Slow Boat

The summer is over. Our cruise to Buffalo and back is over. But here's one more installment of the SlowBoat "What IS It? quiz.

The picture at right was taken near Pittsford, NY, when we were cruising with friends Clare and Doug. We spotted this odd watery phenomenom in one of the little side channels you see all along the canal.

The SlowBoat Nov. 3rd What IS It? Quiz asked you to identify some colorful, soda can-shaped floats. We spotted a whole raft of them blocking our path in the "Divide Cut" section of the Tenn-Tom Waterway.

When a catfish bites, the noodle tips into a vertical position.  (It's like ice fishing, without the chillblains)

The sign for the cattle company in Lonesome Dove also specifies: "Goats and Donkey's Neither Bought Nor Sold"

The October 14th  What Is It? turned out to be VERY educational. 

As you'll remember, we spotted a sign outside Murray, Kentucky, that read, "We don't rent pigs."  The hand-painted sign was a casual addendum beneath a more formal sign for a business offering artificial insemination of cattle.

The Cap'n and I figured the business owners were letting customers know they were fresh out of champion stud pigs.  

But Colin Burgess has the true answer: The pig sign is homage to the iconic cowboy novel Lonesome Dove, whose heroes advertise their business, Hat Creek Cattle Company, with a similar set of signs. 

(Read on for a new challenge!)

When you're traveling 6,000 miles in a slow boat, you see lots of stuff.  Sometimes you see stuff that's funny or perplexing or just plain weird.  So periodically, this blog includes photographs of oddball sights, and we invite you to take your best guess:  What IS It?

Thanks to everyone who sent in an entry for the Sept. 26th "What IS It?" contest.  This was a particularly tough quiz, and we received a large number of highly creative guesses.

And the winner is . . . . Doug, who correctly guessed that the original photo showed a thundering herd of turtles.

Periodically, this blog invites you to peruse a picture and make your best guess: What IS that thing?

The Sept. 16th "What IS It?" quiz showed a giant can of tuna . . .  filled with gravel . . .  in the middle of the river.  We received many creative suggestions, and the winner is: Scott Barbara, for correctly identifying a caisson.

What it's not: This is NOT a bunch of Asian carp gasping for air

Caissons do a bunch of things; the caissons we've been seeing are the river equivalent of those big plastic barrels of sand you see clustered at a highway exit ramp. They're kind of like bumpers--they reduce the seriousness of collisions.

The colorful caisson in the picture is from the Mel Price Lock and Dam in Alton, Illinois. It's positioned near the entrance to the lock, to prevent runaway barges from smashing into the lock wall.

For his exhaustive knowledge of obscure marine terminology, Scott wins a tacky postcard.  YOU could be next.  Just eyeball today's photo and tell us, "What IS It?"

We've seen hundreds of these on our trip so far.  Gulls like to perch on them.

Wow, many people knew instantly what those Ziploc bags full o' water  I described back on Sept. 13 were for:  Allegedly, they repel flies.  Do they?  A university scientist has actually done some research.  See what YOU think! Personally I think this work is a contender for the IgNobel awards, coming up September 30th.

As the first person to answer correctly, "Enfanta" claims the prize of a tacky postcard.  Enfanta, just send your snail mail address to slowboat@emailias.com

 FOR TODAY'S CHALLENGE:
Take a look at the photo, above right.  That thing looks like a hot tub! (Check out the ladder). Or a really really big tuna can. So why is it full of gravel?  Um, it's NOT a hot tub.  It's not a can of tuna. What IS It?

SlowBoat's August 31st "What IS It?" contest attracted two partially correct answers.  (If you remember, the photo showed an eerie sand-dune landscape--tawny cliffs fringed with tropical vegetation and pocked with animal burrows.)

The scene was reminiscent of a desert landscape.  Cropped out of the photo were the construction cranes and the rusting barges along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.  Greg P. correctly identified the "cliffs" as material stored by the city of Chicago to deal with icy roads in winter--but that stuff is sand, not salt.  And Cliff from State College correctly identified the burrows as belonging to bank swallows--a common species that obviously found a welcoming home in this industrial landscape.

What IS it, perched in profusion on our solar panels?

The photo at right is a bit of a place holder--I bet you can easily guess what you're looking at here. Here's TODAY'S ACTUAL CHALLENGE:
A curious item, spotted at a BBQ restaurant, on an outdoor patio, at dusk.  I couldn't get a satisfactory image.  But I can describe the scene.

Congratulations to Joy, the winner of the August 5th What IS It? quiz. Joy is the lucky winner of a truly tacky postcard.

And now for today's quiz:

We spotted this magnificently crafted item of solid sterling silver at the Sturgeon Bay Maritime Museum, so that tells you it was designed with a nautical purpose.  What is it?

Congratulations to Knox Johnstone for correctly identifying the August 3rd "What IS It?" quiz.  In this photo of the shore of Beardrop Harbor (Lake Huron's North Channel), flat stones have been carefully piled to make a little statue of a man.  Knox writes: "It's an 'inukshuk,' a human-like stone creation built by the Inuit in circumpolar regions."  Right-oh!   Remember that old graffiti, "Kilroy was here?"  Inukshuk are the same thing.  Native Americans might build inukshuk to say, "Hey! A human being passed this way."  An inukshuk can also function like a trail marker or a road sign--it points the way.  

There are lots of inukshuk along the North Channel.  A few are actually ancient; most are modern constructions imitating this ancient art.  You may remember that the symbol of the 2010 Olympic games, held in Vancouver, was an inukshuk.  And now, for today's quiz:


Here's a rather unusual boat.  It has one very specific function.   A very important function!   What is it?

We have a winner.  Together, Newsboy and altem23 have correctly explained the use of the odd hammer with the number on the face of its head.

In the days when logs were removed from the woods and floated downstream to sawmills, more than one logging company would dump logs into the same river. So loggers would strike this hammer on the ends of their logs, much like a branding iron for cattle--to show who owned the log.

And now for today's challenge:

Jim Fong and Scott Berger have correctly identified the structure in the What IS It? quiz of 7/21 as a firehouse.  Great detective work, guys!  But the question remains, what is the function of that funny- looking onion dome?  Any firefighters out there know the answer?


Meanwhile, today's "What IS It?" entry really had US perplexed when we first spotted it.  That evil-looking tower on the left (it's pitch black) is SO large,  you can see it from miles away.  Local boaters know it as an important regional landmark for navigation.   Don Heller, I can read your mind, and No, it's NOT the World Headquarters for Trojan, Inc.   So, what IS it?

Don't let your boss know that you are wasting valuable office time figuring these out.

Miles Johnson correctly identified the photo from the July 19 "What IS It" quiz as a fishing boat, and specifically a "fish tug," also known as a "fishing turtle." These boats were designed specifically for the fisheries on the Great Lakes.

Fisherman on these boats use gill nets to snag their catch, pickerel, which (yes, this surprised me, too, because in small bodies of water in New England we think of pickerel as solitary) can form schools.  We saw several of these boats docked next to the chips truck formerly known as Mr. Perch, with their transparent monofilament nets loaded in shallow metal pans, stacked on deck, ready to be deployed.

Congratulations, Miles, and a tacky postcard is headed your way.

And now for today's quiz.  We spotted the structure at left in a small town along the Trent-Severn Waterway, and I've been dying to include it in a blog post ever since.

I'll tell you what it ISN'T--it's not a church steeple.  So, what IS it?

Winner gets a shout-out on the blog and a tacky postcard--not to mention the deep satisfaction of demonstrating publicly your knowledge of obscure architectural features.

The winners of the last SlowBoat "What IS It?" quiz were GregP and Curt.  They correctly identified the small, light gray building spotted along the shores of Collins Inlet, near Killarney, as an ice fishing shack that had been hauled onto the shore for the summer.  We saw dozens of these shacks along the length of the channel--some are simple and some are quite elaborate.

Now for today's "What IS It?"  Yup, it's a boat.  The question is, What KIND of a boat?   What do you DO with a boat like this?  Be specific!  Winner gets a shout-out on the blog and a tacky postcard from our current location.

Announcing a SlowBoat Contest! From time to time we'll post oddball pictures and ask you to guess, "What IS It?"  First correct answer will get a shout-out on the blog and a tacky postcard by snail mail.

The photo at right was taken in Collins Inlet, where we saw dozens of similar buildings.  We can tell you what it ISN'T--it's not a summer cottage.  So, what IS it?

There's also a (somewhat new) tab on the blog called "Laughs."  Check periodically for your laugh of the day.

And let us know if you'd like to visit our boat.  We love visitors!

Did you know that you can follow this blog on Twitter or Facebook?  Each time there's a new post, you'll be notified. Check the links on the home page (and if you are not sure what to do, ask the nearest teenager).

We are docked in the town of Little Current and have internet access!  Another new post follows this one.