UGLAND

It’s November and we are back in Ferguson’s Cove after six days in Ontario visiting the beloved members of our family who live there. Being back means that we can return to the tasks of the house and walkway as well as to doing things with friends here and enjoying (again) what we can see and hear from our house on the edge of Halifax Harbour.

Today the November weather continued mild (once we got past the wet little blizzard just over a week ago) and we decided to work outside. Besides the walkway which is still not finished there was some painting to do as a result of the roof work and deck construction outside our bedroom. So we got stepladders and drop cloth and caulking gun and scraper and set to the task at hand. The wind blew out of the southeast and you could hear the surf breaking on Mauger’s Beach across the harbour. There were lasers sailing through the stiff chop, escorted by a zodiac from the Squadron, and a large tanker that sailed in.

The tanker had an orange hull, pale green superstructure, and the words PENNEY UGLAND painted on its side. It’s a reasonably pretty ship for a tanker, partly because of those striking colours, but also because its lines are attractive. I knew I had seen this ship before and was struck by an image from last spring in Istanbul. We were with our good friends, K&A, and their wonderful boys, walking along the edge of the sahil yolu (seaside road) below Rumeli Hisar, the fort that Sultan Mehmed (the Conqueror) built in 1452. It was a beautiful Sunday morning in May and we were heading for one of the great kahvalti (breakfast/brunch) places along there. On our right as we walked was an empty tanker churning its way up towards the Black Sea, large white bow wave and white spray from the propeller screw, with a Coast Guard tug apparently escorting it on its journey through the Bosphorus.

For me this was a magnificent sight. The tanker, which in my mind’s eye must have said PENNEY UGLAND on its side, towered above us as it headed under the Second Bridge, and I stopped to watch, wishing one of us had a camera. I have been a ship watcher for as long as I can remember (or about 60 years), and I have always been fascinated by the way ships move through the water – if there are ships moving, I need no other entertainment. So I watched this ship and its tug escort and recorded the image only in my mind.

Today while we were painting, the PENNEY UGLAND tanker, with its orange hull and pale green superstructure, made its way into the harbour. I stopped what I was doing to watch it. A little later I got back to work, and much later I got to the computer to check on the ship. I was taken by the thought of this being the same ship and of the contiguity of salt water and waterways that connect every port and allow ships I saw in Istanbul to travel in and out of this harbour. It did turn out, however, that this was the Mattea, jointly owned by Penney from Newfoundland and Ugland from Norway, registered in St. John’s, and built to bring crude oil ashore from the Hibernia field, so it wasn’t this ship I stood watching in the Bosphorus, but probably one of the many tankers registered in Piraeus that take crude from Black Sea ports to European refineries. It is no matter really, it was another ship for me to watch, and a strong enough image to put me back six months ago, walking with some of the best people I know towards a great Turkish kahvalti place with a view of the great city and its magic waterway, the Bosphorus.

It’s November, the dark month (more on this in another post), but today was bright and mild and I watched a ship that reminded me of another time and place. And we still got the painting done!

It wasn't a bad day at all.