010-The Little Re Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

It’s real, it’s not just a sweet children’s story! I know the Great Gray Bridge as the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River and I didn’t know there was even a lighthouse at its base. Sadly, the lighthouse is totally lost to all the goings on around it. But there it stands, that is if you can see that dark spec at the base of the bridge.

I don’t really remember the story that well but I read it to “the cousins” at their bequest. They loved it and wanted it read over and over again. I doubt you could sit down and create a book like that, it just happens, you can’t plan something like that in advance. Anyway, I looked on-line to get a copy as we floated by only to be impressed how many people cherish the book. Amazon had a huge variety to choose from, many costing in the low hundreds and some in the high hundreds. Even the digital versions were popular selling in the teens. Who could have predicted that one? I kinda like the book cover better than the real thing, its that imagination thing.

Comments

049 - Currents

I admit the picture doesn’t show much, but this was 5.5kts underneath Peace Bridge near Port Huron. We were doing 1/2kt against the current. People on the shore were walking faster than us. It was impressive. I’m glad to be on Lake Huron where there are no currents. The lake does slosh around with wind but I can handle that, I really don’t want to fight 5.5kts of current again, it was taking the boat and tossing it all around like a cork. I was working the tiller harder than in a following sea. You can see a bit of an eddy in the lower right but you’ll have to trust me on this one. The dramatized blurry picture below shows the turbulence and terror of the experience. It also captures the Loch Huron monster in the middle left – it’s unexplained what that silver hump is. Yikes!

051 - Med Style Anchoring – It’s so European

It’s complicated but it really lets you pack them in. Having done it now 3 times now, I hope I’m done with it. For us it’s complicated by the tender hanging off the stern and our stern anchor rode being 300 ft long in the bottom of a lazarette under a pile of other items. All the rode has to come out into the cockpit for attaching to a tree on the shore. It makes for a messy operation. Let’s see if I can explain. To anchor med style, you have to be able to backup well, which being a sailboat puts us at a distinct disadvantage (can you hear me saying powerboat would be better here too, but I won’t say it). You also ignore the winds as you will back into a parking spot between other boats anchoring the same way. You “simply” pick a spot, throw out the bow anchor in front of it, back into the slot and tie a rope to something substantial on the shore, and put out bumpers for your neighbors. That’s all you have to do. So we pick...

047 - This Isn’t The Chesapeake Bay

We’re in a different place! The waters of Lake Huron are a Caribbean turquoise, so much so that had you told me I was there I would have believed you.

Our Voyage

Search This Blog