Summer Sailing Vacation: Saturday August 6, 2011

We had planned to leave on Friday. But it didn’t happen that way. We met up in Warwick after work to get some Mexican food and to run some last pre-trip errands.

“How about,” Todd yawned, “we get up tomorrow morning and head to Vermont. I am just too damn tired after this week.”

I was tired too. I had been preparing to be out for the 2 week trip for nearly a month. I made sure that all the tasks that needed to be finished were assigned to appropriate people, and that they knew how to do them. I did the ones I could do before I left. I worked late. So did Todd.

On Saturday morning I wrote the list of errands on the bathroom mirror in dry erase marker. Clean car, pack, clean out truck, get drugs from CVS, Todd’s haircut. We packed Todd’s Nissan Rogue for the ride to Vermont. Normally we would do a one way car rental, so we wouldn’t have to leave a car that we’d end up picking up later on. But there weren’t any car rental places willing to rent us an SUV and leave it in the booming metropolis of Rutland, VT. I called all of them; no dice. We relented to Todd not having his car, and we packed it with inches to spare with Todd’s Tetris-like abilities. I swear he could fit an elephant in a barrel.

A 4 hour drive ends up to be very long when you stop a lot. We left the truck at New England Yacht Rigging, which is near our home mooring in East Greenwich. We said goodbye to our friends Maggie and Charlie at the shop, and headed north.

“Trust me. I am a technology consultant.” I’ve heard Todd say something like that so many times. He says it like doctors on TV do. In the car Todd was logged in and working while I drove. But his Verizon hot spot wasn’t working properly and he decided to stop and get another one at a store in South Hadley, MA. Then we stood in the parking lot for awhile after while he helped a complete stranger configure his Droid.

The good karma he racked up in that parking lot paid off and was a great start to what would be one of the most amazing trips we’d ever sailed.

I don't know how we'd get around without the onboard beagle navigation system.

Three Favorite Pictures: July 11, 2010

I've never seen a bald eagle in the wild.  Sure, I've seen the one at the Roger Williams Zoo.  But living in a zoon isn't nearly dignified enough for a bird this magnificent.  He was flying near the Bear Mountain Bridge, near West Point.

This one happened when I was trying to take a picture of something on the shore just north of New York City.  It was, as Bob Ross would call it, a "happy little accident."  I've always wanted to take a picture like this.  I've tried and tried.  And then managed to actually get it by dumb luck.  Who've thunk it?

I am a sucker for pictures of Sabine at anchor.  I have scads of them.  This was taken just north of West Point, near an intake for the New York City water department.  I totally peed in the water, sorry citizens of New York.

Three Favorite Photos: July 9-July 10, 2010

I am curled up by a raging fire in my living room.  Last weekend Sabine was wrapped up for the winter.  She's was stripped of her sails and is now sporting her new canvas cover.  She hibernates until next season while I long for what next season will bring.  It's too early to long.  It's only November. 

I've been organizing the 500 some-odd photos I took over the summer, and decided that to hold me over I will post 3 favorite photos from each day of that trip.  I only took 1 photo on July 9th, so in this entry you'll get 1 from July 9th and 3 from July 10.  Lucky you; don't say I never gave you anything.

July 9th, we arrived at the boat sometime after a million o'clock. 

I made our "nest" in our bedroom and Nemo made himself at home.

July 10, 2010.  We took a quick sail to the Statue of Liberty.

Yes, we got that close to the Statue.

Lady Liberty, artistically off center.  It was hard to get this shot, what with the waves and the boat moving, and the camera zoomed all the way in.

Lady Liberty all up in my grill.  Literally. 
This is our BBQ grill aboard Sabine, it mirrors her nicely.

Buttoning Up

We headed north again on Lake Champlain, but this time it would be the last trip aboard Sabine for 2010. We set out from Chipman Point, and of course the wind came from the north—because the wind always comes from the direction we’re heading into. Sabine’s not a fan of sailing to windward, and we rarely take the time or the effort to zig zag perpendicular to the wind so that she’ll sail happily.

My mother in law came along for the ride, and so did a 6 pack of Coronas from her fridge. We stopped at the super market in Fair Haven, VT on the way to Chipman Point and stocked up on plenty of junk food to sustain us until Sunday afternoon when we’d arrive at Shelburne Shipyard.

We spent the night in Converse Bay, just south of Garden Island, which is and always will be one of our favorite places to anchor. My in-laws keep a power boat at Chipman Point, but don’t anchor out to sleep as they prefer to stay at the dock. I’ve heard the stories of lousy sleeping nights at the dock when the wind has kicked up. But on Sunday morning she woke up and said she’d slept soundly—which rarely happens when she sleeps aboard their boat.

Being at anchor is vastly more peaceful than sleeping at the dock is. When the wind shifts while the boat is tied to the dock, the boat will rock on the waves in protest, and will bash into the dock if it wasn’t tied carefully. But while the boat sits on anchor it obeys the wind, rotates on anchor to face into the wind. It’s not tied to a fixed object and forced to stay facing one way. The wind on Champlain often changes 180 degrees over night. When we woke that Sunday morning in Converse Bay, we were facing the south even though we had faced the north when we’d set the anchor.

Sunday we pulled into Shelburne and tied to a temporary spot on the dock. We filled the diesel tank to the very brim to prevent condensation from forming on the inside wall of the tanks. The condensation would eventually dilute the fuel and render it ineffective. (And then we’ll also have one less thing to buy in the spring, as the tank will already be filled with fuel and ready to go.) We packed our bedding, our clothes, the food in the pantry, and anything else we wouldn’t need to keep aboard for the winter. I packed our stash of toiletries and tried to be happy about the fact that I wouldn’t have to buy any replacement face cream for awhile because I could just use up my stash from the boat over the winter.

We emptied the water tanks, and then disconnected a hose so that the water pump would suck directly from the gallons of bright pink antifreeze. Todd handed me mostly empty gallons, and I handed him full ones. I consolidated the remaining inch of antifreeze into 1 bottle and salvaged a half gallon that way. We pumped 12 gallons of antifreeze through the pump and the hot water heater. We watched the water flowing from the taps until it was tinged with pink. We turned off the pump, but left the taps open.

I started the diesel. My mother in law stood on the dock and watched the water sputter from the exhaust. She hollered when it too turned pink and I shut down the engine. Another 6 gallons had flowed through the diesel’s fresh water cooling system. We closed the hatches and hauled our things up the dock. I sighed heavily and looked back at Sabine as she waited at the dock for hibernation. I shuffled my feet on the gravel and dragged a dock cart overflowing with our things behind me. We made plans to go back to Shelburne at the very end of October to dress Sabine in her custom made canvas cover for the winter.

Thank you, Sabine, for a wonderful season. Thank you for taking us on our adventure up the Hudson and being so tolerant as we laid you down in the mud and scraped your keel on the rocks. You not only kept us safe, but you seemed to have fun right along with us.

We can’t wait to see where you’ll allow us to take you next year.

The Island

Wasn't there some horror movie called 'The Island'? Let me tell you about a happy and peaceful island where we anchored on Thursday night of our vacation. Now that I have a computer again I can resume being a good blogger and actually, you know, post.
Thursday morning found us still moored in Plattsburgh with a disassembled shower drain pump. Luckily the Plattsburgh Boat Basin has a really good ship's store. (Where the hell did they get those rolls of paper towels from? I never seen any that large. I'll have them until the end of time!) Todd had ripped out the old and malfunctioning pump and replaced it. Then we learned that we needed to replace the drain hose for fear that it's clogged with coagulated hair and soap. And what the hell, while we're in there let's just rewire the thing and call it done.  We've gotten pretty good at projects like this. We can do them relatively quickly and we know exactly how to accomplish these tasks. We untied our self-made mooring and headed south.

We picked Spoon Bay on the northeast corner of the island for our spot to anchor on Thursday night. The wind either blows dead north or dead south on Champlain because the lake is so narrow and it has mountains on either side. As we were headed to Valcour Island it was coming out of the south, but we knew that over night it would pull a 180 and come out of the north overnight. But we are confident in our anchor and miles of chain and knew it wouldn't be a problem.

We settled in for the night. Todd occasionally gets up to check on the anchor while I am asleep. (And then he has to shove me back to my side of the bed because sleeping me always sprawls the moment he leaves our bed.) I woke up and felt Sabine rocking harder than when we went to sleep.

"It's really blowing out there, wind's changed direction," Todd whispered to me. I grumbled "Mmmm hmmmm..." and probably said "Shhhh.... sleeping" because that's what I always say when he wakes me up in the middle of the night.

At around 5 in the morning Sabine was getting tossed around like a bathtub toy. Our bed is in the very back of the boat. If you picture a boat rocking on waves you'll see that the very center of the boat moves the least, and the very back and the very front move up and down with greater frequency. I couldn't fall back asleep with all the motion. I wanted to. I burrowed deeper into the covers willing the wind to die down until I drifted off again.

Sunrise came, we took the dogs ashore for their morning business meeting. We met a woman walking her dogs and asked her what was on the island. "Nothing but trails. It's beautiful. You really need to check it out." We shrugged, knowing we had some miles to cover that day to get closer to Chipman Point on the southern part of the lake. And then the "When are we going to be here next?" question hung between us.

We walked the shortest trail while the dogs raced out in front, then ran back to see what was taking us so long. They do this when we hike. They run out in front on the trail, and come back and circle us in their excitement. They probably hike four times the actual distance we cover every time we're in the woods.

Once back in the dinghy we marveled at the pristine, uninhabited paradise we were leaving that morning and wished we could stay longer. We pulled up the anchor and headed south to Cole Bay, instead.

Ausable Chasm

I never knew this place existed. I never would have even thought about it. But just west of Plattsburgh is a mini Grand Canyon called Ausable Chasm.

The Ausable River carved its way through the sandstone over the years until it created a chasm filled with fascinating rock formations at every turn. We hiked along the rim of the canyon with some leather clad biker dudes who had ridden in from Mississippi, Cincinnati and further west in New York state. We asked them about riding all that way, and they asked us about sailing all that way. Such different modes of transport, yet there we were all in the same place.

Then we had the choice of following the trail to the bottom of the chasm, or staying along the top. We debated the pros and cons of each way.

“Well, when we go tubing in the river we’ll see it from the bottom anyway,” I reasoned.

“Yeah, but from the top it’s just the same damn thing,” Todd countered. “At least with the trail on the bottom we’ll get close to the rocks and really experience the chasm.” The biker dudes agreed and we all descended the staircase, marveling at the towering walls of sandstone over us at every angle.

We followed the trail until we arrived at the line for the tube or raft rides. We had bought passes to tube the river and joined the end of the line. Luckily there were more tubes than rafts, and more people waiting to ride a raft than a tube, so we were able to bypass most of the line. We stood at the bottom of the chasm and waited for our turn. We watched the chasm staff lower rafts with a crane from the rim to the very bottom just in front of where we stood.

I tucked my camera back into the dry bag I’d purchased in the gift shop. The guide dropped the tube into the water and instructed me to walk down the steps and flop my ass into the center of the donut. The cold water splashed me and goosebumps instantly formed on my arms and legs. Todd flopped into his tube and the gentle current took us downstream.

The walls created an optical illusion. The layers of rock traveled slightly upward, giving the impression that the water would flow downhill, however the water was largely stagnant. We went through a small rapid, the left channel was decidedly narrower than the right. Of course, I was pulled into the narrower side, and eventually got stuck where the channel was smaller than my tube. I edged my way through the pass while Todd sailed by me on the wider stream, laughing all the way.

Once we turned the corner we waited for the guided rafts to pass out of sight. We jumped off our tubes and dunked into the water, thus breaking the rules we’d read when we signed up for this little adventure.  The cold water swirled around me and I dunked my head after Todd had said "Come on, you have to dunk your head.  When are you going to get the chance to do this again?" We climbed back in just before another guided tour came through. “Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!” I sang to Todd as he giggled. 

We went through the larger rapid, and I squealed like a little girl the whole way through. Then we gently flowed on near still water to the end. We climbed out, boarded the bus, and caught glimpses of the chasm through the trees.

From the Back Seat

The thing about traveling by sailboat is that once you get somewhere, like a town, you don’t have a way to explore easily. There’s always going by foot, which is great because we don’t get too much exercise sitting on our butts on a sailboat anyway. At one point we bought some foldable motor scooters, but we never really managed to get them to work right. (Secretly, I knew they’d be more of a pain in the ass than they were worth. Now they are sitting against the wall on my side of the garage at home.) We’ve rented a moped in the past, just so we could cover more miles when we got to port, but no matter where we go there’s usually a taxi.

There was the time in Newport when we felt like dorks taking a taxi to the Walmart. But overall we find them handy. For a few bucks we can go to the supermarket and stock up on provisions. For a few bucks we can go just about anywhere and learn something about the local area from a local character. (There was the time we got a ride with a cabbie who was also a rabbi AND a minister. Figure that one out. If you can, let me know because I still haven’t. I think his business card said something to the effect of “Rabbi John Smith, Baptist Minister. “ What?)

On Tuesday night we took a cab around Plattsburgh just to check things out. Our cabbie was a bit of a dud. We like to get restaurant recommendations from cabbies, because they are always in the know about those sorts of things. We’ve eaten in really terrific restaurants that we never would have found otherwise. The Tuesday night dude said that he typically eats fast food because it’s cheaper. Then he pointed out the McDonald’s with the lake view from the back parking lot. We ended up eating dinner at Irises, which was wonderful.

The driver that took us to Ausable Chasm on Wednesday was a bit better, because he knew the local area. He told us about the history, and the fear the locals felt at the start of the Gulf War in 1991 when, seemingly, hundreds of jets deployed from the now defunct Plattsburgh Air Force Base. I could imagine it as we drove by the base.

The one we had on the way back from the chasm was fabulous. He was originally from Burlington, and he talked about local restaurants as if he were a human Zagat guide. We ended up at the local Mexican joint anyway, but knew it would be good because he’d said so.

Damaged Goods

It was going well. We left Burlington and were headed west to cross the lake and end up in Plattsburgh. I took the wheel, the wind was coming from behind. To stay on course I needed to keep the boat dead north, and Todd had warned me not to stray further than 10 degrees.

I meticulously watched the compass in the GPS, our bearing hovered at 2 degrees, right on target. And then I, stupidly, blinked my eyes. And then the compass read 30 degrees. And then Todd said “Holy shit! Thirty degrees?” And then he said, "Look out!" The mainsail jibed—rapidly changing from the right side of the boat to the left. It’s the kind of thing you see in movies, when the sail goes flying across the deck and the character gets smacked with the boom and goes flying overboard. It happens that quickly

I didn’t get hit with the boom. I got hit with the main sheet, the rope that attaches the boom to the boat at the very tail end of the boom. It’s this rope that controls how far out the main sail will be. The rope, coiled around pulleys on the boom and where it attaches to the boat, was pulled taut. The coiled rope struck me on the right side of my back as I tried to dive out of the way. The force of the boom sweeping across the boat caused the rope to shove me hard onto my left side where I smacked my hip on the edge of the wall in the cockpit. I crawled out of the way, but it didn’t really matter. I’d already been hit, the wind knocked out of me I struggled for a breath while tears flowed down my cheeks. The pain stretched across my back and centered on my left hip.

I remained at the wheel for the remainder of the ride to Plattsburgh. I pressed my body against the steering wheel to give the main sheet ample room to move around behind me. I flinched at every noise. The bruise forming on my hip could not sustain the weight of my loose cotton shorts; I unbuttoned and unzipped to alleviate the pressure.

We arrived in Plattsburgh and created our own mooring. There was the weight below the water and a buoy on the surface, but nothing to tie our boat to. I leapt into the dinghy with ropes and shackles in hand while Todd circled Sabine in a holding pattern in the mooring field until I was ready to tie on. I clipped on the shackles, I waved him over, I grabbed her bow and expertly slipped the mooring lines to the post, momentarily forgetting about the pain in my back.

Back on the boat, Todd inspected my bruise which had formed into an ugly purple splotch just below where my bathing suit bottom would sit. I felt it throb as the blood rushed into that spot and wondered how I’d sleep that night. He walked, I hobbled, in to explore Plattsburgh for dinner.

Plattsburgh is the former site of a large and active air force base. The city itself is small, and I am sure it struggled with the closing of the base. We roamed the streets and I tried to picture how it would have looked with uniformed airmen ducking in and out of storefronts. And I wonder where all those airmen went after the base closed. My fifth grade best friend had moved to Plattsburgh at the end of the school year because her father, also in the Air Force, had been assigned there. I tried to imagine her walking around Plattsburgh as well, and wonder whatever happened to her. (I see a Google stalking session in my future.)

We made plans to explore the local area more the next day, with a trip to Ausable Chasm as we ate dinner at a sidewalk café. I slouched in my seat to keep the pressure off the bruise.

It's Going By Too Damn Fast

It's already Wednesday night, and this week in the northern part of Lake Champlain is going by way too fast. Right now we're in Plattsburgh, NY, some 20-30 miles from the Canadian border. So far I've managed to jibe the boat and end up up with a bruise the size of my fist right where my ass meets my left hip. But I've also explored some places I've never been before, and thoroughly enjoyed those places so long as nobody touches my left butt cheek. But let's go back to Friday night so I can get you guys all caught up.

First there were 150 pears. On Tuesday night we checked on the pear trees and decided we needed to harvest before leaving on the trip. And we couldn't just pick all those pears and not do something with them because then we'd come home to 150 rotten pears that we may as well have just left on the tree. We put the coffee table up on the dining room table and placed the pears up there to ripen out of the reach of prying snouts. Nemo especially loves the fruit trees on our property, it's a smorgasbord of apples, pears, blueberries and peaches that occasionally fall to the ground. A trip out to do his business ends up in an unexpected snack. What's better than that? Let me tell you, there's nothing better than an unexpected snack. I should know. It's the promise of an unexpected snack that keeps me returning home when Todd's there. And he uses this to his advantage all the time.

We brewed up two batches of pear ginger jam on Friday night. Todd's a jam-master. Not the rapper DJ kind, but he rocks the Ball jars. I ground up the pears using the fruit-basherator attachment for our Bitchen-aid mixer. Todd boiled the jars, peeled some fresh ginger... then about 2 hours later we had 24 jars of jam.

Saturday morning we made two more batches, cleaned out and packed the truck and drove a leisurely ride to Rutland, VT. We spent the night at Todd's parents house while they were attending a high school reunion in Albany and we had the joint to ourselves. Let me tell you, it's pretty weird to be walking around naked in my in-laws house, but whatev.

Sunday morning we headed to the Rutland Airport, which is basically a shoebox with planes parked behind it, and picked up a rental car. The plan was to leave our truck at Chipman Point, then drive the rental to Burlington. So far we've spent God knows how much money on one way car rentals, and snuck the dogs into 3 out of the 4 rentals. (Just so you know, an old fitted bedsheet works wonders at keeping the dog hair off the upholstery.)

We arrived in Burlington and met up with Todd's old friend Brian for the sail from Shelburne (where we'd left the boat) to Burlington. Brian good naturedly helped Todd fix our carelessness with the dinghy. We'd forgotten to close the air vent on the dinghy's gas tank. The bottom of the dinghy filled with rain water, which then caused the tank to float and flip over to fill the tank with water and the bottom of the boat with gasoline. But when 2 badass Eagle Scouts put their heads together....

Blur... sail to Burlington, grab a mooring, head in to shore, drink lots of margs, eat enchiladas, then meet up with my old friend Laura. I haven't seen Laura since the night before she left our dorm in Australia. She was another American student living at Dunmore Lang College. She only did 1 semester in Oz, while I did the full year.

Laura came walking up to meet us at the Echo Center in Burlington. She looks exactly the same... her beautiful blonde curly hair, her cheerful voice, her boisterous laugh. It brought me back to when we were 20 and exploring our lives on campus just outside of Sydney. It's amazing how much can change in 16 years. We're both married. She has 5 year old twins. And the time I spent with her was way too short.

Monday morning we bombed around in Burlington, and then Tuesday was the trip across the lake and north to Plattsburgh. I learned a very important lesson about sailing with the wind from behind en route to Plattsburgh and how precarious that can be. Until I tell you about that, I'll be sitting on my right butt cheek.

The Last Full Day

“And what are we going to do today?” was the question that hung in the cockpit on Thursday morning. Burlington had been “done” the day before. We got into town just in time for lunch, and then what?

The only logical answer to that question was to rent electric bikes. We arrived at the bike rental place while the bike rental guy showed us the bikes. They looked like ordinary bikes, but they had a battery pack under the seat and an electric motor on the sprocket of the back wheel. When you pedal a sensor picks up that your feet are cycling around and sends juice to the motor on the back wheel. You get something like three times the energy from one cycle around on the pedals. And then there’s the throttle handle in case you don’t feel like pedaling.

OK, electric bikes? Wicked cool.

Once back at the boat we untied from the mooring and threw up the sails. Because we could, as the masts and sails were back on. As the sun threatened to set, we sailed west right into it toward New York. The wind was perfect across the beam (perpendicular to the boat) right where Sabine likes it. If she was an actual woman, she’d turn toward it, a contented smile would cross her face and she’d arch her back and sweep her hair off her neck to feel the breeze cool her skin. She kinda did that. She tipped slightly in the opposite direction and silently flowed through the lake.

It was with that sail that we’d traveled more than 500 miles since leaving East Greenwich on July 3.

The next morning we sailed to Shelburne Shipyard, where we’d leave Sabine until getting back the week of August 16th. She’d been taking on more water than we’d like since the great rope mishap at Chipman Point a few days before. Apparently my carelessness with that rope, and it’s wrapping in the prop, caused the prop shaft to fall out of alignment.

Luckily there is a Yanmar mechanic at Shelburne, so he can suss out what is wrong with Sabine’s diesel and fix it before we’re due back. A phone call after we’d left her there revealed that the water leaks in the engine room caused the pulleys on the belt system on the diesel also engine mounts to rust to the point where they are no longer even a little bit viable. Long story short, wrapping the line around that prop could have knocked the diesel off its mounts and render it entirely useless. So, in a way it was a good (but very costly) thing that I’d wrapped that line and misaligned the prop shaft—else we’d never known about the rusted out engine mounts.

Friday we rented a car, piled the dogs, bags, kids and us into it and drove to Massachusetts to meet my brother and sister-in-law to give them back their children. Then the long and tired ride back to Rhode Island.

But the adventure resumes in a few short days.

The Land of Phish, Ben and Jerry

Burlington, VT is a little city on the shore of Lake Champlain. It’s filled with funky little shops, and is in close proximity to the University of Vermont. It’s where Phish got their start, as did Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for that matter.

It’s a clean city, its shops and restaurants thriving with tourists in the summer. I’ve never been to Burlington in the winter, but I remember the first time I’d ever been there. It was a few months after Todd and I started going out in 1997. He’d just finished his stint as the waterfront director at a boy scout camp in Benson, Vermont—about an hour’s drive south of Burlington. He’d moved back home to Rutland after camp closed, and I met him there on a Friday night after work. On Saturday we drove to Burlington and shacked up in a room in the Holiday Inn just outside the city limits and explored the city the next day.

The next time I was there was on the great 1999 sailing trip aboard Sugar Mag. We picked up a slip at the Community Boat House, and I reveled in the hot shower on land. We walked up the hill to explore the city.

This time around we picked up a Community Boat House mooring, which are first come first serve each day. We easily grabbed one, and then set about preparing for the trip ashore. The dogs were fed, but couldn’t wait until they got to shore to take care of business. We casually pooper-scooped the decks into the lake while other boaters moored nearby weren’t looking.

The skies threatened rain. The day before a storm raged through while we were in Westport. The rain fell perfectly perpendicular to the ground for a good 15 minutes. Luckily Todd was going out to the boat to take a nap anyway, so he managed to close up the cockpit curtains and windows. I sat in the restaurant with Maggie, Krys and Hali and watched the rain slam the windows. “I am sure Uncle Todd would like the help out there,” I nodded to where I remembered we’d docked the boat. The rain was so thick we couldn’t see it anymore, “But we’d just get drenched. Who wants ice cream?”

We closed the cockpit and windows and piled into the dinghy. We piled into a taxi to take us up the hill to Church Street. Normally it’s a 10 minute walk, but the air was heavy with the heat and humidity that Todd said “I don’t want to walk in this, it’s gross. Taxi!”

First stop, Ben and Jerry’s!

We browsed the shops. Todd bought me my “vacation bling” which is a beautiful handmade silver necklace. I instantly put it on and it glowed against my tan skin. The rain fell intermittently, and it didn’t stop us. We walked in the rain. We ate Mexican food for dinner. Eventually I got cold, so Maggie and I stopped in a shop called Common Threads to look for a sweater for me to throw on. Nothing fancy. Just something to keep me warm for the rest of the day.

I spotted a lime green cardigan on the rack and glanced at the price tag. It read some obnoxious amount of money, I think it was $95 for a thin little cotton cardigan. Sure it was cute. But not $95 cute. Maggie glanced at the tag and raised her eyebrows. Her mom raised her right, and she knew $95 was too much to spend.

We left the store straight away, and she gestured to the sign outside, “Common Threads? Yeah, Common Bullshit.” And we laughed conspiratorially. We were two women exploring a city together, not just aunt and niece. And I know that in a few quick years we’ll both be two women navigating our lives, careers, marriages, and whatever else we both end up doing. But it still doesn’t feel like that long ago that I first saw her on the day I’d returned home from Sydney. She was 10 months old by then, born two months after I’d left the US. Someday she’ll just call me “Beej” instead of “Aunt Beej” and that will likely mark the moment when we are both on the same life level.

Todd and Krys went back to the boat while Maggie, Hali and I continued to walk around Burlington. Eventually Krys expertly steered the dinghy ashore to pick us up. I smiled at my 14 year old nephew. He’s my Godson, and he was cruising along with his hand on the outboard tiller like he’d done it all his life. I oozed with pride.

“Wanna drive?” he asked after I sat down.


“Nah, you’re doing a good job,” I replied. And I knew he was glad I said no.

Revisiting Conception

It was 11 years ago when we’d sailed to and from Burlington over a span of 10 days. It was our first real sailing vacation and it was the one that had gotten us hooked on sailing trips. We were aboard Sugar Magnolia, a 26’ Pearson Commander. Sugar Mag wasn’t nearly as luxurious as Sabine. It had 4 bunks inside, the mattress on them was maybe 2 inches thick. The toilet was located under the bunks in the forward portion of the boat. To use it we had to pull up the cushions, lift up the wooden panel and then secure a sarong I’d fashioned into a curtain with a clothes pin for a little privacy. The shower was a foil-lined pouch. Once filled with water the pouch was left on deck and heated by the sun, usually to just barely lukewarm.

It was at Conception Bay in 1999 that I’d taken a solar shower in Sugar Mag’s cockpit. The sun had just set and we had the bay, located just south of Burlington, to ourselves. I stripped down and Todd held the solar shower pouch over my head and sprayed me down. I shivered while I shampooed and soaped. Once I warmed from near hypothermic levels it was nice to feel clean. But I’ll never forget cowering naked in the cockpit with my teeth chattering while the soap ran down my skin.

This time around we left Chipman Point on Tuesday morning and headed north to Burlington. We passed all of the familiar landmarks on the way—Fort Ticonderoga, the slight stench of the International Paper Company’s mill on the New York side of the lake. We passed Larabees Point and saw the cable ferry pass in front of us, and then pass behind us again as it headed back to the Vermont side. The ferry travels back and forth on a cable, and boaters like us need to be very careful not to get to close to the ferry as the cable is only a few feet below the water line.

The Crown Point bridge has since been dismantled and is being rebuilt. But the lake opens wider just north of that point and it looks less like a river and more like a lake. On the western shore we stopped in Westport for a late lunch. I have photos of Todd from 11 years ago feeding the ducks off the dock at Westport. I looked for the ducks when we arrived on this Tuesday.

We traveled further north and crossed back over to the eastern side of the lake. We tossed the anchor just south of Garden Island, in roughly the same spot where I’d taken that shower in the cockpit 11 years before. The kids and Todd went swimming. I spotted a hot air balloon on shore. But mostly I marveled at how far we’d come on this trip, and how far we’d come in our sailing life as well.

Back then we were thrilled to have a functioning toilet aboard. The sink didn’t function and we didn’t care. We used a butane stove to cook, and I drained pasta overboard. Dishes were washed in the lake. Teeth were brushed over the side of the boat, toothpaste spat into the lake. Perishables were kept in an ice chest. Bars of soap were brought onto deck for a bath in the lake or the solar shower in the cockpit, filled from the lake. Potable water was in a 2.5 gallon Poland Spring jug. Careful consideration was given to food when provisioning. Non-perishables were kept in a Rubbermaid bin. Macaroni and cheese was a popular staple, but we bought the kind with the gooey cheese instead of the powdered cheese, this way we wouldn’t have to buy milk and butter too. Muffins and pints of OJ were for breakfast, PB&J for lunch.
For entertainment we brought a “boom box,” CDs and batteries. We had no internet access. We had books and a deck of cards. We still have CDs, but Todd’s loaded most of our CD collection on his iPod anyway. We have a sound system aboard Sabine now, with speakers, the wires to them running to and fro behind the walls. The iPod is controlled with BlueTooth. Todd bought a mobile hotspot thingy so we can have internet access. We have a refrigerator that runs on power. We have a shower (with hot water and tiled walls) and toilet in separate rooms. The mattresses on the bunks are several inches thick. We still play cards and read, but we have the option to watch a movie streamed through Netflix on the iPad.

I look back fondly on the time we spent aboard Sugar Mag and all the time we spent on that restoration, and every moment of Sabine’s restoration. I am so grateful for the opportunity to go on these adventures and to be able to explore the world from the relative comfort that Sugar Mag once offered and that I take for granted aboard Sabine.

That night on Conception Bay I realized that we only had two more full days aboard Sabine. On Friday we would get into a rental car and make the ride back to real life. I tried not to let it bum me out.

Back Together Again

The high whine buzzed near my ears. Exasperated, I swatted at it, rolled over, and pulled the covers up to my ears. Within minutes my body was dripping in sweat. I kicked the covers off and moments later I was covered in mosquito bitten welts. On and on it went until I fell asleep out of pure exhaustion sometime before sunrise.

The sun streamed through the window, and the heat of the day had already settled in. I threw on some clothes and met up with Todd, Maggie, Krys and Hali to go over the plan for getting the masts put back on.

Before I knew it, we were tying up to the docks just in front of Chipman Point’s crane. Chip stood on the ledge near the crane and helped us position Sabine because the crane is fixed. It goes up and down, but it does not go side to side. Sabine had to be positioned precisely under the crane so that when we picked up the mast it would be balanced so that it wouldn’t crash into the deck, or worse fall into the water.

We moved the mizzen mast out of the way and hoisted the main mast into position. This involved a great deal of wrangling, balancing and negotiating. At one point the cable slipped out of the gear on the top of the crane, and Chip hauled Todd up to fix it. Krys was on the dock handling the lines, Maggie was with Todd and I on deck guiding the mast into position, while Hali was on shore tending to the dogs and taking advantage of the ship store’s honor policy. When I looked at our slip later, I saw that she’d painstakingly written what she’d “bought” from the store in the neatest cursive she could possibly muster.

When the main was in position we stopped to take a break. Todd’s parents had brought some pizza for us. We ate, and then the exhaustion from the lack of sleep had set in. I stared into space until Todd convinced me to take a nap.

But before I went to bed we needed to turn Sabine around so we could get the mizzen mast step into position under the crane. We had to rotate her 180 degrees. This involved tying ropes to various points on her corners and pulling on them to turn her around. The diesel was running, and it was in gear. I held a long rope in my hands, and momentarily stopped paying attention to how much of it draped into the water.

Then the rope, once slack, suddenly grew taut in my hands. The engine stuttered loudly and I realized what had happened.  I was careless with the rope and it had gotten sucked into the propeller. And, dammit, I knew better than that.  Todd jammed the throttle into neutral, I ran to the back of the boat and saw the rope, tied to a cleat on one end and pulled superhumanly tight to the underside of the boat on the other end. I tugged on it, but it wouldn’t give a bit.

Before I knew it Todd had donned a mask and snorkel, and jumped into the water. He swam to the back of the boat. After a few minutes he freed the line and we managed to get Sabine turned around.  I held the rope in my hands, it was melted in the spots that had gotten wrapped.  Looks like we'll need Charlie to splice up a new set of lines for the jib sheet.

We sat down to take a break while we waited for Chip to run the crane to get the mizzen put up. Maggie was talking to me. I swear her lips were moving, but I don’t know what she was saying.

“Your eyes are pointing in 2 different directions, Beej. Time for bed,” Todd nodded to the boat. I didn’t argue. Krys dinghied me to the boat, which was still positioned under the crane, I crawled into bed.

When I woke up the mizzen mast was up. Krys was tightening the standing rigging (cables that hold the masts up) with a pair of vise grips and pliers (the same exact way I’d seen Charlie take them off a few days before) while Todd and Maggie were putting the cotter pins on the remainder of the stays.

We had 1 remaining stay to hookup, the one that goes from the top of the main mast to the almost the top of the mizzen.

“I’ll go,” Krys volunteered, while slipping into the climbing harness. Todd tied in “Oh shit” line to it and Chip raised Krys on the crane. He retrieved the stay and clipped it into place, the Chip lowered him down again.

And with that, the masts were in place. Once back on our slip we put the sails back on, Maggie scrubbed the decks, and we fell asleep exhausted.

The Half Way Mark

Sunday was our half way mark. And for the first time since we left New York City the week before we didn’t wake up and immediately head out. We woke up at Chipman Point and had a few things to figure out: 1. when would we put the masts back on, and 2. what would we do that day. I suspected that the day’s activities might include swimming and eating ice cream.

The thing about Chipman Point is that the marina has the last crane on the lake north of the locks. This means that it is the last opportunity on Lake Champlain for sailboats to have their masts taken down before heading into the locks. The bridges over the Champlain Canal are way too low for a sailboat with masts to fit under. Heck, there was one bridge where we thought we might not make it under with our masts laid on deck.

Years ago when we kept our boat at Chipman Point we met loads of Canadian sailors who had their masts taken down at Chipman Point. They came down the lake from Canada, presumably on their way to some exotic locale, and Chip and Dick worked to take down their masts. Then they left, headed south, with their Canadian or Quebec flag flowing off the stern.

Todd met with Chip that morning to figure out when we’d get our turn in front of the crane. Chip was already working overtime to repair a Canadian powerboat, and was engaged in an argument with a French-Canadian sailor who was very insistent that Chip take his masts down immediately. Chip shrugged and pointed at Todd and said “Well, he got here first, he’s next.” The French-Canadian swore at Chip in French, Todd said “Look, this guy’s going to give you a hard time, we can wait until tomorrow. It’s all good.” Chip thanked him then finished the motor on the power boat, and dismasted two Canadian boats before he got to us at noon on Monday.

We had all of Sunday ahead of us, and we spent it anchored in front of Fort Ticonderoga. The fort is just north of Chipman Point, and every Sunday they hold a battle reenactment. Todd’s parents keep their boat at Chipman, and we rafted to their boat and spent the afternoon swimming, lounging, eating and playing cards.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon in preparation for the grueling mast stepping on Monday.

Testing the Strength of Gravity

You can see the impact of the economic recession in the towns along the Champlain Canal. The people have a worn down look and feel to them. The buildings are run down around the edges. In Waterford we dinghied to the east side of the canal to go swimming. We tied to a dock and waded in. Local teens gathered on the shore and stared at the weird people swimming in the probably polluted canal. At first it was 1 girl, and then she went and got her friends. And then more friends crawled out to gawk at the strangers. And then the theme song from “Deliverance” played on repeat on the CD player in my brain. That night, after dinner, we sat at the counter in a diner to get dessert. A man talked Todd’s ear off about his disgruntlement at the state of the world, NY state, and the government.

“Mags, we have to help out Uncle Todd. We need to tear him away from this man,” I whispered.

“How?”

“We need to ask him a question, so he has to turn our way.”

“Uncle Todd, so, how do you like the iPad?” she asked. Todd, relieved, turned to Maggie. The man got up and left after a few minutes. Which was great because he was such a bummer. But I suspect that’s the theme of the town. Not enough jobs and plenty of politicians to blame for it.

Fort Edward was no different. Haggard people sat on the park benches when we pulled up. A couple went by—she was pushing a baby stroller as he walked beside her. Her T-shirt, from afar, read “Pussy Rules.” Upon closer inspection it read “I have the pussy, I make the rules.” Classy. The locals swam in the creek where we were tied, so at least we didn’t feel like animals in the zoo when we swam too.

On Saturday morning we took on locks 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12. There is no lock 10. Apparently the Canal had been diverted and changed so many times that the lock numbering system had been disrupted. Once we were through lock 12 we would officially enter Lake Champlain.

It was just before lock 12 that Hali fell. I was below making lunch. Out of the corner of my eye I watched a skinny 9 year old fall clean down the companion way and land face down. I leaned down to pick her up. She said she was OK, but her left cheek looked like someone stuffed a golf ball under her skin. I grabbed an ice pack from the first aid kit and struggled to pop the inner pouch. Eventually I frantically set the damn thing on the floor and stomped on it until I managed to get the inner packet to break. I shook it and released the cool chemical reaction.

Tears had begun to stream down her face by then. Todd hollered to me from the helm “What’s on the back of her shirt?” I turned her around and saw a stream of blood had formed from the back of her head. Her blonde fine hair was clotted with blood. I pawed through it to find a small scrape on the back of her head that bled like a geyser. I wet a paper towel and held it to her head to stop the bleeding.

Lock 12 loomed. We had no choice but to go through it. I dispatched Maggie to care for Hali while Krys and I navigated the lock. Once through the lock we pulled over to a marina immediately north of the lock. Todd called my brother and sister in law to let them know what had happened to Hali. I grabbed a roll of doggie bags and went to the ships store to buy ice. I fashioned ice packs out of the doggie bags and told Hali, “I want that cheek frozen solid.”

Then we decided to cool her cheek from within with ice cream, because that makes everything better. Once calm, fueled and watered as well, we climbed into the boat and headed to Chipman Point Marina.

I’ve mentioned before that Chipman Point is one of our favorite places on earth. We still, rather profoundly, feel the loss of our friend Dick who had owned the marina. We motored from Whitehall to Chipman Point, thankful that the swelling on Hali’s face had gone down and she returned to her spazzy self within a few hours. (Hali is truly by brother’s daughter. When Kaz was in school they used to call him Spaz, and it’s not only because it rhymed.)

In the afternoon we tied to the end of the transient dock at Chipman Point. As I was securing the lines Pat, the marina, owner came up to ask, “May I help you?” Pat had never seen Sabine. I looked up from tying the lines and her face lit up at recognition.

“I can’t believe you guys made it!” she hugged me tightly. Before we knew it, everyone we knew from Chipman Point congregated at the end of the transient dock to greet us, and again we were the monkeys at the zoo. But this time it was more fun. Pat’s eyes filled with tears, “I wish Dick could see this. He would have loved it.” But I felt his spirit there anyway, and I told her so.

The kids explored the marina, which consists of two old stone warehouse buildings constructed in 1812 and 1827. We swam. We helped ourselves to ice cream from the ship’s store, and then marked it on our slip of paper tacked to the bulletin board. We’d pay our slip at the end of our stay. We settled in to watch a movie in the cockpit, shown on the iPad and broadcast through Sabine’s sound system.

We swatted the mosquitoes and breathed a sigh of contentment that only Chipman Point can produce.

Crunch Time

We woke on Friday excited to tackle the locks in the Champlain Canal. We untied from the wall in Waterford and checked the sign on the shore to make sure we were headed for the correct canal.

We plowed through locks 1, 2, and 3 before noon. They were pretty close together, and each one raised us another 15-20 feet above sea level. Krystian pointed out that we were at this point more than 100 feet over sea level.

We got pretty good at navigating the locks. The way it works is that there is a waterfall on the outside of the lock that alleviates the pressure of the water north of the lock while the doors to the lock are closed. As we approach the lock we watch for the tell-tale green light that will inform us that the lock master is ready for us to enter the lock. Sometimes the light is red, so we slow down and maintain our course slowly until it turns green.

The cross currents are strong just south of the lock as the water that just came down the water fall rushes back to rejoin the canal. The channel leading to the lock sometimes grows narrow, and we learned just south of lock 4 that the channel markers are not mere suggestions of where we should be. They clearly delineate the safe part of the water from the dangerous.

We watched for the green light as we hovered just south of the lock. The light turned green, Todd, behind the wheel, increased the throttle slightly, and then it happened. The loud scraping crunching sound escaped from below the keel. The boat elevated out of the water and pitched to the right. Items below decks crashed onto the floors from all surfaces. I was sitting on the low side of the boat and braced my feet against the lifelines to keep myself from falling overboard, “Honey!” I howled in fright.

It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened. I looked forward and saw the red navigational marker was just to the left of our boat. It’s supposed to be on the right. We were out of bounds and aground hard.

We surveyed the situation, as the diesel engine vibrated below us, “What about the engine intake? Is that still below the waterline?” I asked Todd. The diesel is cooled with freshwater. If the intake is not below the waterline, then the engine will not stay cool. If the engine gets too hot it will melt and seize.

“It’s OK,” Todd scratched his head. He gunned Sabine’s diesel into reverse. She tried to back off but wasn’t strong enough.

“I wonder if SeaTow works out here?” I asked, thankful that I’d renewed our membership.

“OK, here’s what we’re gonna do. Let’s try to tow her off with the dinghy,” Todd leapt into the dinghy and fired up the outboard. “Maggie, Krys, relay the message to Aunt Beej for me. This might get loud. Beej, gun it in reverse when I say so.”

“Reverse, Aunt Beej, turn it hard to starboard,” Maggie relayed from Uncle Todd in the dinghy. I felt the dinghy’s rope grow taut on Sabine’s stern.

“Gun it! Reverse!” Krys chimed in. 

"Come on!!!" Hali clenched her teeth.

With the same grinding noise, the rock released Sabine's keel  She pulled off the rock, and once again we were upright. We cheered as I forced the throttle handle back into neutral. The adrenaline made my hands tingle; my heart rate remained elevated for the rest of the day. We pulled into lock 4 where the dock master asked if we were OK. I searched for navigational buoys for the rest of the day and diligently pointed them out to Todd until we eventually went through lock 5 and 6 and then tied to the wall for the night in Fort Edward.

“Hey guys,” Hali pointed to the incline meter, “did you know that we were tipped at 20 degrees when we were on the rock? I checked.” I had shown Hali the day before that we had tipped to 35 degrees when the tide went out and left us grounded a few nights earlier. I was, and still am, surprised that she’d remembered to check. This was Hali’s second time aboard, and this time she was more aware of how things work on a boat.

I looked down to see my fingernails, my version of an incline meter, were once again chewed down to stumps.

Unlocking Champlain Canal

On Thursday morning the sun streamed through the stateroom windows. I keep meaning to get curtains. The 5 AM sun is bright, and when ever we’re at a dock we have zero privacy when we change in the stateroom. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock. It was 8 AM, and our new crew would arrive at noon.


I had laundry to do and a boat to clean. Todd had sugary snacks to buy, as well as more provisions for meals while underway. I began to strip the sheets out from under a sleeping Todd. That’s OK, he needed to wake up anyway.

I hauled our dirty laundry up the dock and asked the crowd of people where the nearest Laundromat was. A man we had struck up a conversation with the day before had offered me a ride, but I declined. It’s not that I don’t want to accept a ride from a stranger. He seemed like a perfectly nice man. My thing is not having the time to be somebody’s passenger. What if he said to me “Oh, I need to run an errand on the way”? Then I’d be at the mercy of this dude, and I didn’t have that kind of time.

I avoided the dude with the car and walked to the Laundromat, just a block or so away, and headed back to the boat. I had cleaning to do, legs to shave, and the more I looked around the more I wanted to accomplish in the next 4 hours.

By 12:30 our new crew arrived, just as I was finishing the chores. Todd had taken a taxi to the supermarket, and he hadn’t arrived yet. The crew was made up of Maggie (age 15), Krystian (age 14) and Hali (age 9.) My sister in law, Melissa, drove from Connecticut to drop them off for the remainder of our first week, and the entire second week as well.

Not long after Melissa left, and the groceries were all stowed, we untied the dock lines and headed north for Troy, NY to enter the NY canal system through the federal lock.

We entered the lock expecting to tie up to the wall inside with a line on the bow and a line on the stern. The lock doors closed behind us and we frantically tried to tie both lines to the pipes on the walls until the lock master called out “Just tie with a midship line.” We slung our midship line around the pipe and waited.

Soon the water filled the lock from below, and Sabine rose to the top of the wall. We marveled at how seams in the concrete wall disappeared below the water and soon we could see over the top of the wall and further north up the canal. Maggie released the line when the door opened, and Todd steered Sabine back to the center of the lock and eventually through the doors.

We high fived at our entry into the canal system and headed for Waterford, NY. We’d heard about a free place to dock for the night, when we saw the canals fork in front of us. A sign on the shore pointed left for the Erie Canal and to the right for the Champlain Canal. We tied to a wall just below the sign and headed to shore for dinner and the inevitable ice cream.

The amenities at Waterford, provided to boaters for free, were very accommodating. There were bathrooms and showers at the visitor center. But the maps of the canal system on the signs were the most interesting. We traced our fingers along the length of the Champlain Canal and counted 11 more locks until we were officially in the lake.

Crew Change

We got back home to RI on Friday night, and have spent Saturday and Sunday lazing around to recover from such an athletic 2 weeks. I have 700 or so photos to sort. But more importantly I have to finish telling you all about last Wednesday.

We woke up in Catskill, NY with a foggy sky and masts lying on braces on our deck. The braces were tied with straps and ropes that I would have to step over and duck under every time I walk anywhere on deck for the next few days.

We untied the dock lines and headed for Albany. It was quiet in the cockpit. Charlie was at the wheel, Todd was logged in to do a bit of work, Craig was reading and I was probably puttering around and taking pictures. We were still tired from the strenuous day of taking down the masts, and once we got to Albany Craig and Charlie would leave the boat.

I took the wheel, Todd got online and booked Charlie’s one way flight from Albany to Providence, and joked about his getting frisked at every turn for booking a one way last minute flight, and then I turned around and saw it.

A gigantic freight ship loomed behind us. It came around a bend in the river and barreled north, as if it were chasing us. We hadn’t tied the masts to the braces and we feared that the wake from the freighter would jostle them off the braces and onto the deck, or worse into the water.

Charlie took the wheel and examined the map. Todd and I scrambled on deck with a spool of rope, stepping under and over the supporting ropes the whole way. Charlie steered Sabine just outside of the channel and shifted the diesel into neutral. Todd and I finished tying the masts to the tops of the braces while the humongous freighter passed us. Its wake wasn’t nearly as big as we’d anticipated, but we were still relieved that we managed to get the masts tied down in time.

We followed the freighter all the way into the Port of Albany. It towered above the river banks, like it didn’t belong in the Hudson River, and would run aground at any moment. Narrow strips of water were on either side of the ship, barely enclosing the freighter in enough water to carry her to her destination.

While en route Todd hailed the captain of the freighteron the radio to find out how much fuel it burns per day. The captain was very cool about talking to us, despite the fact that he probably had more important things to worry about. (You know, like not running out of river to travel on.)  The captain replied that the freighter burns 1 ton of fuel per hour, or 302 gallons.  That breaks down to approximately 1 gallon every 12 seconds. (Todd observed that he can't even pour out a gallon of diesel in 12 seconds.)  Imagine that this ship runs 24/7 when it is traveling, and burns 7,248 gallons per 24 hour period.

For the sake of comparison, Sabine burns ¾ of a gallon per hour.

We tied up to Albany Yacht Club and said goodbye to Charlie just before his taxi took him to the airport. Todd’s mom and nephew, Alex, arrived with the best brownies I have ever eaten. Armed with her car, we ran errands, had a pizza dinner selected by 5 year old Alex, and then returned to the boat to prepare for our new crew to arrive the next day.

Taking Down the Masts

Yesterday, while still at Chipman Point on Lake Champlain, we put the masts back into their correct position. The decks are clear, and there is no longer a dangerous obstacle course to walk through when trying to get anywhere on deck.

But it was on Tuesday last week when we had to take them down. It was in Catskill, NY on the morning after the tide went out and we sunk into the mud at the bottom of the river.

We arrived at the marina before the tide came in, and had much work ahead of us. Todd and Charlie had already taken down and packed the sails. Charlie marked the turnbuckles on the standing rigging (cables that hold the masts into place) so that we would know how far to tighten them so that they are properly tuned. (Have I mentioned that it’s completely and entirely awesome to have a yacht rigger aboard?)

We tied up to the dock, and Todd and I headed to the boatyard’s barn to build the braces that the masts would rest on for the next week. He measured and sketched. Within an hour we had built the three braces. The crane operator and two of the guys working at the boatyard helped us take them down.

It took all day. It was hot and sticky, and every so often a stray rain shower pelted us. The rain didn’t cool us down; it only served to make us feel slimy. We trucked on through the remainder of the job. We propped up the braces and tied them with miles of ropes and straps.

By the end of the day we were hot and sticky. We were tired. Charlie spotted a restaurant on the shore were we decided to have dinner because none of us wanted to cook anything or wash any dishes. We slurped down the drink special, the Peach Flamingo. The guys tried to look somewhat manly as they ordered them, but it didn’t matter because they went down like liquid candy.

The walk back to the boat was only a block or so away, but it felt like much longer due to our exhaustion. We fell into our beds; our destination for the next day would be Albany.

UFO Sighting

It was Sunday when we were en route to West Point when we passed Indian Point power plant. We discussed whether it was a coal plant or nuclear when Todd settled the discussion with the iPad.

“Holy crap, you guys,” his eyebrows shot up as he scrolled through a story, “listen to this.”

It was 1984 when the local police station received some 60 calls about a UFO sighting over the power plant. A dozen of the plants security guards spotted the same thing and donned their body armor and whipped out their shot guns. They raced to get into position as the object hovered above them. They suspected the object was approximately 450 feet long; its lights, in a V formation changed colors.

The plant’s security system detected that the object had gotten within 30 feet of the cooling towers, and shut down the entire computer system. The guards readied to shoot; the police chief called in a helicopter from the local air force base.

The chopper didn’t arrive before the object shot straight upward from the cooling towers and flew away. The guards stood down.

To this day, nobody knows what that thing was. And the Air Force denies anything out of the ordinary ever happened that night.