OF OPERATING TABLES and PALLETS

July 4, 2011

I would like to wish everyone a very happy Fourth of July.  Some 235 years ago a great experiment started and it looks like it is still running fine, thanks to all of the world’s people who came here to live, prosper and make it great as well as all of the military people who gave their lives or body parts to prevent it from being destroyed.

Rich and Carol stopped by to see me today.  I am still sitting on the ground, now, without my propellers.   Rich cleaned some soot off of my transom and waxed it.   Carol added some foam to the mattress on the master berth.  Sure -   thinking of themselves again.  I sit on the hard pavement and they want a soft bed----what wimps.

On the right is a picture of my port transmission, in pieces.  There are not many parts but they are big.  The parts are neatly laid out on the pallet---oh I mean the operating table.  The large shaft on the left of the picture is the one that got damaged.  Rich was told that the new shaft came in on Friday.  With any amount of luck, I will be on my way next Friday.  The transmission is simple as there is only forward and reverse and it operates at the same ratio in either direction.

My propellers were sitting close by so Rich got a picture of them as well.  They are nice and shiny now, but that won’t last long once they go back in the water.  They look small in the picture, but they are 3 feet across.

Rich is having my water line cleaned as the fresh water has left a dirty mark around my hull.  I guess he is getting lazy since he is having someone else do it. Carol and Rich went back to Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands for the fireworks tonight.  They went back to the same hotel they stayed at last week and, I am told, will have a great view of all of the action over Boldt Castle.  Last night they saw great fireworks over the canal in Oswego. 

Another Laker went by their hotel this afternoon. They are such huge graceful boats.  I don’t, however, think I want to meet one up close and personal. When the Laker came into the channel all of the small boats got out of the way, Rich said that size matters

I AM IN SALT COUNTRY

Salt ‘n Sand here. I am still sitting on the ground, Rich and Carol came to see me on Monday and gave me the information that I am posting here.  Jim gave Rich an update and showed him the parts from my transmission that had been damaged.  He also told Rich that my turbos were leaking oil and that is leading to soot on my transom, Rich told Jim to replace my turbos as well.  I heard Jim say that he thought I would be back in the water next week.  This is the longest I have been out of the water.  Being out of the water is uncomfortable for me as all of my weight is put on 9 small points rather than spread throughout my hull when I am in the water.  I can’t wait to get back into water.

Rich and Carol went to see the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, NY.  The museum is located in the old Weigh Lock house.  In this lock each barge was weighed to determine the amount of toll it had to pay to use the Canal. 

Rich also learned that Syracuse was the salt capital of the early United States and salt was shipped in all directions.  The salt was obtained from boiling the brine of Onondaga Lake in large pans with fires under them.  Men with shovels would dig the salt out of the pans.  I guess that is where the phrase “working in the salt mine” when discussing hot, hard work came from.  Prior to the invention of refrigeration salt was critical was for the preservation of food, production of chemicals and tanning of hides.  One of the ways, England tried to control its colonies was to control their access to salt by shipping it all from the Northwest England.  Syracuse salt help give independence to the new country.  Salt was very valuable and so arose the phrase “Worth his weight in salt.”

I SIT, THEY TRAVEL

June 23, 2011

Hi, Rich here.  I got a request from Salt ‘n Sand to post something to her blog while she is in the hospital, as she calls it.

As Salt ‘n Sand told you the last time that she posted, Carol and I rented a car.  We decided that we would go to the 1000 Islands at Alexandria Bay, Clayton and Cape Vincent.  The weather was bad for both Tuesday and Wednesday but it has improved this afternoon.  We are staying at a hotel that is across from Boldt Castle and the view is incredible. 

The Boldt House Barge

Yesterday, we went to the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY.  The museum is full of guess what, antique wooden boats.  It also contains a house boat built by George Boldt, but never occupied by him.  It was towed around by a tug and placed wherever the client wanted it to be.  It is large enough to hold not only the family renting it but their servants as well.  The wood work has been restored and it is in grand 1890s style reflecting Mr. Boldt's status at the time.  He did rent the barge for $100.00 per day, that was when a dollar was worth a dollar.  Following Boldt’s death, George Noble purchased the Castle and the barge.   Noble was a candy maker.  A child had swallowed one of his candies, gotten it caught in his windpipe and died.  Noble vowed it would not happen again.  He invented a candy with a hole in the middle of it and called it a Life Saver.  If it went down the wrong pipe the eater would still be able to breath. McNally of Rand McNally purchased the barge and had it restored as it had sunk in 12 feet of water. The McNally family has since given the boat to the Museum for all of us to enjoy.

Below are pictures of some of the boats that we saw at the museum.

Look at the 8 exhaust pipes



Speed Boat Stern



 











We went on to Cape Vincent and did not see much there.  Our original plan had been to bring Salt ‘n Sand to the 1000 Islands to cruise there but that will have to wait for the next time.



George Bodt who was the proprietor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York and the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, PA began his castle in about 1900, when his wife died suddenly he ordered all work on the castle to stop that very day.  While he had extensive holdings in the 1000 Islands he never returned to his Heart Island.  The house was left to the elements and vandals for 70 years.  The Noble Family finally gave the Castle and Island to the 1000 Islands Bridge Authority who are currently restoring it.  It can not be restored beyond the point that Boldt left it and has to be open to the public.  Many of the rooms are unfinished and will always be that way, but the grandeur is still there.  The Authority has spent more than $40 million restoring the Castle and its grounds.



Boldt Castle Main Staircase



George Boldt arrived from Germany at the age of 13 with nothing and without government

help built this castle and the boat house across the channel as well as several very successful hotels.  His wife was the daughter of the owner of the Bellevue Stratford in Philadelphia.

Here is the Castle with an ocean going freighter going past it.  This picture was taken outside of our room.





I AM REALLY SICK

June 21, 2011

Today was not a good for me.  The doctor concluded that I had destroyed some of the splines on the shaft that comes out of my transmission and connects to the propeller shaft.  I had to be pulled out of the water and tomorrow one of my transmissions will be removed for further investigation.  The doctor will open the transmission to see if anything else was damaged. 

Rich and Carol rented a car, Rich gave me a pat on my rear end and off they went.  I hope that I can get going again soon.  I don’t like sitting on land.

I will be off line until I get back together.  the doctor said it will take atleast a week or two to put me back into the water.

See the lady standing below my bow?

THE DAY OF A HIGH, A LET DOWN--NOW HERE I SIT

June 20, 2011

Rich took me to the doctor today at Winter Harbor Marina and he said that the oil leak I have is coming from my port transmission.  The yard worked very quickly and began to take me apart to make sure they understand what needs to be done.  The doctor said that I might be here for a week or more. Depending on how much damage has been done.  He asked about my medical history and if I had been driven on the ground and stalled the engine.  Two years ago while in the channel coming out of Onancock I hit a sand bar and stalled the engine.  That may have been the start of the problem, who knows?  I will post again when I have further details.

June 19, 2011

Today was a high followed by a big letdown.  They got me going early again so they could make the first of 5 locks that had to be traversed.  The trip today was 50 miles long and took us from Little Falls to Sylvan Beach on the Erie Canal.  Rather than travel in the Mohawk River I actually traveled in the dugout portion of the Canal.

The high point of the day was when I reached 420 feet above sea level, the highest point on the Canal. I traveled through 20 locks to get that high.  Then the let down came, within a two mile distance I was lowered forty three feet.  From this point on I will be going down to Lake Ontario.  I like going down in a lock, it is lot easier on me than going up.  Rich and Carol bought some nice hangers for the big Aeré fenders.  While going up the fenders pulled and rubbed on the lock walls, there was so much pressure that the lines bent the line guides on the fender hangers but nothing happened to the fenders, Aeré fenders are really strong.

The trip was pretty boring; I did see the steam powered boat heading toward Little Falls where there will be a canal steam boat festival the weekend of June 25.

Sylvan Beach is an inland version of the New Jersey Shore but on a smaller scale.  People anchor their boats off the shore and jump into the water.  The beach is sand and about four miles long.  There are amusement rides for the children, games of chance, bars with loud bands, and a large public park.  The rides are old but they are there. There was a roller coaster, tilt-a-whirl, fun house, Himalaya and bumper boats; but there was no Ferris wheel or merry go round. The fun house was touted as the “world’s scarcest ride”, easy for them to say they haven’t got up in a 40 ft lock with the wind blowing.   There are lots of little cottages in the area that are rented out for the week or the season.  Rich and Carol saw a sign that that read “Parking Full   Overflow Parking Straight Ahead 4 Blocks ”  Nothing unusual about the sign except that straight ahead was into Lake Oneida. 

There are a very large number of boats here; most of them are small or pontoon party boats.  I saw this one pontoon boat that had a second story on it.  Off of the second story came a slide that must have sent the slider up into the air and then down in the water.  The slid looked like it would be good fun for a human but not for me.  If I jumped on it I would sink the pontoon boat.

Tomorrow I start the journey across Lake Oneida. If the wind is out of the west, our ride could be very bumpy. My next stop is at Winter Harbor Marina in Brewerton, NY where I hope someone there can fix my oil leak, so Rich doesn’t have to clean my bilge each evening. Check in tomorrow to see if I’ve been repaired.

WONDERFUL PEOPLE

June 18 ,2011

I said goodbye to Riverlink Marina at Amsterdam NY early this morning and the three of us got on our way.  Today was a busy day for me I went through 7 locks and I was lifted 121 vertical feet.  One lock was a 40.5 foot lift.  That lock was different than any one I had gone through before.  The lower gate opened by lifting vertically.  I drove under the lock door and got wet from the dripping water.  It was an interesting lock to enter and we were so focused that they did not get a picture

When Rich was doing some old property searches in New Jersey, he found that property lines were marked by trees or piles of stones.  I noticed that the New York State Canal System marks the location of buoys by nailing a sign on a tree.  Since the buoys have to be removed over the winter, the signs make it easier to place them in the spring.   Here is an example

 

Carol saw this house and even thought it was homier than the Esopus Lighthouse on the Hudson River.  How could she leave me, there isn’t even enough space to put a dock.  Oh well see how nice I will be to her.  I did like the river waters they were flat and as smooth as glass.  Even when the ocean is flat it is still rolling, a flat river is flat.  Along the flat straight section Rich opened up my throttles and off we went.  I told him he better keep my turbos spinning otherwise they will get gunked up.

Along the way, I showed them this neat little Canal system tug.  Kewl huh?

We stopped at Little Falls, NY today.  What did they do?  They walked to town and left me behind.  Rich did wash the lock mud off of me before they left, I am happier after a bath.  There was a canal built around the “Little Falls” in 1790 so boats could travel along the Mohawk River unimpeded.  The town is old and has some interesting buildings below are two pictures Rich took.  A lady in one of the stores told Rich that the water in the river was almost up to the building with the balcony last month.  Little Falls was once the cheese capital of the United States, those days have long since past. 

 

Yesterday I mentioned how nice the people were here.  There was a graduation party going at the dock property.  A man named Dave came over and invited Rich and Carol to the party ---he didn’t offer me any diesel.  Later while I was writing this, his wife Liz came and offered Rich and Carol cookies and some barbeque and still no diesel for me.  These people are wonderful here---they are real Americans.

I almost forget to mention that Carol and Rich were married on a Saturday 45 years ago today----are they getting old.  But don't tell them I said that.

RAIN AND THE PWHF

June 17, 2011

Salt ‘n Sand reporting from the Mohawk River portion of the Erie Canal in a place called Amsterdam, NY.  The title of this post tells it all.  Rich and Carol told me that we were going to get up and get going early today. Getting up was the easy part.  Looking outside all they saw was water coming out of the sky.  Had they asked me I would have told them it had been raining for a while, I know because I was the one getting wet and keeping them dry.  Well they thought for two hours and then decided to get going. 

We had to go through only three small locks and we traveled about 29 miles to Amsterdam.  There was rain almost the whole way getting to Amsterdam, but someone smiled down on them as each time we went into a lock the rain stopped. 

They did stop me in a nice marina called Riverlink with a restaurant next door.  After they arrived in Amsterdam, they decided to go for a walk and they got caught in a big down pour, serves them right.  It was their turn to get wet.   I bet they just go to that restaurant next door tonight so they don’t get rained on again.

When they came back from their walk they told me that they saw the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame or as it is known locally PWHF.

As I type this, Rich and Carol are having cheese and crackers, all I get is diesel fuel.

They did have dinner at the restaurant, they ate outside with the owners of Bavarian Creme.  Nice people from Louisiana, Bavarian Creme is from Germany.  They were staying in Amsterdam for another day.  They have the recipe for Bavarian Creme on the back of their boat card. 

The people here, I am told, are really nice.  At dinner one of the restaurant owners came and said he was going to the store and asked if any one anything, Carol said yes she needed a loaf of bread.  A little while he comes back and gives her a loaf of bread.  He would take nothing for it.

I thought that I would see a lot of other boats on the Loop.  So far I have only seen 5.  Rich told me that he had met three of the owners either in Cape May or at the Norfolk Rendezvous.  Perhaps I will catch up with some more along the way .

Here is a picture looking east from Riverlink.