The Name Game: WPC

“What kind of a man doesn’t name his boat?”

Amber Silvia

THE TINA MARIE

THE TINA MARIE

I have a special reason for selecting my opening capture. Tina Marie is actually my full name , and for most of my young life the only other Tina’s I came across were a friend’s collie and an elephant on the Ed Sullivan show.  I hated my name and wished I’d been named Mary or Pat or Diane like the other girls in school. One day I asked my mom why she’d chosen my name and she told me she’d promised my grandmother she could name me – in fact she’d never much liked my name either. How sad is that???

So of course seeing an appropriately “aged” boat with my exact name was a special treat for me. Like my opening subject, I may show some wear and tear, but as the ad says, I too “take a lickin’ and keep on tickin'”!

THE "OTHER" TAJ-MAHAL

THE “OTHER” TAJ-MAHAL

“That’s what sailing is, a dance, and your partner is the sea.”

Michael Morpurgo

My second capture goes on to show that perception is reality – or as the saying goes, one man’s palace is another man’s prison. Clearly one man’s Taj Mahal is another man’s nightmare.  As I thought about this boat’s name it reminded me that how you feel about your life depends in large part on where you’ve come from.

HARD-WORKING

HARD AT  WORK

“We all came in on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

To children, it’s important to “fit in”, to be like everyone else. As we mature however, we learn it’s quite the opposite – it’s our individuality that makes us special.  Further, those of us lucky enough to travel come to learn how much our environment influences who we are, what we think, and how we feel about where we are in our lives.

PRINCE OF WHALES

PRINCE OF WHALES

“Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly.”

Van Morrison

Boats come in all shapes and sizes, as do the people who own them, work on them and/or travel in them. Like personalized license plates, the names of boats often tell us a great deal about their owners. Clearly, the owner of the zodiac above gave some serious thought to its name, which is quite clever, while the owner of the boat below is perhaps a bit less creative. 😀

5

5

“A small boat that sails the river is better than a large ship that sinks in the sea.”

Matshona Dhilwayo

On the other hand, while “5” may not be much of a name, it’s beats having no name at all – like the forlorn nameless boat below. One can only hope a fresh paint job will include a new name prominently displayed in it’s rightful place.  Being nameless, insignificant, anonymous –  how many people are faced with such a fate today? Remember the Cheers theme song?  We do indeed want to go where everybody knows our name.

NAMELESS

NAMELESS

“Sail away from the safe harbor….Explore, Dream, Discover.”

Mark Twain

Big, small…working or pleasure….named or nameless, they’re all boats and each has its own personality and purpose.  So too the melting pot of people who share our world, each contributing their own unique gifts.  As our new year begins to unfold, let us recognize that each of us has something to offer and if we look beyond the surface there’s a good chance we might find hidden treasures within.

 

 

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114 thoughts on “The Name Game: WPC”

  2. Fun post and great photos. What I think is cool is that boat owners think it’s bad luck to change a vessel’s name, so they often keep a name that means nothing (or something different) to them when they buy a boat from someone else. I often look at boat names and wonder how many owners ago the boat was named!

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    • How interesting! Didn’t realize that was a bad luck thing Lex – wonder how that ever got started?? I shall look at boat names with a new eye from now one. BTW, one of the commenters this week mentioned their boat name and when I asked her about it she said it was the name when they bought it and they had no idea why. So that supports your comment even further!

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  3. what a lovely take on this theme. such beautiful vessels.
     
    And I like the name Tina! I used to know a Tina who spent some time in Canada many years ago, and she eptimozes the term joie de vivre to me. Tina was (and probably still is) very creative, and she produced a beautiful piece of artwork when we moved into this home more than 20 years ago. It is still hanging above our fireplace, and I still love it.
     
    and I can still hear her laugh… so infectious.
     
    that’s a long way around of saying that your name is what you make it. and you obviously wear yours well, too. thanks for sharing your images and thoughts here with the blogging world, Tina! Go, you go! 🙂

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  4. I just realized that I used a wrong word… belies ” to give lie to the subject”. that’s the exact opposite of what I meant. More appropriate to my statement would be: The patina on old boats affirms the life and history of the mariners they protect.

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  9. 🙂 Hi Tina,
    I really like your selection of names. Especially yours! What a surprise to find a boat that carries one’s name. I bet you enjoyed that.
    Have a very HAPPY week xo 🙂

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  10. I think we’ve all had issues with our names. With mine, “can’t you call me, Dave?” But, I became okay with David over the course of time. But, I’ve been also called Dan, Don, Doug, Dall (short for Dallas?), etc.

    My sister was a little like you. She knew no one with the name Virginia. (Can’t I have a better name?) My mom had toyed with naming her Melanie (mom liked the name from Gone With The Wind). Dad talked mom into Virginia. Melanie became her middle name. Among her closest of friends, my sister was known as Ginny or Mel. I understood Ginny, but not Mel. (I caught on to Mel a little later.) I asked if I could call her Ginny like her friends. She gave the sister look of “no”. “What about Mel?” Not a chance. My sis eventually relented and let me to call her Ginny (like in college).

    The boat with no name, perhaps the crew knows. 🙂

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    • LOL David – one of my best friends here is from a long line of Virginias. We call her Ginny and her new granddaughter is Ginny Rose. It fits them both perfectly and I bet it fits your sister too. Never really thought the guys would give a care about their names but found your thoughts interesting as I’d have assumed the opposite. David is SO much more serious, mature and distinctive than Dave 😀 >

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  12. your words always bring a tear to my eye….just so brilliantly spoken…your analogy of boats to people!!!!!!!
    i just adore these and in a funny way just love #5! your truly captured the brilliance of each one….i also love the name TINA…
    and as far as ‘wear n tear’ not happening😜

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  14. Pingback: Names: Dura Vermeer | What's (in) the picture?

  18. what a beautiful boat captures Tina.
    It’s surprising that we can’t choose our names. By the time we attain an age where we can evaluate and grasp things our names are quite fixed with us. Some people do change their names but most choose to go with whatever was chosen for them.

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  19. Such an interesting story behind your name, Tina. I think if we accept ourselves, we can all grow into our names 😏 For a long time it took me to get used to Mabel. Love the boat theme to go with the names. Very clever. Funny how we all like to name things that matter to us. Wonderful captures of the boats in action.

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  21. When I think of the name Tina …Tina Turner immediately Springs to mind….and what an awesome woman she was!! …and you are because your images and thoughts are awesome!

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  24. A boat with your name on it, what a cool capture! And, you used it as a opening of this grand post. Your message is well delivered. Hope more people will read, think, and understand… I also think today’s youngsters need role models more than ever before.
    Thank you for the post, Tina!

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  25. Love these boats and quotes Tina , and yes … eventually we must I guess grow into our names . My middle name is Maria lol which I”ve always hated for me but then again ithankfully I only have to use the initial M most of the time 😉

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  26. What a great post Tina Marie (and what a lovely name), and I love all the comments. Since we are all talking about our names my mother nearly gave me a middle name of Samuel. Fortunately she decided on Michael otherwise I would have been an ASS all of my life, although some might say the initial hasn’t made any difference 🙂

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  27. I went with the boat theme too, but you excel with the words and the quotes. Do any of us really like our names? I always thought mine sounded very sombre (Judith) and meant for a child who wore white pinafores and said please and thank you and sat daintily on a chair whilst reading a book. Whereas I was always a bit of a tomboy, with grubby and scraped knees and bloody elbows!

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  28. I’m sure I’m not the first to say this but these photos make an excellent collection. You’ve inspired me to photograph boat names. They are pretty interesting. Our friends who are now retired have a great name for their boat: Knot Done Yet.

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  29. No one was named ‘Lois’ when I was growing up and that so annoyed me. Now when I run into a ‘Lois’ it is like we have our own special fan club–there’s not a lot of us! Exactly what you wrote about–growing into our names.

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  31. Lovely post, Tina. Great shots and text. I love what you wrote about the Tina Marie. I’m in the same “boat”–so to speak. I always thought I was given the wrong name. It just doesn’t fit me! Why didn’t I just change it to something I like??

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  32. Beautiful post.

    I’m reading Jonathan Raban’s “Passage to Juneau” right now, and he has a paragraph about his relationship with boat names. He writes about his own boat:

    “It was “it”, not “she”. Its first purchaser had given to boat a woman’s name, sign-painted, with curlicues, across the stern. But the name meant so little to me that it would take me a moment to recall it. It was just the name of somebody else’s wife or girlfriend, and anyway, the couple had probably split up now. Whenever possible, I preferred to identify the boat by its Washington State registration number, Whiskey November Eleven Ninety-six Romeo Bravo.”

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  35. A great selection of photos and quotes. I really love your take with the theme of varied boats – excellent! One mans boat is another mans “Taj-Mahal”!

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  36. What fabulous photos and narrations. You always amaze me with your creativity and fine photography. I thought I liked the little boat the best until I saw the reflection in the last picture. Hurray for all. And no matter what your name is, it can’t be any harder to live with than the name Rusha!

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  38. Well…..you and I have something in common. Josh was an unusual name when I was a kid —decades before it was destined to ring out incessantly through malls across America.

    There was me…….and someone’s dog that lived on our block.

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    • Thanks Colline – nah, as much as I disliked Tina, I disliked Marie even more! Happily I’ve grown used to it and as Sally commented earlier, I guess I’ve grown into it after all. >

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  41. Nice – boats are great for names! And I loved the addition of Prince of Whales – I see them all the time taking off from the Inner Harbour here, and have even taken a couple of whale-watching tours with them.

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    • I agree, they’re a great opportunity to say something about their owners! We did a tour on a larger boat and saw tons (literally) of orcas. It was a very very cold, wet day so I couldn’t imagine how cold the zodiac’ers must have been! Would be really fun on a nice day though. >

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      • It is really fun on a nice day – although I am always surprised how cold it is on the open ocean even on a warm July day! Hope you have a good weekend 🙂

  42. You’ve given these boats beautiful memory especially finding your name on one of them,Tina. As a boat person growing up, not a good memory. Needless to say, I am not fond of them, however, one needs to sail away and escape! Perpetua.

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  44. Tina, nice combination of images, your words and quotes… Names are a source of much deliberation. I wonder how many actually feel great about their monikers. Probably, those named after special people (relatives or friends of the family and the noted). Still, most have to grow into their names, as they grow into themselves.

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  49. As always Tina, your photos are wonderful, and your quotes and thoughts are inspirational. (By the way, love your name. Unique; as are you.)

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