A Fond Good Morning, World!
Hat tip to HMCS Cormorant
HMCS Cormorant, a retired Canadian Navy ship, has been listing in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, for over a decade, and now we’re talking about it on Virtual Mirage. Some of this blog’s Canadian visitors have been complaining that I haven’t posted much about the Canadian Navy.
HMCS Cormorant was a diving support vessel that served in the Canadian Navy. She was equipped with two SDL-1 submersibles (Canadian mini-subs: Submersible Diver Lock-Out). Initially constructed as the Italian trawler, Aspa Quarto, in 1965, the ship was acquired by the Canadian Forces in 1975 and renamed Cormorant. The vessel remained in service until 1997 when Cormorant was sold for scrap to a US buyer.
You might not have looked twice at the rusting hulk sinking slowly into the LaHave River, polluting the water between 1997 and now, but she’s gone to meet her end.
HMCS Cormorant’s missions included seizing drugs abandoned on the ocean floor and salvaging the ship’s bell from the wreck of the historic Edmund Fitzgerald. As the first of Her Majesty’s Canadian ships to have a partial female crew, she was dubbed, “The Love Boat”.
Cormorant was a bad posting for those with weak stomachs. Built as a bottom-heavy fishing trawler for Mediterranean waters, it carried two heavy submersibles on its deck—and all the tools to retrieve them. “She was a rough ride, like a corkscrew,” says Marcel Maynard, a diver and submersible technician. He recalled a storm off the coast of Florida. “I was so sick. I went up to the bridge because it was a mess down below, and we took a 47-degree roll.”
But the plucky Cormorant didn’t plunge to Davy Jones.
Pizza
It’s the most important meal of the day, and no, there is nothing wrong with cold pizza, so long as you didn’t find it under a sofa cushion after a party.
Kids in Cages
For years, former President Donald Trump was accused of putting migrant children in cages under what was actually an Obama-era policy.
Now, President Joe Biden is reopening a Texas facility that seems suspiciously reminiscent of the ones former President Barack Obama utilized during his administration.
According to CNN, the facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, will serve as an overflow area for children who arrive at the border.
Identify the Rifle
Clump of Brush
Pine tree vaguely shaped like a Swedish CV9030.
Ersatz Cannon
Syrian rebel mobile “Hell Cannon,” a DIY mortar that launches weaponized propane and oxygen tanks.
Mexican Narco-Tank (knocked out)
Don’t Judge
She’s just looking for a ride. And nobody rides for free…
Ah yes, I remember seeing Cormorant in Halifax back in the late 80s. Really odd looking with the submersibles sitting on the stern. Re the young lady, at least you ‘know’ what you’re getting… or not…LOL
You may know a lot more about her than I do. She was never built for war, mucking about in local waters, pulling up a ships bell or a dumped load of narcotics. It was an expensive hobby – a ship looking for something to do in order to feel useful.
The gun looks like an FG-42, German paratrooper rifle. The sideways mag and the weirdly canted pistol grip is what gives it away.
As to erzatz armored vehicles, it is what it is. “Technicals” are very popular in 3rd world nations. Coming soon to the USSA!
The girl looks… nice. But I prefer them older, a little more meat, and not stupid enough to stand in the middle of the road. Just saying.
Real women have curves… Older women:
They don’t tell…
They don’t swell…
They appreciate like hell…
Better NOT to get a social disease from a hitchhiker. Ask her for gas money if she wants a ride and put a towel on the seat for her so she doesn’t mess it up.
“DIY mortar that launches weaponized propane and oxygen tanks”
Care to elaborate?
They Syrians used them and for all I know they still do. They put a charge under the propane tank and it lobs a hundred yards or so and detonates tossing shrapnel. They work in the absence of other munitions.
Larry. Cold pizza for breakfast. I remember it well from the days of my youth, in the now so long ago. Go out drinking on a Friday evening/night. On the way home get the muchies. Buy a pizza. Eat it whilst walking home. Put what remained in the fridge on arrival. Crash. Saturday morning wake up hungry. Stagger to the kitchen, Open fridge. There sat the remains of last nights pizza, if flatmates had not already got to it. Sit at kitchen table. Eat cold pizza.
I’ve done that more than once.
Didn’t Canada used to have a strong Navy? A bit like Great Britain, and then it similarly got rid of its ships to pay for immigrant votes?
Come back, Canute, all is forgiven.
The Canadian Navy is a small defensive force optimized for operations in cold weather. I have no problems with their navy. It is what they want it to be.
At the end of WW2 Canada had the third largest navy in the world.
A land lubber to the core, it bothers me to see any vessel in that condition. What I think about is all the toil and effort good people put into that vessel when it was operational. That must be a sad feeling for them.
Fallschirmjägergewehr 42 (FG 42)
Hmm. If it stayed heeled over like that for a decade w/o sinking, maybe it was supposed to sit that way?
Looks like Oregon, actually I think I’ve driven that same road. Pretty scenery up there, and it’s only really post-apocalyptic in Portland. Hitch-hiking is specifically legal there, one of their better laws.
-Kle.
the gun does look like a FG42, but those had a long gas tube under the barrel. Best guess is that this is a modern replica. The original was one great gun, if fiddly: it could fire from both open bolt or closed.
Certainly looks like a replica using M14 mags probably by SMG. It’s a spike bayonet under the barrel on the originals I believe and not a gas tube. I got to handle an original some years back but not shoot it.
Im pretty sure that is Mount Washington or “squaw tit” as it is known locally. I know, not a very politically correct term but that makes saying or writing it just a bit more enjoyable. Im fine with the young lady in the road also.
Yeah, that would square with my memories of that road trip.
-Kle.