So I know there is a lot of them out there but never really heard any but the one about banana’s on when charter bottom fishing. The deck hand saw me eating a banana and said it was bad luck when I asked why he said that whole boats of men on banana boats would be found dead or go missing. He said the legend is that the seas would turn on them and wash them off the boats or they would lose there way and go mad, or spiders would bite and kill them all. I know they are not true but they make good stories on long boat rides so please share.
17ft Key west
Never go out in a boat with more than 2 Gingers unless you also take a priest! (Seriously, those gingers are soulless)
Annoy a Liberal, Work Hard and Be Happy!
Now, now, I have a ginger at home. He is my little buddy.
“Apathy is the Glove in Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.
This is what I’ve heard over the years
"One of the creepier superstitions is that banana cargo could actually kill a man. In actuality, fermenting bananas do give off methane gas, which could conceivably get trapped below deck and kill any crew members unlucky enough to be working in the hold. Another popular theory was that venomous spiders hitched rides in bananas, and once those bananas were onboard, the boat would be host to any number of lethal critters. And then, of course, there’s the theory that banana peels cause crew members to slip and fall on deck "
www.baturinphotography.com
I’m not sure about methane (could be true for all I know) but I do know that bananas give off ethylene gas. It (like methane or any gas) can pool up and suffocate anyone in the same room. Ethylene gas will also cause other fruits to ripen quickly. This is why placing bananas in a bag will ripen them extremely quickly (to the point of rotting in 2 days from “green” sometimes). They offgass ethylene in large quantities, and the ethylene causes them to ripen quicker, sort of like a runaway diesel.
I also give a lot of credit to the spider theory (esp. if you combine the two theories since both are plausible). Remember the song “Day-Oh!”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQXVHITd1N4
It’s about stacking boxes of bananas all night on the dock waiting for shipment. Part of the lyrics say this:
“A beautiful bunch o’ ripe banana
Daylight come and me wan’ go home
Hide the deadly black tarantula
Daylight come and me wan’ go home”
“Sire, it belongs in truth to the Church of God, in whose name I speak, to endure blows and not to inflict them. But it will also please your Majesty to remember that she is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.”…Theodore Beza
One of the old docks that is owned by the State Ports Authority next to Columbus Street or Union Pier used to be referred to the Bananna Dock. It’s where they used to unload them back in the day. The way I heard it from a port guy was that in the days before refrigeration, the bananas would basically liquefy in the holds and that the sloppy fermented fruit would roll around and throw the ballast off. It was considered dangerous cargo.
Narcosis
An old superstition in my family is never take off in the boat when the grass in the yard is high - mainly because you’d get in trouble when you got home.