Coffee Tastes Better When It's Cold Outside

So there I was...pulling the boat along side the dock in Phoenix, NY just before the first lock that I would have to go through on the Oswego Canal.  To get to Lake Ontario you have to leave the Erie Canal bearing North onto the Oswego Canal.   It had been cold and rainy all day while traveling to this point.  Though I like the cold, sometimes the rawness of it seeps into my bones when the wet and cold come together.  My bones were telling me to find something warm, quick.  I secured Eventide and walked down the street to a little coffee shop called State Street Cafe.  The owner, Tammy, was incredibly cheerful and sympathetic to my long cold day on the water.  She begins to tell me that what I need is some of her homemade hot chicken and bisquit stew with a hot cup of coffee.  Then I should have a piece of, just out of the oven,  apple pie with a dollup of ice cream melted on top to finish it off and another cup of coffee.  Though normally frugal to a fault at this point I didn't care how much it cost.  What a joy it was to sit there eating and drinking warmth back into my happy bones.  The simplest of things can mean so much.  The cup of hot chocolate tastes so much better after you've come in out of the freezing cold and the tall glass of ice tea feels so good going down on a hot summers day.  It is the extremes in life that produce real living.  To avoid the discomfort is to never truly understand how wonderful comfort can feel.  By the way, it was less than ten dollars.  I know!
I was there too late in the season to take advantage of a group of kids that are called the Bridge House Brats that take care of all of the boaters needs for free.  Pick up groceries for you, wash your boat, walk your dog, and much more.  They will accept tips but there is no charge.  Google Bridge House Brats, you will be amazed.  
Kim drove in to spend the weekend on the boat with me and we went apple picking for the first time in our 30 year marriage.  I don't know why it took so long because that is so much fun.  Back to State Street Cafe for Caramel Apple Crepes that rivaled the crepes we had in Paris.
Kim left on Sunday evening and in the next few days I made my way through the locks and into Lake Ontario.  Not an easy trip to Rochester but I am tucked in a marina waiting for Eventide to be put on dry land for the winter.   Glad to be back with Kim but I don't like living and sleeping in a house that doesn't rock and I can't hear the waves.  Sometimes it's good to switch to tea from coffee for awhile.

Flight of Five

So there I was... at the docks in Waterford NY waiting for Kim to arrive so she could go through the first set of five locks with me.  A guy named Rick on a 40' trawler started talking to me who had just come the length of the Erie Canal from west to east.  I would be going from east to west.  He was from California and boated the Pacific Northwest for years but always wanted to do the Erie Canal.  So he went online, found the boat he wanted, negotiated the price he wanted (which was a great price), flew out to a port on Lake Erie, fixed the boat to his liking and off he went.  When I left him he was heading south down the Hudson River with a finishing point in Florida or the Bahamas.  When he gets there he will sell the boat, at a profit I'm sure,  and fly home to California.  How cool is that?  He gave me some great tips for doing the Erie Canal single-handed since Kim would only be helping for one day.  Speaking of Kim...
She showed up right on time and the next day she drove the car to lock 7 leaving it there and rode her bicycle 16 miles back on a bike trail along side the canal to where the boat was at Waterford.  We spent her 50th birthday the following day doing what is known as the "Flight of Five" or the "Waterford Flight"on the Erie Canal.  These five locks, in close proximity to each other, would lift our boat 169 ft and constitutes the greatest verticle lift in the shortest distance of any locks in the world.  This is twice as high as the total lift of the Panama Canal.   It seemed aprapoe that Kim was celebrating her own "Flight of Five" and so after each lock she would tell me what major events happened in her life during that decade.  A few tears were shed as we went through the locks and the decades.   Not by me of course.  
I went on alone after this and I am tied to a wall at the entrance of Oneida Lake after going through locks 21 and 22 earlier today.  Lock 17 was the toughest with it's 40 ft elevation, the highest on the Erie Canal.  Imagine coming up to a four story building with a long rope hanging from the roof to the ground.  You hang onto this verticle rope trying to keep your 17,000 lb boat from moving all over the lock chamber while water floods in to fill the lock.  My arms were so tired that night.  I have a four hour trip across the lake tomorrow so I'll say goodnight.

Always On The Move

So there I was...leaving Manhassett, on the north shore of Long Island, early in the morning heading for Hell's Gate in the East River toward Manhattan.  Taking a hard right before I got to the "big city", I headed up the Harlem River.  I couldn't stop singing the song Spanish Harlem the whole distance of the river until I came to the Hudson River.  There were no songs for the Hudson River.  Then there was a very bumpy night spent at anchor in the bay created by Croton Point.  This was followed by a drive by of West Point and later that day I anchored in a quiet harbor 2 1/2 miles up a creek in Kingston, NY having a meal at a creekside bar with some very colorful individuals.  The next day I was on to another anchorage in another creek just south of Coeymans, NY where I spent two days of solitude followed by a nerve racking morning feeling my way through the pea soup fog and rain to make it to the marina where I took on 145 gallons of diesel fuel to the tune of $641.37.  The very pregnant young women who helped me with dock lines then took my money with a big smile making that pill go down a little easier.  Off into the rain I went making my way through Albany and onto the Federal Lock in Troy, NY, the first of many locks that I will navigate in the coming weeks.  Just a short distance from there was the entrance to the Erie Canal. As I write this I'm tied to a dock just below the first of 30 locks and 184 miles of canal before I find myself in Lake Ontario, one of our Great Lakes.  Then another 75 miles to get to Rochester, NY.  Why Rochester, you might ask?  That's where Kim, the love of my life, lives. 

Go West Not So Young Man

So there I was...motoring into the dock with my dingy in Mattituck Harbor on the north shore of Long Island.  Getting into their dingy to go back out to their sailboat was a couple a few years older than me and we struck up a conversation about the old 1953 3hp Johnson outboard engine that I used on my dingy.  As the conversation progressed we got to talking about how the woman, who was in great shape, had just been kiteboarding all afternoon on the bay.  Kiteboarding is where you hold on to a large kite to propel you across the the top of the water, often at great speeds, on what looks like a small surfboard.  It is an intense sport and I was impressed that this "not so young" woman was proficient in it.  The conversation eventually turned to living a minimalist lifestyle on our boats. Being an advocate of the minimalist philosophy I was explaining how my wife and I had sought to downsize making our life simpler, cheaper and more fullfiling.  Always wanting more is endless and requires all your time maintaining more and working too much to afford it all.  Wanting less creates a feeling of accomplishment as you give things up, while financially and emotionally simplifying your life giving you more time to invest in the things that really matter.  I read once a quote that said, "The quickest way to make a man rich is to decrease his wants".  The couple proceeded to tell me of their home in the woods on 7 acres of land with no electricity and a pipe from a nearby stream leading into the house for water.  For many years they had lived and loved this simple life allowing them to work and live in their very modest home in the winter and travel the east coast in the summer living on their boat.  Her job for the day was to go kiteboarding.  His job was to carry it to the beach and back.  I decided they won the minimalist challenge.
Yesterday I raised anchor and did an 8 hour cruise going west toward New York City going by the harbors of Port Jefferson and Oyster Bay.  As I passed Oyster Bay the water in Long Island Sound became deep red, almost like blood.  Thoughts of God telling Moses to turn the water in the Nile River to blood came to mind.  In this case it is what's called Red Tide, an algal bloom that has been a problem in New England waters.  It's very disconcerting.  I motored into Manhasset Harbor and got one of their free moorings for a couple nights.  From here I will make my run through Hell's Gate, up the Harlem River and into the Hudson River.  Going west as simply as I can.

Mystic Storm

So there I was... sitting in the cockpit in a protected harbor just south of the train bridge in the Mystic River watching the sunset as I like to do most days.  I had picked this spot as I heard strong winds were heading my way and indeed they were already building.  The forcast had called for 50 mph gusts and heavy rains but I had been dug in for two days and felt good as the storm approached.  I felt good until I realized I was slowly moving because the anchor was dragging through the silty soft bottom of the river.  I had problems with this area before but had since increased the size of my anchor thinking I had it figured out.  The winds had now increased to about 30 mph and it was getting dark fast.  Reanchoring a vessel single-handed and in extreme conditions is not easy but I was surprised how I seemed to take it in stride.  I think living out here day in and day out I've sort of grown accustomed to the movements, sounds and situations that used to bother me before.  As the storm howled outside through the night I got up a few times to check on things but otherwise slept well.  I like this life...even the tough parts.  I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned there.
Heading for the north shore of Long Island tomorrow but a meal at the pub in Captain Daniel Packer Inn in Mystic is a must.  Give it a try if you're ever here.  Goodbye Connecticut.

Newport Is Crazy Busy

So there I was...catching a little breakfast at the Seamen's Church Institute, an icon in Newport, originally started in 1919 to serve those who worked and traveled the sea.  It is a place where cruisers, like myself, can get an inexpensive breakfast, take a hot shower, wash your clothes and spend some quality time in its library and chapel.  I was sitting across from this couple and eventually we were telling our tales to each other.  Seems Scott and Mary Flanders have lived on their 46' Nordhavn trawler since 2006, one of the most seaworthy trawlers built and had taken her around the world and then some.  They write articles for a prominent boating magazine called Passagemaker and are well known in the cruising community.  A wealth of information and I got to pick their brain and enjoy their company for an hour.  What an amazing couple, what an amazing life.
Dove on a friends boat yesterday to clean the growth, mussels, sea squirts and barnicles off of his running gear (that's the shaft and propeller for my non-nautical friends) .  Took awhile as it had gotten to garden proportions.  When I got out of the water these little critters that look like miniature walking sticks with, I think, six legs and pinchers were all over me and holding on for dear life.  I had obviously destroyed their habitat and now they wanted to come home with me.  A long shower and much scrubbing  convinced them otherwise.
An early morning jaunt on Newport's historic Cliff Walk was a must.  This 3.5 mile trail has the crashing sea, some 70 ft below, on one side of you and the sprawling estates of several mansions on the other.  One of my favorite is aptly named The Breakers and was built by the Vanderbilts as a summer home in 1895.  This is a must see if you find yourself here some day.
The Newport Boat Show, a great in water show, started today with million dollar boats by the dozens that you can board and explore.  Great fun.  Always busy in this harbor.  Starting to feel the need for a quieter place.  I'm pulling anchor in a couple days.  See you at the next stop.

Was That What Was Nibbling My Toes?

So there I was...sitting in the cockpit of Eventide watching the guy on the boat anchored right behind me in Block Island pulling in a fish that was giving him quite a fight.  As he brought the 3 foot Sand Shark to the surface the water exploded as the shark was none too happy.  What was this shark doing in Great Salt Pond?  Locals said that was unusual.  The day before I had been swimming around the boat and felt a movement against my leg thinking it was probably seaweed.  Still think it probably was seaweed but I would have loved to see the shark swimming that close up.
The last night on the island I walked the beach watching several groups digging holes in the sand and making large fires in them to have clam bakes, grill burgers and fish, etc.  They would all be standing around the fires with their wine and beer thoroughly enjoying each others company and this extrordinary atmosphere.  There are not many beaches you can do this on with the blessing of local government.
The next day I was off to Newport with beam seas from 4-6 ft that tossed me all over the place for three hours.  Wilson was rolling all over the cabin, he looked pretty shook up.  Anchored, then drinks and catching up with my old friend, Garret, who has lived on his boat for many years in Newport and has promised to help me with my salt water fishing so I can eat.  Lots of activity here.  I'll fill you in next time.