Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 03/10/2026From personal experience being a union mariner means you can throw a cup of water in your bosses face over a dispute about your deckhands having a break in hot weather and not getting fired and still having an amiable relationship with the boss. Working on ships is an entire different world 090
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I was bosun on a ship and the chief mate called an hour before work started to me to ask if me and my deckhands were going to be at the morning meeting on time. I charged him an hour of overtime because he called me before work. The captain signed off on it. Sets boundaries 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I remember a chief mate wanting to take away our chair on the bridge of our ship and my very over torqued union brother yelled at him with veins popping and eyes ablaze “our union fought and bled so we could have a chair!” We kept our chair 21095
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Passed a wedding on the Columbia River while working on a chevron tanker. We gave them a toot on the whistle and everyone waved, we waved back. It was nice. 050
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Me, a coast guard veteran and merchant mariner, reading posts about rust on a ship and struggling not to reply. But really though, it’s a ship and it’s at sea. 141
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 21/08/2026I was in a firefighting class with a former crew member of a fishing boat and he said all they had was a garden hose 110
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 07/08/2026I got to watch him eat a burger at a Seattle Sounders game 101
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Third picture is a record I bought in Seattle after my wife died and I sold our house. I spent $100. Lydia Lunch, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. I had to have it 100
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Second picture is a giant pickup truck with a giant illuminated sign on the grill that says call on Jesus. That’s outside a Walmart in 2012. Some people just have too much money to spend on stupid shit i guess 100
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Forgot to alt text. First picture is an m14 rifle that has Jesus written on tape on the stock. It’s actually haysoos, guys from Mexico. The guy sitting next to it is Muhammad a black Muslim. Military sealift command training in San Diego 100
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Annie vs the turkeys at puget sound goat rescue. Annie had never defeated the turkeys 011
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Full moon with cranes on the USNS Gilliland. Jacksonville 2012. Top 10 favorite picture I’ve taken. 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 02/07/2026There’s still a cannon on Diego Garcia from that era on the appropriately named cannon beach. It’s also where the working dogs cemetery is 130
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 01/07/2026In hindsight a slow bell would have been more appropriate as opposed to my normal let’s haul ass mode 190
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 01/07/2026This reminds me of when I was in the US Coast Guard and worked at an aids to navigation team. I ran a boat aground in the Navesink river in New Jersey because we removed all the seasonal buoys. That wasn’t a great day. 2662
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 22/06/2026In 1996 I was at a grocery store in Albuquerque late at night and Never Say Never by Romeo Void came on. The cashier and I looked at each other then looked at the speaker in silence like it was the weirdest thing that ever happened to us 0111
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 02/06/2026I had a lot of cocktails and some extra money a few years ago in Seattle and I bought this. I can’t say I regret it. 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 28/05/2026The museum of anthropology is pretty great moa.ubc.camoa.ubc.caHome - Museum of Anthropology at UBCWelcome to the Museum of Anthropology, a place of world arts and cultures with a special emphasis on the First Nations peoples and other cultural communities of British Columbia, Canada. 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 16/05/2026Wait until you find out where the Seattle Thunderbirds play 100
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 07/05/2026Imagine being a guy (me) having to steer a car carrier past the golden ray. Food for thought 020
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 01/05/2026When I was in the coast guard in the 80s I could be standing around with my buddies smoking and bullshitting and the boatswains mate would tell the non smokers to get back to work and the smokers to go ahead and finish your cigarette even if the BM didn’t smoke. 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 01/05/2026Keep it up man. I’ve had my struggles with alcohol and somehow became addicted to ice water 🤷🏻♂️. I’m rooting for you 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 30/04/2026My elementary school had a cop come in to talk about winter safety. He said never put a rock in a snowball because someone could get injured. It never occurred to us to do that until that moment. Kids got injured. 0587
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 27/04/2026I love him, and he’s not technically an object, but it’s this fuckin guy 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 15/04/2026Sorry to be a bummer, just an old sailor jumping in with nautical disasters 110
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 15/04/2026The thing about it is there’s land right there and over there and more there and over 1,200 people died. It happened right by Rikers Island not out at sea. “The panic was horrific among the passengers as they faced death by drowning or being burned alive on the ship.” www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06... 110
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 15/04/2026When I was in the us coast guard in the late eighties we took some people to the General Slocum disaster site to put wreaths in the water. It happened in 1904 but knowing about how awful it was and how it basically destroyed an entire community is something I still think about every so often 110
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 12/04/2026John Fetterman stars in Oaf Cop coming this fall on CBS 32649
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 31/03/2026I met an Australian in San Diego with a Jeff Lynne tattoo. He said I was like one of three people that knew who it was 030
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 19/03/2026Bellevue where my condo with less than 900 square feet sold for $452,000 three years ago 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 10/03/2026I went to coast guard boot camp in Cape May NJ and spent one hour on the water in eight weeks. What we did could be done on a small lake. I am not defending Noem, who I despise and think has been a stain on the coast guard but the new tracen doesn’t need to be on the water. 000
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 01/03/2026Wait until they see a convoy of Strykers driving down 405 through Bellevue 100
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 21/02/2026I liberated an allen wrench from the coast guard in 1990 and finally found a use for it in 2012. I even commemorated the event. 010
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 12/02/2026He also knew the same people as I did but I just do not remember him from that time. 000
Ken Johns ⚓️ @deckape.bsky.social · 12/02/2026Marc Maron, he was a senior when I was a freshman. I must have met him since he hung out at some of the same places I did besides school. He worked at a bagel shop I frequented but I don’t remember him. 110