Slow Boat

Can you spot the nuclear power plant in this picture?

Most nuclear plants are sited on the water . . . the better to offload excess heat INTO the water.  As SlowBoat noted previously, sometimes our trip around America's major waterways feels like a Tour du Nukes.

On Thursday morning we left an unfriendly anchorage at Haverstraw Bay (just south of Peekskill) to continue cruising up the Hudson River. Around the first bend was what looked like an astronomical observatory (which got us kind of excited since we're into stargazing).

A closer look revealed the true nature of the structure: It was one of the two domes housing nuclear reactors at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant.

With the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission planning to tour Indian Point this coming week, and with recent events in Japan in mind, here's some food for thought,

• About 25 million people live within 50 miles of this plant.
• The pools where the plant's spent nuclear fuel is housed have no containment structure

So I'm trying to blog about alternative energy issues here! But you, loyal reader, you tell me that you prefer it when I channel trashy tabloids and offer you a bikini diet.  I promise to keep delivering both.

Check your charts: This bit of real estate is called Artificial Island.  Really!

We're anchored in Ocean City, New Jersey today, after a wild and windy ride north up the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway from Cape May.

Early Monday, we were coasting down Delaware Bay with blue skies overhead but deep fog all around. And our tour of eastern nuclear plants continued! The cloud of steam from the Salem Nuclear Plant bulged above the rim of fog.

The Salem complex includes two nuclear reactors.  Another reactor is being considered.  About 5.5 million people live within 50 miles of this facility.  (Did you notice that some experts are recommending evacuation within a 50-mile radius of the Japanese plants?)

These reactors were shut down for a while in the 1990s because of maintenance problems.  And they were shut down twice this past week, for the same problem:  bits of plant matter floating in the Delaware River clogged the cooling water intakes.  (Officials call the problem "grassing.")

Beware of the blob!

Like Edwin Way Teale, we're headed north with the spring.  Our slow rate of travel means we've enjoyed weeks of bloom: redbud, daffodils, dogwood.

We're in Solomons, Maryland, today and there's another kind of spring bloom here . . . something quite as pretty to look, at but less pleasant to touch: Jellyfish. (Watch 'em swim here).

Ever wonder where the jellyfish have been all winter? When the water gets cold, the adult jellyfish die.  But their offspring have hatched . . . and developed into blobby creatures called polyps. The polyps find something hard on the sea floor, like an oyster shell, and stick tight.

In spring, as the water gets warmer, the polyps bud off free-swimming jellies--the familiar, tea-cup-shaped critters you see in this photo.  And hey, what with the globally warming climate trend, Cheseapeake jellies are showing up nearly a month earlier than they did back in, say, the 1960s.

Target acquired! Dive!  Dive!

What next? Do Not Offer Manatees a Ride on Your Kneeboard?

High winds last night and driving rain this morning; we're glad we're lashed to the dock at the municipal marina in Titusville. The cement pillars supporting the docks are plastered with signs like the one at left.


"Do Not Pet Manatees."  Makes sense.  


"Do Not Feed Manatees."  Ditto.


"Do Not Give Water to Manatees."  Huh? This baffled me. I pictured some touron (cross between tourist and moron) lobbing plastic water bottles overboard.  Or extending a Big Gulp cup to a manatee who was tailwalking, porpoiselike, near the boat.  


Nawww.  Who would do THAT?


Cap enlightened me.  Manatees live both in freshwater rivers and in salty estuaries. It's not clear they absolutely require fresh water to drink, but they do like it--they're attracted to springs and drainage pipes.  Apparently folks have learned you can attract a manatee to your dock or to your boat by hooking up a garden hose and squirting water overboard. But like the sign says, Don't.

We set out Saturday morning under sunny skies.  Our course led past Captiva Island, which,  (according to legend) was (like Useppa)  where pirates kept women prisoners (hence the name "Captiva").  This island is also famous for the quantities of seashells strewn on its beaches and  . . .  it's reachable only by boat.  We checked the charts, plotted a good anchorage,  dropped anchor, and dinghied ashore.

Come on, little dinghy!  You can make it!

We visited Sarasota Monday and found it highly hospitable to boaters.  You can anchor overnight, for free, in Sarasota Harbor, just a few dinghy strokes from downtown.  

I bet kids don't skip class when it's on a boat!

We got a kick out of watching the boat come in and discharge students carrying buckets full of marine specimens.  When OUR voyage is over, Cap'n hopes to turn our boat into a similar floating classroom, where kids can study freshwater systems.  

Headline: SHARK ATTACKS SUV IN TARPON SPRINGS!

We docked Thursday morning in Tarpon Springs, population 23,000--a significant number of whom are Greek-Americans.

Back at the turn of the 20th century, an entrepreneur recruited sponge divers from Greece to established a commercial "fishery" for sponges--sedentary ocean animals whose dried skeletons (before the invention of cellulose sponges) came in handy for mopping up spills.  (Fun sponge facts HERE).

We tied up at the Tarpon City Marina, ably assisted by the dockmaster, Ted, who looked like central casting's ideal of a Greek fisherman (though he was quick to tell us he's actually from Poland.)

For dinner on Thursday night we savored grilled octopus and retsina at a local restaurant. Friday morning we set the rowing frame into the dinghy and set out in search of the slow-moving marine mammals we consider a perfect mascot for our boat: manatees.

Wind turbine in paradise:  Just steps from our boat to this ecofriendly Margaritaville

When the bar band strikes up the Jimmy Buffet anthem "Margaritaville," do you know all the words and sing along?

Another Saturday night, and SlowBoat was docked literally steps from the actual Margaritaville: Lulu's. This funky restaurant is owned and operated by Jimmy Buffet's sister, Lucy. We're told that 10 years ago this place was a dive; these days it's an engineered tropical paradise, serving cheeseburgers to as many as 4,000 guests a day in summer.

I wandered around Sunday morning, checking out the palm trees, the candy-colored lawn chairs, the thatched-roof tiki bar, the pretend-beach with its gleaming white sand . . . and the wind turbine.  Huh?

Most daymarks are mounted on land, not rock cairns

A rock cairn (see photo at left) marks the turn from Pickwick Lake (part of the Tennessee River) on to the Tennessee and Tombigbee Waterway.

The Tenn Tom doesn't look like much at first glance.  Construction was completed in 1984, and 26 years is not a whole lot of time for nature to reclaim bare earth.

So on the initial section, the 27 miles known as the "Divide Cut," it's clear you are traveling a canal. The banks are even and neatly leveled, plastered with rip-rap (small boulders that discourage soil erosion).  Industrial-style cement walls border the occasional causeway that admits water from a small tributary creek. Grass, weeds and some small trees have grown on the sloping banks, softening the impression that you're traveling the water equivalent of an interstate highway.

Floats support metal baskets full of mussels

The October 10th installment of the SlowBoat "What IS It?" quiz showed what look like skinny little logs, floating in neat rows on the water.  We had some highly creative guesses, and the envelope, please . . . . 

The winner is Doug, who correctly identified this scene as a freshwater pearl farm. (Honorable mention to Phil Mac and Cindy Mitchell, who were on the right track). Doug, send your snailmail address to slowboat@emailias.com to claim your prize, an honest-to-gum tacky postcard.

So far, we've escaped the rainy skies that are deluging the East Coast.

Today, less travelogue and more information.

You've been following our slow, solar-powered perambulations, and you've been thinking to yourself, "A solar boat is very nice, but how about my HOUSE?
Can solar power run a TV? Air conditioning? Garbage disposal? None of which that crazy boat has! If I put some panels on my roof, what's it going to cost me? Those puppies are expensive! What's the payback time?  Is it worth it?"

Here are a few resources to help you explore those questions.

Dozens of small towns were flooded and thousands of families relocated to create Kentucky Lake. The shores are dotted with reminders.

Grafton mud flats

We  enjoyed our stay in Grafton, a small town just north of St. Louis where the main street is lined with little restaurants and gift shops.

When we walked along the river, we noted vast expanses of dried mud at the water's edge--hard as rock now, but obviously inundated by the river pretty recently.

So the river is low now, but everywhere in town are stark reminders that the river can also rise quite high.

One building, located on a ridge that seemed well above the river, has a sign showing the highwater mark from the flood of 1993 . . . well above the level of the first-floor windows.

We docked last night in the historic town of Ottawa, Illinois (famous for hosting the first Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858), and this morning, at a local laundromat, the manager told me about the hottest new local sport.  It calls for the cool nerves and keen eye of a hunter combined the powerful biceps of a competitive weightlifter and the reflexes of a video-game addict.  The sport is Aerial Bowfishing for Asian Carp.

You've probably read the news reports saying a segment of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal had been outfitted with an "electric barrier" to prevent the obnoxious Asian carp from swimming upstream and entered Lake Michigan.

I wondered, what does a fish barrier look like?

Yesterday, I got my answer, as we motored right through the section of electrified water.