Really big ships

When I was 14, my family spent a rather disastrous vacation in the Cape Fear area of North Carolina: It was hotter than two hells, my father caught the flu, our TV broke, and the house wasn't really what we were promised. Still, we tried to tough it out. I will always remember that trip for two reasons. One, we went to see the film "Jaws" one day. I was so scared of the water, that I wouldn't turn my back to the surf whilst building sand castles; apparently I thought the great white shark was going to walk on its fins and cover the dozen feet of sand to get to me.

The other memorable event was visiting the battleship USS North Carolina, a floating museum in Wilmington, NC.

I was in love.

Everything about the ship struck me. The bleached teak decks, the massive-yet-graceful lines, the endless corridors, the dizzying heights of the upper decks. Even the smell of the lubricating oil brought back some kind of false memory, and closing my eyes I could see, hear, feel and even smell the south Pacific , circa 1944. Perhaps in an earlier life I went down with my destroyer, victim of a Japanese torpedo. Or perhaps I was just an imaginative 14-year-old boy.

The fate of old ships has fascinated me ever since. These floating examples of cutting-edge technology go from being protected secrets and national assets to so many tons of scrap in such a short time. I think it's wonderful that so many other retired ships have become museums, but so many more suffer less distinctive fates. I remember in the 80's seeing an aircraft carrier being systematically dismantled near the Harbor Tunnel entrance in Baltimore. It took months, and each trip north I'd see a little more of the poor ship's innards exposed. Humiliating.

Some day I'd love to photograph the mothball fleets. One is at Suisun Bay at Benicia, near Martinez, CA. I think this is the USS Missouri on the right -- the ship on which the Japanese articles of surrender were signed. Sitting in a bay, quietly rusting away. If she becomes a museum, will her engines even fire? Or will she have to be towed?

How humiliating...