Another milestone.

At Castleton-on-Hudson Boat Club

We got off to a bit of a rough start this morning.  Yesterday we docked with the stern of the boat facing the discharge area of the last lock.  Overnight grass and weeds collected around the rudder, prop shaft, and cooling water intake for the diesel.  It took a while to get the propellor spinning freely, and as soon as we pushed off from the dock we realized that we had no cooling water through the diesel.  We got back to a dock and eventually were able to blow through the water hose to get rid of the grass blockage.  It would have been so much easier if Sue had just jumped in the Hudson and pulled the grass away, but do you think I could convince her to go for an early morning swim?  A couple of people on the boat (who should remain nameless) think I didn't tell the whole story about the missing cooling water.  Said people thought that they could use the dinghy foot pump (for inflating our dinghy) to blow out the blockage in the water line.  (I think they were just stalling to avoid going for a swim.)  At any rate, after their attempt failed I used the direct approach to orally clear out the line.  There was some mention of the benefits of being a windbag - I have no idea what they were talking about!

At any rate we made it to Castleton-on-Hudson where Skip, Kris, Harold and Eileen helped us get the mast back up.  Skip and Kris then left, making room in the quarter berth for Harold and Eileen for the next couple of weeks. 

Of course just before we left this morning Eileen had done a great job making up the bunk in the quarter berth and stowing their gear.  And of course the water strainer which I thought might be plugged was under the quarter berth so I got to totally trash all her hard work!

Eileen was a good sport, and she and Harold spent the rest of the day helping us get the boat rigged, the sails on, the dinghy pumped up, and all the rest of the chores necessary to turn Passage into a sailboat again.

A couple of people have asked how to post comments.  I think if you go to the bottom of an entry you will see "Comment".  If you click I think it opens a text box for your comments.