K-BAR!

Now this is my preferred sheath knife. It's a Navy KA-BAR. It is the modern equivalent of my grandfather's old version (now lost to me, I fear). This is the third one of these I've owned, and has yet to see a field deployment (I just got it a few weeks ago). My first well-worn KA-BAR had an untimely rendezvous with the bottom of the Delaware Bay back around 1995. Its replacement resided in my old olive-drab field bag, which I inadvertently left on the ground at a site around 1998. When I recalled that I left my bag behind, I returned - within 15 minutes, the bag, the knife, clipboard, pencils, and other sundries (bug spray, poncho, gum, etc.) were all gone. I hope the thief falls on the KA-BAR point up.

The KA-BAR is a great field knife - quick to draw when working around nets, line, and other potentially deadly fishing gear, light enough to wear all day (I wear it sailor style, in the back near the small of my back so that it can be reached with either hand), well balanced, sharp, and the leather grips don't get all slippy even when your hands are slimy from fish.

Many people don't understand the utility of a large, sharp sheath knife on a work boat. I used to require all of my crew to have one while on board, and I used to have dollar store steak knifes all over the place in case of an accident. Before you scoff, recognize that I learned this lesson the hard way while bottom trawling Shinnecock Bay in 1991. We were just beginning to shoot a 16' trawl off the back of a pontoon boat, when the net snagged on the quick-lace of my hiking boots (lesson 2 - never, ever wear boots with quick-lace eyelets on a work/research boat). In a blink, I was on deck and being dragged toward the stern along with the net - through jellyfish, fish slime, and algae. A readily accessible knife would have put an end to this ten seconds pf panic - as it was (an by sheer luck), the quick-lace eyelet bent, releasing me just before going overboard with the net.

So to those of you who think carrying a so-called "Rambo" knife in the field is overkill, think again.

Poor tree.

Here's a big U.S. Navy Mark 74 telescope - once used for sighting big guns (> 5") on navy ships. The builder's plate indicates a manufacture date of 1944, so this sight may have helped sink some Japanese or German ships - who knows?



This was my first purchase many years ago on the fledgling E-Bay. It's mostly brass, and weighs about 20 lbs. I won the auction for something like $5.00, and I think shipping was around $15.00. The scrap value alone probably makes it a good buy!

Anyway, the optics are good (if a little dirty), and the crosshairs are fine.

Here's a shot through it drawing a bead on my neighbor's tree with no color filter:


Here's a shot through it drawing a bead on my neighbor's tree with a yellow filter:


Here's a shot through it drawing a bead on my neighbor's tree with a red filter:


You're thinking: "What's that poor tree ever done to you?", right?

Nothing. Which is why I ended up not shooting it with the 5" naval gun sticking out of my living room window.

Coming in for a landing...

...Landing Craft Mechanized, Mark 8, LCM(8) that is.

Registry number 201,803.

I don't have the actual landing craft, of course.

But I do have its builder's plate. I don't know HOW I got its builder's plate - or more precisely, I don't know how its builder's plate ended up in a stack of junk I was clearing out of a locker on a boat I used to work on. It was in amongst some ancient (1970's) Penthouse mags and old net supply catalogs. Because the printed, er, literature, was already over 20 years old, this was the only thing I considered worthy of keeping.

For the initiated, Higgins was famous for manufacturing landing craft, brown-water navy vessels of all sort (i.e. for Vietnam), and, most famously - the PT boats of WWII. With perseverance, one could look up the history of LCM8 201,803 on the internet. I have chosen to delegate this historical exercise to someone (anyone) more dedicated to the task than I.