I blame @WriteGrlProbs for this.

ギュスターヴ・モロー『イアソン』1865年 オルセー美術館

Birth Of Venus #artbots #bouguereau

Herbert James Draper — The Pearls of Aphrodite, 1907

What do ship officers actually do on the bridge in the middle of the ocean? Is it boring? Coming into port and getting underway are the busy parts. You’ve got pilots, tugs, traffic, currents, shallow water, anchors, lines, engines changing speed, radios going constantly and a lot of people moving around the bridge. Officers are plotting positions evey six minutes, changing courses, talking to vessel traffic control, checking the pilot, monitoring the helmsman follows the pilot commands. Once you clear the coast and get into deep water, things change dramatically. Most large ships are on autopilot. It’s not a smart autopilot. Before sailing, we build a passage plan that may contain dozens of waypoints. Once we’re offshore, a modern ship can steer between those waypoints but usually we put it in hand steering for course changes and leave the autopilot to do the straight lines. The autopilot basically does one job: hold the heading or track we tell it to hold. It doesn’t know that the fishing boat six miles ahead is doing something stupid. It can’t hear the VHF radio. It doesn’t know there’s a squall line developing. It doesn’t know the captain’s standing orders. It doesn’t know the company called to change our routing. That’s why there is always a licensed officer on the bridge. Usually there’s also a lookout, depending on the ship, company and conditions but if it’s a clear day in the middle of nowhere the officer might be the only person on the bridge. The job is mostly monitoring. Radar. AIS. ECDIS. Compass. GPS. Depth. Weather. Engine status. Radio traffic. Other ships. And most importantly, looking out the windows. Every few minutes you’re mentally updating the same picture: Where are we? Where is everyone else? What are they doing? What has changed? What could go wrong? In heavy traffic this can be extremely busy. In the middle of the Pacific at 0300, with the nearest ship 40 miles away, it can be extremely quiet. And yes, boring. You might spend four hours staring at a black horizon with absolutely nothing happening. But the problem with standing bridge watch is that you never know when four hours of nothing is going to become 90 seconds of chaos. A ship appears. A radar target changes course. A fishing boat without AIS pops up. Visibility suddenly disappears. An alarm sounds. The engine room calls. That’s why you can’t completely switch off. Phones are generally restricted on watch. Headphones are banned too because watchstanders are required to watch AND listen. You need to hear the radios, alarms, fog signals and what’s happening around you. Some captains allow quiet music on the bridge offshore. Others don’t. Some sitting but not for too long. Mostly pacing. The biggest change 30 years is paperwork. In the 90s you would be chastised for doing anything but watching, now mates do a lot of mindless paperwork and computer training to comply with UN @IMOHQ regulations. Today most ships have computers, tablets and electronic charts on the bridge. Conversation fills a lot of time. Sometimes you get great conversations with crew on breaks or the lookout,. Sometimes you hear the same conversation every sailor has been having for 200 years: The company is terrible. The last captain was crazy. The next port is terrible. The previous ship was better. Lots of rumors and conspiracy theories. Someone has discovered an investment opportunity that is absolutely guaranteed to make everyone rich. Then there are the nights I personally like best. Middle of the ocean. No moon. Almost no traffic. Phosphorescence everywhere. Bridge lights red and turned all the way down. And millions of stars overhead that most people on land will never see. You stand there doing fifteen knots through absolute darkness, thousands of miles from home, responsible for the ship and everyone sleeping below you. Only you and the lookout are awake, Most of the time, nothing happens at all.

"Nymph Discovering a Mermaid in the Reeds" by Georges-Marie-Julien Girardot (1856–1914). I like nymphs, fairies, rusalki and all those strange creatures that are supposed to live deep in forests, lakes and marshes. They seem to have been much more common in art than they are today... perhaps they’re still hiding, and wisely so. Here a nymph has just discovered a mermaid in the reeds, which feels like exactly the sort of thing that could happen if you wander far enough from civilization.

Reclining Nude (c. 1925) by René François Xavier Prinet