Post Office Bay

a conduit of culture and friendship out in the Pacific Ocean

At first, the distinction between pirates, buccaneers, privateers, whalers, sailors, and the military was not very clear. Pirates initially were sailors for hire. It was in retrospect where they became the caricature Captain Jack Sparrow and the like. Mostly though they were sailors, and often they were on the hunt for whales. There was a time when sperm whale oil was the prime natural resource for the industrializing world, when it lit the streets of the cities we were building. The search for this resource sent us far out onto the oceans; this was before the first Petroleum well was tapped in Pennsylvania. It created a well-paid harsh job for those who were willing to go to sea, to seek themselves, find themselves, have adventures, and feel the vastness, as well as make a small fortune if one could survive.

Crude oil and coal mines are the newer version of that corruption of the globe, the natural resources often are found in those far off sublime quarters, the deserts, the North, the sea, or even unobligingly trapped within beautiful living creatures.