A Pause in the Trip

Coxsackie to Paris, Ontario - 650 kilometres driven

Monday morning arrived and there was no notice of the Champlain Canal opening date so Sina and I threw in the towel and decided to return with Ana. After breakfast we unloaded the months of accumulated gear in SeaLight's aft starboard cabin (known affectionately as "The Garage"), transfered it into the back of the Odyssey, said farewell to the boat, and were on the road by 10 am with me behind the wheel, becoming quickly accustomed to the art of driving, though still approaching each overhead bridge carefully, judging for the 65 feet of clearance required for the van's mast.

The hours melted away as we roared along the I90, with little to see besides vehicles ahead, beside, and behind us rallying for position and the frequent Applegreen roadside rest stops. We stopped at Duty Free and picked up a bottle of Empress 1908 Indigo Gin, a purple marvel, introduced to us originally by our friends Kira and Dave during their visit to Bahamas. Sina and I made a solemn pact to assemble again as soon as possible for a fancy gin cocktail night.

We breezed through the border and though we had to battle a bit of traffic on the Canadian side, we made it back to Brantford in good time. We dropped off Sina then went straight to Ana's parents' house where they had a beatiful pot of beef stew and fresh Portuguese bread waiting for us. It had been a long time since I'd seen them and we had a lovely visit.

Pulling into our driveway in Paris was something I'd been imagining for a while. How would I feel? Would things look different? I'd only been gone less than eight months, but change is constant and coming in with fresh eyes enables one to see things that may have gone unnoticed for years.

I stepped out of the van slowly and deliberately, looking at the ground, the grass, the trees, then at the house. I walked in the front door and inhaled the familiar smell of home, then after unloading the gear from the van, stepped inside and walked around. The house seemed huge. There were spaces you could cartwheel in, swing your arms, swing your partner, swing a golf club or bat. Everything seemed very white or light with few dark spaces. Despite the orderly state of the house, I felt like there was stuff everywhere. Massive loads of stuff. After living in the confines of a boat where space is precious and every object on board must justify its inclusion, being back in the luxurious space of our home felt indulgent, royal, decadent. I saw things I wanted to remove. Not junk, mind you, just things I don't remember needing or using for years. I imagined shoveling all these items into a pile on the front lawn, like a raving lunatic, leaving our home barren and empty, with strictly what was necessary to live. But on reflection, I wasn't sure what problem I was trying to solve, as everybody else in the family seems quite happy with the level of possessions therein, jusifiable or not.

Ana introduced me to our new hamster Winnie. It took her a while to locate the little runt as she had burrowed into a pile of shavings, and even when Ana did find her, she blitzed at light speed and disappeared beneath shavings in a different corner of the cage. She is a fast one. I did finally get a good look at her and she's a beauty. Welcome to the family, little one.

With that, comes a pause in the trip and these journals.

We have just over 600 nautical miles to go. The adventure will continue soon.

I Got My Girl Back

Coxsackie, New York - 3 kilometres walked, 1 mile in dinghy

I got my girl back!

Ana and our friend Sina arrived around 4pm and man was I happy to see them. Ana looked beautiful as always, and I barely noticed her bandaged face from the two little moles she'd had removed the day before. The way she described it to me had me picturing a hybrid of the Bride of Frankenstein and the Mummy, but the Portuguese exaggeration she used in her description was excessive. Sina looked like he always does - slim, sturdy, and ready for action.

I passed the hours leading up to their arrival with a few boat jobs - cleaning out my tool and spares boxes, sucking up bilge water, reattaching the some stern flooring which had become unstuck, doing some final cabin cleaning. I also baked bread and did some writing. I may have also napped in the cockpit, bringing on the inevitible grogginess, which could have been the reason I neglected to close up all the boat hatches and bring in the cockpit cushions  before I left to meet them.

We went for a walk around town together and browsed the shops that were open - the General Store (Sina thought ten bucks for a can of designer tuna was excessive), the Paper Store (Ana was tempted by a t-shirt that said "cook-SAH-key"), and Ravish Liqours, open only on weekends, for a few hours a day, but when we peeked in there was nobody working and the tiny bar seemed to be a "help yourself" model.

We stopped at the Henry James tavern for a beverage and caught up on news. Sina is from Brantford (via a few other interesting countries) and has been a good friend of ours for years. He is an extraordinary craftsman, maker, builder, has been on SeaLight many times, and played a major role in helping me to install the solar arch and dinghy davits on the boat back in the spring. He is the person who took over Ana's job at Glenhyrst while she was away, so as freshly unemployed, was the perfect person to help me with the boat journey, which was looking less and less promising as the hours passed with no official statement forthcoming from the Canal Corporation on an opening day for the Champlain Canal. But I retained some hope that we'd hear something by Monday. If the canal would be opening within a day or two, he would stay and we'd bring the boat up to Montreal or as far as we could. If not, then we would all go home together on Monday and wait.

As we chatted and enjoyed our drinks, the trap door of the heavens opened and heavy rainshowers ensued. Anxiety took hold as I realized the rain was surely making its way into the boat, through the open hatches into the cabin but also onto Ana's loved cockpit cushions.

With a break in the rain we made a run for it and blasted back to SeaLight in the dinghy. The boat was a mess. Water had completely soaked the cockpit cushions, was all over the counter (turning the wine box into mush), and there was water covering the floor in both the heads. My careful staging of SeaLight for Ana's return was a soggy bust.

After mopping up the mess, I made dinner which turned out reasonably well and we enjoyed a meal together and stayed up way past Mariner's Midnight visiting.

I was so happy to have my girl back.

Back On Track

Coxsackie, New York - .5 nautical miles sailed, 3 kilometres walked

Both Perry and I had awoken with ideas and the bleakness and despondency of last night's situation was replaced with optimism and hope.

We talked the ideas through and with a combination of levers (with boards yoinked from a local construction site), ropes, repositioning of the wooden horses, and muscle power provided by two local fishermen (one of whom was strong like bull), we raised the mast up from the dock, then onto the bow pulpit, then fully back in place on the horses. We'd realized the resistance we'd felt last night trying to lift it was because the mast was tied to the lifelines in a place we couldn't see.

The damage wasn't nearly as bad as it had appeared last night. The paddleboard had prevented the mast from hitting the deck or hull. Only one of the stanchions was bent. The lifelines were intact. And the roller furling which I thought was bent and broken actually looked okay. I used a blowtorch to heat up the stanchion and shaped it back into place. I repositioned the mast back into the proper padded space on the arch. I strapped the mast down tightly and secured it to the boat. I tested and confirmed the solar panels were functioning normally. Just as I had finished all this another freighter passed and left a damaging wake (though not as bad as last night) and I shuddered to think what would have happened if he had passed an hour before when we were gingerly undertaking the mast rescue operation. I called him on the radio immediately and explained the mess he was causing. He said he would "make a note" for future passes.

The silver lining? Yes, there always is one. While the mast was down, and with Perry's help, I was able to secure the PVC conduit which had been banging around in the mast in the six months that had passed since it first let go at Langley Air Force Base after a long and bouncy ride on the Chesapeake. Also, we had a cute water snake pass by as we were doing the job. These, were wins.

I had invited the fishermen helpers and Perry and Cathy to SeaLight for afternoon beers as a show of gratitude, but mid afternoon they decided to get off this treacherous dock and make their way up to Albany. And the fishermen, they just seemed to be too busy with fishing. I said goodby to Cathy and Perry and told them they'd get to meet Ana soon, probably in Rochester on our next Lake Ontario boat vacation. Despite only knowing them for a few days, I was really going to miss them. They are real cool cats. And they travel with two actual cool cats on board, though I never actually saw them.

For the remainder of the day I cleaned the boat decks, cleared the garbage off the boat, went for a walk around town, chatted with some fishermen, then threw off the lines and sailed to the nearby protected anchorage, peaceful and safe from ship wake.

A Terrible End to a Fine Day

Coxsackie, New York - 4 kilometres walked, 3 miles in dinghy

The day began wonderfully but ended in despair.

I boiled water, made a Nescafe barley drink, then went for a walk, leaving a small air wake behind me in the still Coxsackie morning. There were few people around that early and I walked at a leisurely pace, picking up new details from paths I've covered many times - flowers blooming, crispy brown helicopter leaves blanketing the grass, crows in the trees speaking to each other, placards in the pavillion highlighting historical curiosities of Coxsackie, the cracks in the concrete steps leading to the foyer of the public library.

After returning to the boat for breakfast, I continued toothbrush polishing the shrouds. This job has taken me far, far longer than I had presumed, mainly because my hands and wrists can't stand the repetitive action for more than a couple of hours at a time. But seeing all that shining, braided stainless steel is the reward. As a side note (and an important detail to explain what happened later in the day), to access the rusty shrouds, I'd had to loosen the ratchet straps that secured the mast to the two wooden support horses, and those to the boat. Since I was at the presumed safety of a dock and not traveling, I hadn't been too concerned about restrapping these between rounds of polishing. That was a terrible mistake.

I took a break to visit the library. I read a short story - Franny by J. D. Salinger, while I waited for my tablet to download maps for the Champlain Canal, Montreal, and the St. Lawrence Seaway. I stopped at the Yellow Deli for a herbal tea, but the kindly hippie server there talked me into a Dandy Latee, non-caffeinated, which was creamy and sweet and delicious, but it did mess up the food experiment I'd been doing since my Dad left. You see, I had decided to completely cut out alcohol and sugar to see what impact it would have on my body. So, besides a couple of drinks with my boat neighbours the other day (which I really, really enjoyed), I had successfully eliminated those two macronutrients from my diet.

Have I felt better? I'm not sure. I'd probably say yes, to a small degree, particularly the sugar, as I love having a single cookie after lunch or dinner, but replacing that with a small orange has been just as rewarding. As far as the alcohol, I will admit that I have craved a glass of wine with dinners, particilarly the first day or two, but I've started to enjoy an icy carbonated water instead and haven't missed it all that much. I think though, to see any signifcant body changes from these experiments would take months, not weeks.

For the remainer of the day I cleaned the boat, I chatted with the fishermen and my buddy Patrick (who I learned is not just between jobs but is also being evicted from his apartment due to new ownership and has to give up his two cats), I chatted with Sugar Daddy and his boys, and I went for a dinghy ride to explore the area.

By dark I was sitting comfortably in SeaLight's cabin, all dishes were done, all hatches were closed, and I was watching a movie on the tablet.

At shortly after 9pm, all hell broke loose. A series of tsunami waves hit the boat and she started rolling violently from side to side. The coffee pot hit the floor. Stuff fell from the shelves. I jumped up and looked out the porthole and saw the floating dock lurching up into the air, creating triangles between the sections, as the waves crashed in, then echoed off the breakwater and came back, amplifying the height of them. There was a tremendous amount of noise and crashing. Holding on, I pulled myself into the cockpit and looked ahead to see my neighbours boat nearly sideways as it was rolled by the wake. My dinghy was thrashing around madly as it too had not been fully secured by travel strapping.

The waves finally died and the water became still again. I could not see the ship that had caused the damaging wake, but I could see its lights as it disappeared around a curve to the south. I checked the dinghy and found it to be okay, then tightened it down. I then went out on deck to make sure the mast was okay. It was not. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Both the wooden cradles had tipped and the mast had fallen off the boat, to the port side. It had crashed down onto my paddle board and was being held by various ropes attached at various points to the boat and the lifelines and stanchions, two of which looked severely bent. Amazingly, the other end of the mast was still sitting on the aft arch, but instead of it sitting snugly in the foam padded space between the solar panels, it had jumped up and was barely clinging to the edge of the portside panel. I was sure the panel had been destroyed and was worried the whole thing was going to topple overboard and crash into the dock or the hull.

As I was assessing the damage, two fishermen had walked over to see if we were okay as they saw the whole thing happen from the shoreline. I asked them to go and check on Perry and Cathy as I tied up some support lines to hold the mast in place. I then took a spare ratchet strap and secured the mast on the arch so it could not fall off, and I was shocked to see the solar panel appeared undamaged.

Andrew and Epheral, the fishermen, returned from checking on Panacea (they were fine) and told me they'd been fishing here their entire lives and had never seen a ship wake like that before. They'd heard the huge waves approaching and even saw water receeding from the shoreline. They agreed to stay and help try to get the mast back on board.

With their help and help from Cathy and Perry, we tried to lift it, several times, but it was far too heavy for us to raise it the required height. It was also dark and  hard to see which lines were going where and what else might be holding it in place. 

In the end, we gave up, and I had a feeling I might be headed back to Castleton tomorrow to use their crane. Or maybe I could find a small army of fishermen to help raise it. In either case, it was going to take the light of day to fully assess the situation.

I had Cathy look at Marinetraffic.com to see if she could find the vessels and she did find two that would have passed around that time - the Helen and the B. Franklin Reinhauer. I tried calling them on the portable VHF but they were either out of range or didn't respond. I also tried calling the Coast Guard but no response from them either. Boats are responsible for damage caused by their wakes...but how do you actually get compensation from this? I have no idea, but I expect it's nearly impossible.

I called Ana to give her the bad news. At the end of the conversation I felt even worse.

Boating. Long hours and days of boredom interrupted by brief periods of extreme chaos.

Neighbourhood Folks and Striped Bass Capture

Coxsackie, New York - 11 kilometres walked

I spent the day toothbrush-cleaning shrouds, walking to the yacht club to arrange for dockage, stretching, eating, walking some more, cleaning shrouds, talking to my girls, cooking and eating, watching Mad Max - The Road Warrior, a bit more shroud cleaning, then finished the day with an evening stroll around town and captured nocturnal images of Coxsackie.

I also met some interesting people. Patrick Ray is a local man whose family has been living in the area for three hundred years. Towns south and north of here are named after one of his great grandfathers. One side of his family - the Broncks - lent their name (with some stylistic changes) to the borough of the Bronx in New York City, as owners of large tracts of land there.

Patrick stopped by to introduce himself and we spent a very long time chatting. I expect I will be seeing more of Patrick as I can see his house from the boat.

Later in the morning sailboat Panacea arrived and I helped them to land and get tied to the dock. Perry and Cathy live in Buffalo but their home marina is Rochester and they similarily spent the winter in the Bahamas. I am quite sure we saw their boat somewhere along the way. I chatted with them for a while (lovely people), then Patrick appeared and told them his family history, which is how I was able to remember it. When came a natural break in the conversation, I slipped away, back to my shroud toothbrushing, but pointed Perry and Cathy in the direction of The Yellow Deli for lunch.

Sometime around 5pm a fishing family arrived and set up shop on the dock beside SeaLight. She was a skinny blonde, with dark sunglasses and ripped jeans, mainly preoccupied with controllling their barky and yanky Shelty dog who pulled her sideways off her lounge chair several times, landing her on the ground with a thud. The dad was a hulk of a man, bearded, and wore a jersey stamped on the back with SUGAR DADDY 69. He looked like he could drink a lot of Miller Lite. They had two young boys, ravenously excited about the fishing expedition and, surprisingly, it was their first time striper fishing with their dad.

I continued toothbrushing the shrouds but watched them with my peripheral. Sugar Daddy knew what he was doing, and was teaching his boys, with patience, the tecnique for catching stripers. He had the older boy hold a large dip net in the water on shore as he casted out a huge yellow rubber bait and reeled it in. This attracted herring fish and he would lead them across the net then signal the lad to pull it out. Every third attempt the boy would get the timing right and capture a herring, which he would run over to the dock as it flopped in the net, then drop it into the water to keep it alive. Sugar Daddy would then rig up another rod with a simple j-hook and weights, attach the live herring to it, then cast it far out into the river. He had two rods at a time set and the younger brother sat watching the lines as Sugar Daddy and the older boy returned to catch more herring.

With regularity, one of the rods would begin jerking and Sugar Daddy would holler at the boy to grab it and start reeling, keeping the rod tip up. Always keep the rod tip up, first rule of fishing. The first striper I saw them catch was a whopper, probably fifteen pounds. I put down my toothbrush to get a closer look and Sugar Daddy told me that was just a small one and he'd caught them up to fifty pounds off this dock.

I watched them catch three stripers, all of roughly the same size, and they returned each of them to the water. I considered asking them to give me a fish, but then realized I did not have enough available freezer space on the boat for a tray of breakfast sausages, never mind ten pounds of fresh fish fillets.

It was time to retire the toothbrushing for the day so I packed up my cleaning supplies, left the fisherman casting baits on the dock, and retired to the comfort of SeaLight's cabin, re-emerging only after dark, once all the fishermen had left, for the evening stroll.

The Yellow Deli

Coxsackie, New York - 10 kilometres walked

I woke up to find a large tree jammed beneath the dock and floating perilously close to SeaLight's rudder. After loosening the dock lines I used a boat hook to pull out the tree and guide it alongside the boat until it was free to continue its journey to New York City on the ebbing tide.

This part of the Hudson is almost entirely fresh water but the river still changes direction four times a day with the tides pushing in salty water further downstream, but not as far north as Coxsackie. I still have a hard time comprehending how a river can flow backwards; one would think this would simply flood the banks of the river and streams, but I suppose nature has this all figured out after doing it for millions of years.

After a leisurely morning on the boat I took a walk to the Coxsackie Yacht Club to check on the Hibiscus II. Our Quebecer friends Jonathan and Isabelle had left their boat here and gone home last weekend and I said I'd check on it for them. I walked through downtown then cut north onto a small paved roadway with some houses, but mostly forest on both sides. The Hibiscus II was the only boat in the marina and the yacht club was deserted except for one guy waxing his boat. I spoke to him for a while and asked why there were no other boats in yet.

"Becuase nobody helps!" he said, frustrated. "We're a working club here, but when the scheduled day to put in the docks arrived, only two people showed up. So we're way behind schedule."

"I'm in a working club too," I replied, "but fortunately we have a lot of enthusiastic volunteers who help. Yes, it's usually the same people, but we're making progress on getting everybody involved. Not easy though, people are busy," I said.

"Well, people around here are losing interest and it's getting more and more expensive to own a boat. There's only one mechanic left in the area and he's retiring next year and I don't even know where you'd go in the northern Hudson to get boat repairs done. No young people are getting into the business or even boating in general - it's all old geezers like me. Not sure what's going to happen."

It's a much different boating scene here in New York. In south-western Ontario, most marinas open around April 15th and start dropping in boats immediately. By this time of the year, the majority of the boats are in the water and the frenzy of boat preparation in the dry dock yards has typically been underway since late March and early April. Not so here - they seem to be at least a month behind us, which really surprises me.

I continued my walk, up and down the hilly streets of Coxsackie until I found myself in the library where I browsed some magazines and skimmed through their decent collection of books. I then went over to The Yellow Deli, which was the only eatery open in downtown, and sat down for a birthday lunch. When Ana and I passed through here on the way south we'd eyed this place up as it looked very interesting, but it had been closed for the month for owner vacation so we couldn't try it.

Well, The Yellow Deli is an intriguing place with a fascinating story. There are around forty of them in operation, mostly in the US, but also worlwide in nine other countries. I picked up a flyer which had their story and, to sum it up, the cafes are all run as a single business, by a self-described selfless religious hippie commune focused on love and "serving the fruit of the Spirit", spawned in the 70's as a revolt against organized religion and the fatal flaws of human life - selfishness, greed, jealousy, envy, strife, hostility, and bloodshed.

I don't know about all that, but they sure do make a killer chili, luscious sourdough bread, and a spectacular Reuben sandwich. And the interior of the cafe is beautiful, with rough cut lumber, custom leatherwork, custom ironwork, a pot bellied wood stove, and long-haired and gentle hippie-men serving and making food.

I dragged my abundantly nourished body back to SeaLight, relaxed in the cockpit with a book, and enjoyed the sunshine streaming in while I let my digestive system process the formidable lunch.

After this, I decided to be productive and grabbed my bottle of Barkeepers Friend (since 1882) cleaner and a toothbrush and started scrubbing the rust off the boat shrouds, which are the braided stainless steel lines that attach the mast and spreaders to the boat deck. The previously shiny and pristine wire had succumbed to the cruel salt of the Caribbean and were streaked with rust. It is a very slow process, but the magic paste and vigorous brushing does remove all of it. I managed to clean two sections of it but there is much more to do. Fortunately, I have plenty of time on my hands.

I had a lovely, long video chat with Ana, Magnus, and Stella then made myself a dinner of lamp chops, zucchini, Greek lemon potatoes, and fresh salad and ate it slowly in the cockpit to the changing colours of the setting sun and sounds of fishermen still casting lines from the shore.

Mother's Day and How I Have the Greatest Parents

Coxsackie, New York - 10 kilometres walked

I've learned that the opening of the Erie Canal, scheduled for this coming Friday, has been delayed due to the heavy rains which has slowed preparatory work on the canal. This is a special season for the Erie Canal as it celebrates its 200th birthday so I am sure they did not take this decision lightly as they had many public events planned for the opening day. And I can only assume it will be more than a few days of delays. This means, for now, I either wait patiently or dock the boat in a marina and go home then return when the canal opens. For now, I will wait and see if any new information becomes available between now and Friday.

I began the day with a call to Ana to wish her a happy Mother's Day then a call to my own mom to wish her the same. Thank god for the moms....otherwise none of us would be here! I was happy to hear that my mom was going over to my brother's place for brunch and that Stella and Ana were going to a brunch at our yacht club. I was just sad I couldn't join them.

My first full day on my own was rather dull. I spent several hours cleaning the boat - unloading and reloading the composting toilet, scrubbing the bathrooms, cleaning the floors and surfaces, stripping the beds, and gathering laundry. I did not get to cleaning the cockpit or exterior of the boat, but I have plenty of time for that in the coming days.

In the afternoon I walked to the far west side of Coxsackie and Google sent me in the wrong direction on the busy highway as the location it had for the laundromat was completely wrong. Once again, I heard the AI snickering in the background. I am going to need to solicit second opinions from humans from now on.

I packed my laundry load back to the boat, dodging cars and people along the way as the town was alive with Mother's Day gatherings in homes, cafes, parks, and restaurants.

During my peaceful evening on the boat I made a grand discovery. Ana's USB to USB-C converter we use for the Mac laptop she took home with her was still attached to the external hard drive, and when I plugged it into our Samsung tablet it was able to read all the fine media content I have saved on the drive. This opens up a opportunity for evening entertainment beyond reading and writing.

After speaking with my mom today and spending time on the boat with my dad, I've been thinking a lot about my parents. I am very fortunate to still have both of them as many people my age do not. Yes, they did start young, as I was born when my mom was in her teens (it's a prairie thing...) and somehow they managed to raise three boys when they were barely adults themselves, with no money, still going to school, working at low paying jobs, with little family support (as they had moved away), but this is exactly the same as what most of their friends were doing at the time so maybe it didn't seem as bad - I've heard misery loves company.      

Their decision to have kids at that age has paid great dividends though, for all of us. They are young enough to fully enjoy and relate to their grandchildren, and probably their great-grandchildren some day (but not too soon...). And their grandchildren have all gotten to know them well - both Magnus and Stella call them once in a while just to catch up. They are able to travel to see all of us and have joined us on vacations many times. They have few, if any, health issues so are sure to have many more years ahead.

My parents aren't just young in age, they are young in spirit and always have been. They are two of the most optimistic people I know. They are joyful and full of life and fun to be around. I can't even think of a time when either of them was in a bad mood. When I imagine their faces in my mind's eye, they are always either smiling or laughing. And they always seem to be able to bring out the best in people. When either of them does have something negative to say about somebody or something, they say it reluctantly, begrudgingly, and I can tell you it doesn't happen very often. They are both optimists. Neither of them complains about anything. My mom finds joy in simple things - gardening, decorating, cooking - and she is constantly learning new things and picking up new interests. My dad likes to be on the move and is always up for anything, especially if there are elements of risk or danger or surprise, or if he has the feeling he'll be missing out on the fun. He is always the last one to leave the party. They are both incredibly hard workers and continue to work in various jobs and projects into their 70's and I don't see that stopping anytime soon.

I consider myself lucky beyond comprehension having the parents I do. I want to grow up to be like both of them...and I'm still working on it. I call both of them frequently for advice on things I'm trying to do - usually Mom for cooking or baking and Dad for electrical issues, that tend to follow me and my assets, but other things too. Whenever I do find myself in a pissy mood or turning into Mr. Complainypants, I just think about my folks and how they would handle the situation. That always helps to get me back on track.

So, thanks Mom and Dad. You are the greatest.

Solution to a Difficult Problem and Shopping in Coxsackie

Castleton to Coxsackie – 11 nautical miles, a walk around town

The only job we didn’t get to yesterday was putting up the headsail, which we did together then went for a little dinghy ride along the shoreline and found a huge bald eagle nest up in the trees. Steve had told us a story about one of the resident eagles who was seen scrapping with a seagull over a fish. Later that day somebody found the seagull on the dock, and all that remained of it was two perfectly placed wings minus the body, clearly left as a message to the rest of the seagull population. The message? Don’t fight with eagles.

 

We fired up the boat, rolled out the headsail, and began our way southwards on the Hudson. It was a real joy to see that sail up again. We kept the motor running at low RPM and enjoyed the ride, at least until I went below and found the bilges rapidly filling up with water. Remember that thing about sailing being hours of monotonous boredom, interrupted periodically by moments of chaos, panic, and terror? This was one of those moments. But first, the back story.

 

Last summer we struck an underwater rock while cruising in the Thousand Islands which did some damage to the keel bolts and caused water to start leaking into the boat. At the end of the season we pulled the boat out at Niagara-on-the-Lake to have Peter Jones patch things up, as he’s the best in the business. Spring arrives, the boat gets launched, and everything looks great, but soon a bit of water starts appearing in the bilge and we have no idea where it’s coming from. Over the summer I kept sponging up the water and investigating the cause. Was it lake water coming in somewhere? Was it a leak in our fresh water pressure system? Was it rain water getting in? It was very hard to tell and we pulled the boat apart trying to find the source to no avail. And by the time we began this trip, I was pulling out a salad bowl or two of water every day.

During the first leg across Lake Ontario, I discovered the water was coming in at a much faster rate, but we still couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Today, as the bilge was rapidly filling, I got the bilge pump working then also started frantically pumping the water with a manual pump. Once I got the water level down I realized the water was coming from the back of the boat so I opened up the engine compartment and found water pouring out of a hose which came from the engine’s anti-siphon valve. Now, I had looked at this many times before as I knew this was a potential source of water, but never saw any water coming out of it when the engine was running. Now, I finally had my culprit. I am sure the valve had been getting progressively more jammed up and had finally seized in an open position, so after the terror subsided I was feeling damn happy because I knew how to fix this. On a side note, as I was digging around the engine I also discovered the negative terminal attached to the alternator had nearly burned off due to a poor connection, which explained the strange smell I had been picking up recently.

 

After arriving at Coxsackie and letting the engine cool while I mopped up the remaining water I removed the anti-siphon valve, cleaned it up, and redid the alternator connection, killing two birds with two stones. Then we went for a walk to explore the town

 

Coxsackie isn’t pronounced the way your dirty mind would expect. It’s Cook-Sookie, likely because a mayor in the past gathered the council members together and said, “Folks, something has to change. Visitors are laughing at our name and vandals are drawing penis figures all over the municipal buildings and public spaces. I have an idea….”

 

The free public docks were lovely and even had a sign with a town map proudly showing all the wonderful things there – an oyster bar, theatre, brewhouse, restaurants, creamery, antique stores, bottle shop, general store, vintage clothing. The only problem is that most of them were closed, but we did go into the General Store and buy a few things. They had some neat stuff, but prices were outrageous and I didn’t feel like paying four dollars for an onion, but I didn’t mind parting with $2.79 for a package of cinnamon flavoured toothpicks, then a bit more for two pots of fancy yogurt and two local IPAs.

 

Our town tour concluded with a visit to the library, which smelled like farts and had a substandard magazine inventory, limited strictly to home and garden topics – no guitar magazines, no Economist, no Cigar Afficionado. I did find a Dolly Parton cookbook that looked pretty good but I wasn’t ready to commit to a Coxsackie library membership and my shoplifting days are way behind me.