WPSU

Visitors

We Love Visitors!

 Check out who's been visiting us! Cruising season is over for 2019, but we look forward to welcoming more visitors NEXT summer!

August 15-17, 2019
Pam and Del Fuller of State College celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary afloat from Lockport to Medina.
August 6, 2019
Our trip to Palymyra included a torrential thunderstorm at Lock 28 but . . . High Five! We didn't sink the boat today!
From left, Sandy and Dru Tallant of Washinton, DC, Steve Merwin and In Shik Lee of Freeville, Cap.

August 2 - 3, 2019

Clare and Doug Cowen joined us for a "best ports on the Erie" cruise from Fairport to Pittsford.


July 30, 2019
Our State College neighbor Jim Fong (center) was cycling the Erie Canal with buddies Steve Houde and Victor Rossi. The guys slowed their pace long enough for coffee and a microcruise!

July 11 and 17, 2019
So fun to reconnect with Claudia and Bruce Lewenstein! And such a treat to get to go sailing with Bruce.

July 14 and 15, 2019

A sunny Sunday brunch and dreamy sunset cruise with Freeville friends: the Merwin-Lee clan and Susan Barnard.
July 16, 2019
Happy to welcome aboard former Ithaca ScienCenter director Charlie Trautman (w Cap at right, giving our traditional end-of-day boat toast). Charlie has a deeper appreciation of the Captain's home-made engineering project than most boat visitors!

Who will be our next boat visitors?  In August 2019 we are cruising from Macedon, NY to Buffalo and back. Reserve your bunk space now!

And SlowBoat may even continue cruising throughout the month of September. Contact us if you're interested.




SLOWBOAT VISITORS 2018

SlowBoat spent the summer of 2018 doing the "Little Loop," a cruise that takes you from the Erie Canal north across Lake Ontario, then through the historic canals of Canada, returning to the Erie Canal via Lake Champlain.  Check out our visitor roster below! (Or scroll down for Great Loop visitors in 2010-11.)

Aug. 24, 2018
Our hiking buddies Dave and Brenda Eissenstat met us in Newark for an overnight that included walking the towpath and transiting some locks!


Aug. 13, 2018
The Captain's aunt and uncle, Ken and Rose Carlsen, visited us in Scotia (near Schenectady). They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary . . .  still two kids in love!

Aug. 9, 2018
Bill's cousin Tom McKay and his adorable children Cameron, Elaina, and Colin visited us in Schuylerville, NY, for dinner on the boat and a swim in the Hudson River!


Aug 5, 2018
We wrapped up our cruise down Lake Champlain with a visit from Nancy Cohen, CB's longtime public radio friend. We boated from Port Henry to just below Fort Ticonderoga and enjoyed a cool splash on a hot day.  More pix here.


August 3, 2018
In Westport, NY we were joined by Scott and Jan Berger (the first mate's brother and sister-in-law), and their friends Scott and Helene Dubin. We had a fun day cruise enjoying the mountain scenery!




June 11, 2018

Cap's sister Susan Thomas  and Mom Ann Carlsen ( left) joined us in Baldwinsville, NY, for a sunset cruise around the harbor followed by dinner at the famous Baldwinsville diner.

Also joining us for the mini-cruise: Michelle and Jim Keib (below). Cap and Michelle attended Tully High School together!
June 13, 2011  Carolyn Pendergast Fairbanks and her husband Greg gave us a tour of Phoenix, NY, where in the late 1800s, Bill's ancestor Stephen Pendergast had a prosperous farm and raised world-famous champion trotting horses!

GREAT LOOP VISITORS

April 27, 2011

A power breakfast on the boat with new friends Bill and Lynn Hering and Frederick and Sheila Dryer.

April 20, 2011

Cap has a laugh with science writer Elia Ben-Ari.  Elia and her family visited the boat in Chesapeake Beach.
March 24, 2011

Canal enthusiasts and conservators Bill and Nancy Trout came aboard in Elizabeth City.  Bill is the author of The Great Dismal Atlas, a book about the Great Dismal Swamp Canal.
March 27, 2011

The Brotherhood of Boaters has been good to us.  Al Miles is a Great Loop "Harbor Host" who helps visiting boaters with navigation and such.  Besides poring over charts with Cap, he drove us to a grocery store for re-provisioning! Thanks, Al!






February 17, 2011
February 17, 2011

This is Marilynne Stout, a figure skater extraodinaire and a dear friend from State College who  spends part of the winter in Charleston.  Lucky for us!
February 17, 2011

This photogenic crew is the O'Connor family, who visited us in Charleston.  Julie is the Captain's cousin and an expert on historic restorations; she and her husband Stephen also operate a brace of very successful Irish Pubs.  To top things off they have four extremely adorable children!
January 19, 2011

We docked at the Lobster Shanty in Vero Beach (providing a great diversion for a busload of tourists) in order to meet Carter and Diane Quillen, who are themselves designing a solar-powered boat.  It's the logical next step, since Carter already has a solar-powered ice cream cart!


January 15, 2011

Family reunion time in Stuart, Florida!  Our guests were Cynthia's aunts, Marilyn Willner (in the nautical stripes, far left) and Sheila Heller (stylin' ball cap, center) are accompanied by Marilyn's special friend, Sam Seeman.  Marilyn, a long-time boater, was ready to stow away on the spot.


January 15, 2011

Bob and Janet Cohen, who are solar-power enthusiasts AND the parents of Cynthia's sister-in-law Val Berger, visited us in Stuart, Florida.  They brought so many treats, we dined like kings for a week!

January 8, 2010

Dragonfly docked at Useppa Island, where we got a warm welcome from the folks who live in this tiny but magical kingdom.  Special thanks for the hospitality to (in no particular order,  and we hope we didn't forget anyone) Craig and Colleen Ligibel, Jay and Ginny Taylor, Paul and Shane Swigert, Charles and Kay Chapin, and everyone who helped to make our stay so much fun.





State Collegians, reunite!
January 4, 2010

The Dragonfly's crew enjoyed a homemade meal and a REAL bed thanks to Mahala Thoele, our State College next-door neighbor who is wintering in Venice, Florida.  (We also enjoyed the chance to see Mahala's adorable pooch, Cinder, who is one of the Cap'ns special friends.)
Clyde and Ruthie



Mahala's friends (and Venetian neighbors) Clyde and Ruthie Johnson joined in the fun.  They also took us on a much-needed grocery run and contributed fresh-grown limes from their garden for our future Margaritas.




January 3, 2010

Jerry Wolfe visited us in Sarasota Harbor.  

Jerry is a mechanical engineer (from Ohio, originally) AND a blacksmith, so naturally he was interested to see our 14 tons of steel and our unorthodox propulsion system.


January 1, 2010

David and Kathy Reddy visited Dragonfly in Tierra Verde, Florida, and refreshed us with homemade cookies, Florida-based novels, and a trip to their favorite shrimp shak.  David and Kathy have had distinguished careers in their own right (anthropologist and culinary arts expert, respectively) but for Dragonfly's crew their chief claim to fame is as the parents of WPSU radio producer Emily Reddy, Cynthia's colleague.





Boating botanists Marge Holland and Wendy Garrison
                                                                         October 17, 2010

 Longtime friend Marge Holland came aboard at Paris Landing, Tennessee, and brought her friend Wendy Garrison. Both are botanists at the University of Mississippi.  Our lunchtime cruise was highlighted by Dragonfly's first-ever live, floating concert.

October 8 - 10, 2010

Dragonfly became a floating convention center as the Captain met with colleagues Steve Kerlin (director of the Center for Environmental Education at Northern Kentucky University) and Liz Goehring (education and outreach coordinator for the "Ridge 2000"project).  The subject: a project that gets schoolkids worldwide involved in "citizen science."
August 30, 2010

In Chicago, cousin Rick Kruger checked out Dragonfly's spacious salon, and also treated the crew to a fabulous dinner at his favorite Chicago sushi bar, where you MUST try the Green Line roll, because Rick invented it!







August 28, 2010

The crew's parents, Jay and Kitty Berger, had such a great time on the Mother's Day Shakedown Cruise (see May 10th, below), they came back on board for a day cruise just north of Chicago.


August 14 - 20, 2010

Darling Daughter cruised with us from Manitowoc to Milwaukee, demonstrating that SlowBoat can simultaneously function as a library study room and a suntanning platform . . . and that, using the contents of a tiny overnight bag, you can dress like a fashion model even while at sea.  She also steered, navigated, and did manful battle with the enemy spider.



May 10, 2010

We took a shake-down cruise on Mother's Day weekend, accompanied by Jay and Kitty Berger and their friends George and Edie.  The intrepid crew braved rain and wind, hail, sleet and even snow . . .  and survived overnight in a haunted house!

May 29, 2010

The Thomas family came to Mid-Lakes Marina in Macedon to see us off with champagne and a test cruise.  Here's John Thomas, Ann Thomas, and Emily Thomas partying in "the pit" with our Wonderful Son







June 3, 2010

Michele Kaib helps Bill check the charts in Liverpool, NY.  (Michelle is former executive director of the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse!)





June 5, 2010


Tom and Ann Carlsen joined us in Phoenix, NY.  In the mid-1800s Ann's ancestors immigrated from Ireland to a farm in Phoenix, where they raised purebred racehorses (trotters).  William H. Vanderbilt bought one of the family's horses, Lysander, as you can see in this Currier and Ives print.