Flotsam and Jetsam in the Indian Ocean

Have you watched the 2013 Robert Redford movie All Is Lost? It gives you pause for consideration if your plan is to cross the Indian Ocean soon. We watched the movie and actually enjoyed it though other sailors panned it as unrealistic if you're a real sailor. He made mistakes and perhaps didn't prepare for potential problems. Conversely, he did some pretty innovative things in an attempt to save his boat. There were some issues with details, but in general, we thought it was a reasonably good flick. The fact that his boat ending up sinking certainly didn't dissuade us from wanting to cross the Indian Ocean.  

There seems to be an inordinate amount of flotsam and jetsam in the Indian Ocean however. First, let's define flotsam and jetsam. Flotsam is debris floating in the ocean that got there by accident and it apparently comes from the French word floter, to float. Jetsam, a derivative of jettison, is debris floating out there that was deliberately thrown overboard, perhaps from an overburdened vessel. You've heard of the horse latitudes, haven't you? There's a lot of both flotsam and jetsam floating around out there, we imagine. We've certainly seen what washes ashore and it's got to float in from somewhere.

There's the possibility of finding some debris from the Malaysian Airline Flight 370 that purportedly disappeared over the Indian Ocean. Those loose ship containers are found in the all the oceans including the Indian. The odds of hitting one are low, and we're hoping since Robert Redford found one, we won't. And don't forget that the SkyLab crashed over the Indian Ocean back in 1979. Though much of the debris ended up near Esperance in the Australian Outback, who's to say that NASA didn't do a thorough enough clean-up and there's still SkyLab remnants floating around in the Indian? I think it would be classified at jetsam, by the way.

In case you're wondering, we also read and watched The Perfect Storm way back when we were first started out on Nine of Cups in 2000. We actually anchored in Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts, the home port of the fishing vessels involved. It did not deter us from sailing, but big waves certainly get our attention as do “perfect” weather patterns. We'll try to avoid both.

Huge Littering Fine in Esperance, WA

 

Walking by the Esperance Museum the other day, we did a double-take. There sitting on their front lawn was a rather large replica of the US space station, SkyLab. “What on earth for?”, we wondered. A huge banner on the side of the building proclaimed “In 1979, a spaceship crashed over Esperance. We fined them $400 for littering.” They had us … we had to go in for a visit and learn more.

On May 14, 1973, Skylab, the United States' first space station, was launched unmanned by a Saturn V at the Kennedy Space Center. Three manned missions to the station were conducted between 1973 and 1974. The orbiting workshop was designed for research on scientific matters, such as the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body. Though Skylab was devised for just a 9-year lifespan, NASA hadn't really planned for bringing the craft back to Earth at the end of its mission. Oops! In late 1978, when NASA engineers discovered the station’s orbit was decaying rapidly, there was a mad rush to come up  with a solution … one alternative … alter its orbit and let it become space junk. That didn't work and it became evident Skylab was coming home … in a blaze of glory. In the early morning hours of July 12, 1979, in Skylab's final orbital path, it's 34,981st, the craft began breaking up over the Indian Ocean, but many of its pieces cascaded to Earth in the Esperance area. Miraculously, no lives were lost and minimal damage was done.

One large glass display in the museum encased numerous pieces of Skylab.

Some were so large, they didn't fit into the display case.

About the littering fine … The Esperance municipality fined the United States $400 for littering ... someone had to collect all those spacecraft parts strewn hither and thither about the area. The hefty fine was never paid. Nevada-based Highway Radio's host, Scott Barley, happened to read about the unpaid fine and, on a lark, challenged his morning show listeners to raise the funds. He was successful and the fine was paid on behalf of NASA in 2009. The check was cashed, but a copy remains in the museum. It seems Esperance forgave the 30 years of late fees and interest and even accepted the paid fine in US dollars. Pretty generous of them!

Skylab's crash was obviously not a surprise and therefore bets were placed worldwide on the time and place of its re-entry to earth. The San Francisco Examiner offered a $10,000 prize for the first piece of Skylab to be delivered to their offices. Stan Thornton, a 17-year old Esperance fellow, climbed onto his roof, collected a few pieces of Skylab, caught a flight to San Fran and collected the prize. How cool is that.

A little Skylab trivia for you …

The Skylab program cost $2.2 billion from 1966 to 1974, or $16 billion in 2014 inflation-adjusted dollars. Its three missions of three-man crews spent 510 total man-days in space; each man-day costs $21 million in 2014 dollars.

… the rest of the museum. It's been housed in an old railroad goods shed (1902) and a Customs bonding shed (1895) since 1976 and it's crammed full of local memorabilia, railroad cars, farm implements, a pilot boat … pretty much every facet of life from the 19th century to present in Esperance is represented.

They even have a tin dunny (outhouse) on display, a single-holer complete with a large spider hanging in the corner. It seems redback spiders like hiding in dunnies … especially under the toilet seat. Ouch! There's even a song about it. Have a listen.