Month: June 2018

We’ll always know our neighbors and pals, but they’ll know us as a little shorter.  There are several bridges along the Erie Canal that would love to scrape off our new KVH antenna and our radar, but the guys at Coeymans foiled them by building a cradle and helping us drop Misty Pearl’s mast onto it.  

Voila.  Just like that we went from 27-feet tall to 16-feet tall.  Misty Pearl is the Nate Cox—after the unfortunate incident with Dewey and the machete—of the Looping world.  Heck, we probably could make it through Madison County.

Palanca Maputo is an asphalt/bitumin tanker sailing under the Marshall Island flag.  Why a Marshall Island ship is hauling stuff to resurface roads in upstate New York remains a mystery.  What isn’t a mystery is the size of these suckers.  They take up the entire channel.

We didn’t have time to request a flyby this morning before we launched the drone, but doubt he even noticed us.

For our birthdays, we exchanged Hobie i11 kayaks.  We drove up to a family-run outfit on Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains to buy them.  Unfortunately we took no pictures, which is too bad.  Lake George was filled to the shores with every manner of boating and water sport.   Think the lake where Mrs. Smails christened the Flying Wasp.  We’ll probably have photos of the kayaks at some point.

Although we use a variety of weather sources for forecasts, to some extent they all use data from the same weather bouys or other stations along the water.  Usually these are sites maintained by NOAA or other reputable outfits.  Up here, we actually are relying on information supplied by stations at “back of barn” and “in orchard.”  No joke.  Old Man Tompkins in coveralls is calibrating sensitive meteorological equipment—on which our safety depends—between milking the cows and eating whatever Yankees eat instead of biscuits and gravy.  Not at all confidence-inspiring.  But based on what he tells us, we’re  leaving tomorrow for the Erie.  (We know, we know.  We don’t need any first-year law students reminding us that the Erie Canal is different than the Erie Railroad.  However,  it’s probably not even the same Tompkins.)

The Federal Lock at Troy—so named because New York stalled until the federal government paid for it—is the end of the tides on the Hudson.  These tides are the reason most Loopers avoid Coeymans despite a water-front restaurant that attracts locals from as far as Albany.  At high tide, we have about seven feet of water at the point we have to pass the end of our dock.  Below that is pump-clogging silt.  At low tide, it’s too shallow for us to get out.  Dana’s tide references agree that if we leave between 8 and 9 in the morning, we should be fine.  Assuming that without Eric in the marina dinghy we can avoid the fallen tree.  We literally have to pass within two feet of it.

We’ll probably skip docking overnight in Waterford—at the Erie Canal entrance—since we spent three days at Coeymans.  

However, Coeymans Landing was pretty cool all in all.

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*Which is the cliché title of every Looper’s blog post for the Erie Canal.

We rode the Hudson River for the last time, passing through Albany and Troy on our way to the Erie Canal.  Troy claims to be the home of the original Uncle Sam—personification of the United States government—who was a meatpacker or some such thing.  We didn’t stop to determine if the claim is valid.  We had narrow canal locks to master.

It turned out to be a long day.   More work than fun.  Seven locks.  90° and 200% humidity, and that was before the downpour.  But we made it to Schenectady.

Here’s the first Erie Canal lock in 26 time-lapse seconds.  In real time it took what seemed like 26 hours.  Lock No. 2 actually is Lock No. 1.  That federal lock on the Hudson is called Lock No. 1, however, although it is not on the Canal at all.  Go figure.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was Dana finally seeing American bald eagles.  And having the presence of mind to whip out the camera.  Maybe Uncle Sam is from around here after all.

About a hundred yards before the entrance to Lock No. 4, we spotted a deer that either was swimming or drowning, depending on who you ask.

One of us wanted to drop the anchor, grab one of the boys’ life jackets, and somehow strap it on the poor thing.  One of us was worried about getting into the lock without turning sideways, however, then finding a line, and not smashing the boat and his pride into smithereens.  We opted for telling the lockmaster, who assured us that the same deer had been in there before and knew how to get out.  Whew.

We reached the “Schenectady Yacht Club” just about the time it started to rain, then waited out the rain to take on some fuel and find our, er, “slip.”  We reached the pool deck with snacks just about the time it started to rain again.  But we enjoyed drinks with Second Wave and the first couple we’ve met who started their Loop after us.  They didn’t have boat cards and we can’t recall their names right now, but they seemed very cool so hopefully we will cross paths again.

The Schenectady Yacht Club sounds pretty grand—and it did provide a safe haven in the rain—but we nearly fell off the rickety dock more than once.  It’s tough to walk two wobbly dogs even on solid docks.  Narrow bouncy docks with broken slats just make it that much worse.

Even more worse, the Jim Jones of the bug world apparently selected Misty Pearl as the appropriate place for the mass suicide of his ten-million followers.  When we went outside this morning it looked like someone had painted the decks brown.   Gross.

Dana channeled her inner mythbusters while touring the area.  They say a rising tide lifts all boats.  Oh yeah?  We’re pretty certain that even a rising tide would not lift a boat with weeds growing through its hull.

The dockmaster sneered when we discussed possibly stopping tonight in Amsterdam because it would be only two hours of cruising.  Wrong.  Three locks and four hours later we tied up.  Along the way we slipped under the low bridges made famous by Thomas Allen’s song.  

We also passed the ruins of abandoned factories and mills.  They could make a fortune turning them into haunted houses.

The common wisdom is not to pilot “by video game.”  In other words, find the navigation aids visually and rely on them rather than the chart plotter.  Good idea.  The chart today showed us firmly on dry land.  We weren’t.

Having arrived in Amsterdam, we contemplated walking around the famed red-light district.  We really aren’t that kind of people, however, so instead we visited the Amsterdam Castle.

Dana found her knight in shining armor.  Fortunately for the family unit he can’t pilot a boat.

The dock is just a long wall with twelve boats along it.  Eleven of them are looping.

Doug shot some drone footage of Amsterdam but is too tired to edit it for a video.  Ten locks down—and the next one only is about 500 yards ahead of the dock—with some 200 left to go.

We got up, left Amsterdam, cruised through some locks, it was beautiful, blah, blah, blah.  But that’s not what this post is about.

We docked at small, quiet, and sort of quirky St. Johnsville marina and popped into town.

St. Johnsville was founded in 1725 by one Jacob Zimmerman, who may or may not share a family tree with Steve Zimmerman, who provided great service work on Misty Pearl, and with Steve Zimmerman, whose daughter attended elementary school with Shannon.*

But that’s not what this post is about.

During some slow time, Doug flew the drone around town and then down to the dock.  And right into a real tree.

Rather than look at the track on the phone to see where said tree was located, the better plan seemed to be assuming the crash site was across the river, waking Brent (Second Wave) from his nap for help, jumping on the personal bicycles graciously offered up by the marina, and riding into the woods with no idea where to look.  Dumb plan.

The good news?  After looking at the flight path, it was obvious the tree in question was next to the marina.  That beautiful tree at the top of this post.  Even better news?  Eagle-eye Brent spotted a tiny red tail light.

The really bad news?  The red light was about sixty feet off the ground, in a completely unclimbable tree.  Time to panic, because it seemed very unlikely that Dana would authorize buying another drone during Doug’s lifetime.

But wait.  While walking through town earlier, we’d seen the Fire Department doors open and volunteers working a fundraiser.  Why not go up and ask for help?  Maybe they have a device specially made for retrieving drones after morons crash them way up high.  Off on the bicycle and back to town, only to find nobody around.  Oh crap.

The three guys sitting outside the market weren’t firemen and had no ideas about drone rescue.  One of them suggested calling it in as an emergency, because someone “probably would respond.”  That seemed a bit dramatic.  And potentially criminal.  The more helpful guy disclosed that down two streets, left on Washington, in the yellow house on the right, lives Chris Weaver, the Fire Chief.  He might be home.

Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Dumbass.  Dumbass who?  Dumbass Doug.  Not only was Chief Weaver home, he already was down to his socks relaxing with his family.  One logically might’ve expected him to explain dismissively that a drone in a tree wasn’t really his problem.  Instead he immediately said he would put on shoes and come check out the situation.

Thirty minutes later the fire truck rolled up to the marina with an extension ladder, a chain saw, and a long pike.

After some discussion about strategy, up went the ladder and up went Chief Weaver.

One slip and he’d be visiting St. John and Old Jacob Zimmerman immediately.

Thud.  Down came the drone, with only a smashed battery and broken propeller.  Down came Chief Weaver with nothing smashed or broken.  Amazing.

We left the Fire Department with a donation for their fundraiser and with our gratitude.  We won’t be forgetting the good folks of St. Johnsville, N.Y.

As for the drone video we recovered, here you go:

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*Based on our experience, Jacob may be the only Zimmerman in history who isn’t named Steve.

Because we don’t get much news anymore, we only learned today of the world’s tragic loss.  So wherever you may be, a moment of silence as we mourn the passing of the great John Ward, without whom it never would have been “Football time, in Tennessee.”

On to Looping.  Little Falls, N.Y. is a picturesque village along the Erie Canal.  It’s apparently quite popular.  We planned to give it a pass on our way to Utica, however, because there are too many other picturesque villages along the Erie Canal.  We can’t stop at all of them.

From our perspective, the most significant thing about Little Falls was the giant protective maw that confronts travelers heading west.  Erie Canal Lock No. 17 is the highest lock in New York, and is one of only two guillotine-style entries in the universe unless there are some on other planets.

(The quality of the photo is crappy because it’s a frame from the time-lapse video that occupied one phone, while the person who owns the other phone and the camera was busy worrying.)  Here’s  one taken just before we started the worrying.

The guy in charge must get perverse pleasure from watching unsuspecting boaters confront unexpected current, because he didn’t bother warning either of the two boats to be ready.  Turns out the front boat gets the worst of it.  Thankfully for us that was Second Wave.  Thankfully for Second Wave they’re experienced enough to wrangle things safely.  For a moment, however, we feared for everyone in the lock.

Things calmed down the rest of the way.  Dana bagged a great Great Blue Heron.

The Canal straightened out for several miles.

The restaurant at the wall in Utica was delicious.

Yup, things’d be perfect if not for the whole John Ward thing.