The Colors Are Funky Cause It's Inverted For Sensory Reasons But THE JUXTAPOSITION-

the colors are funky cause it's inverted for sensory reasons but THE JUXTAPOSITION-

it's you and me, there's nothing like this

the HMS Terror and the Erebus (okay!)

personal blurb ahead 

this may not be very coherent bc I'm exhausted but honestly opening myself up to this interest (clusterfuck arctic expeditions, and arctic stuff in general) being something I rlly genuinely want to get more into has felt so so wonderful, like coming home in a way, and I could not for the life of me figure out why. I've lived in a lush desert all my life, I've never been there. and it certainly wasn't the cannibalism aspect, ya know? even tho historical horror is fascinating. so I puzzled over it and it hit me like a tidal wave today as to why. 

when I was little (like. very little. maybe six) I fell in love with Balto, the movie, and through that, the arctic. like I saw it in planet earth and stuff later but it was mainly balto. I remember trying to beg my parents to take me to alaska, which they didn't bc (their words) it was too cold in the winter and too many mosquitoes in the summer, and rhey were afraid I wouldn't like it. but it stuck in my mind and my heart for years. and then it didn't.

I've been through a lot of nonsense, and as a result of trauma and other stuff I often feel this void where it feels like connection should be, and not just in regard to not remembering (tho that is also a thing). I remember some stuff about my childhood, but sometimes it just feels flat or absent or only scary and I feel like my child self was killed and I was what came after, like some kind of ghost haunting my own life. 

that lil kid who wanted to prance around in snowboots and a big coat and hat and look at all the snow and ice and animals and arctic culture and stuff didn't die. when it clicked I just burst into tears and thought 'she isn't dead, I didn't kill her'. there's some part of me that is the same, is sharing, and yearns for similar things. 

so thank you all for talking abt this show and topic so much. You made me feel less wierd about reading about it which made me feel something so lovely. (and I am enjoying it in general! lol. like regardless)

I may not be around much, bc of my disability it's astronomically hard to type right now and I can look at very little, but yeah. very thankful for the space y'all have created ❤️

“Goodsir suggested, jokingly I trust, that we capture one of these beasts (a seal) and set it up on deck as some kind of local dignitary which we could consult on matters pertaining to our voyage, much as the Greeks attended their oracles when they wished the future to be made clear.”

Journal entry from James Fitzjames 19 July 1845- North With Franklin by John Wilson

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

my therapist had to listen to me talk about the franklin expedition for most of the session yesterday what have y'all done to me