They emerge from out of the mist, seeming to float above the horizon. The sea fog thickens and fades and these ever-present ocean-going vessels appear and disappear just like ghosts, sometimes clearly visible, and sometimes the vanish as if they were never really there at all.
These are what I came to know as the "Ghost Ships", a cluster of huge oil tankers moored just off the bay, which seemed to hang around for days without ever really going anywhere.
After a while, I started to feel quiet poetic about them as days inevitably turned into nights and their lights burned away on the horizon ever more brightly as the mists would also burn away.
Where had they come from? Why were they here? More to the point, why were they still there?
So many questions and precious few answers, so, as the mists swirled around them on those less than blazing mornings and evenings I tried to capture them on film thinking, at the very least, that the strange image of them floating there above the landscape might make an interesting cover for a book or inspire another painting, or perhaps even a story or two.
These are what I came to know as the "Ghost Ships", a cluster of huge oil tankers moored just off the bay, which seemed to hang around for days without ever really going anywhere.
After a while, I started to feel quiet poetic about them as days inevitably turned into nights and their lights burned away on the horizon ever more brightly as the mists would also burn away.
Where had they come from? Why were they here? More to the point, why were they still there?
So many questions and precious few answers, so, as the mists swirled around them on those less than blazing mornings and evenings I tried to capture them on film thinking, at the very least, that the strange image of them floating there above the landscape might make an interesting cover for a book or inspire another painting, or perhaps even a story or two.
Sometimes they are there for many days, perhaps even weeks, and, apart from those night-time lights, they shows few signs of life as they sat there lurking, waiting...
The reality is of course far more mundane and has more to do with economics that lost souls forever condemned to sail the high seas and wait for the right moment to be invited ashore. With the price of commodities fluctuating on the world markets, it's sometimes cheaper to pay the crews to sit and wait offshore until the price is right and profitable enough for the owners to sell on their cargoes.
But I don't know...
Like the lighthouse-keepers of old, too many days at sea can do strange things to the mind...
And, perhaps, thereby hangs another tale...
The reality is of course far more mundane and has more to do with economics that lost souls forever condemned to sail the high seas and wait for the right moment to be invited ashore. With the price of commodities fluctuating on the world markets, it's sometimes cheaper to pay the crews to sit and wait offshore until the price is right and profitable enough for the owners to sell on their cargoes.
But I don't know...
Like the lighthouse-keepers of old, too many days at sea can do strange things to the mind...
And, perhaps, thereby hangs another tale...
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