Slow Boat

Yup! We started this trip with many systems still undone. Some are no big deal. Some are, well, mission critical.
In the "no big deal" department: Before we left, we replaced the trademark red canvas stern canopy (shown at left and right) with solar panels, but we DIDN'T fill in the gaps left open when we placed those rectangular panels on a half-round frame. The gaps let in the rain!

Cap installed white plastic panels to fill those gaps yesterday morning, literally while we were underway. (Don't worry, the crew was at the helm while he was up on the roof drilling holes in the support bars.)

Fifty Percent More Solar from the Roof!

The new stern canopy doesn't have the charm of the old one. It decreases the likelihood that bystanders who see us approaching will exclaim, "That boat looks like a giant floating box of Animal Crackers!"

But the new panels boosted our solar capacity from 1400 watts to 2000 watts (a nearly 50% increase!)

Bigger Better Motor Controller!

Now for the slightly more mission-critical stuff that's getting bolted onto the plane while we cruise at altitude.

• Cap has a new motor controller yet to install. This is a device that shuttles 48-volt DC power from the battery to the motor. Once it's in, we'll be better able to control the speed of the motor, which is super useful for fine control of the boat when approaching a dock.
• Bill will also install a 48-volt inverter-charger. This not-so-little device ca n not only 1) charge our propulsion batteries and  2) move power from the generator directly to the motor, it can 3) produce a 120-volt current. 

Item  #3 is a particularly big advance. On our Great Loop trip, we used our solar power only to move the boat through the water. Once the inverter-charger is in place, we'll ALSO be able to run the "house systems" on solar power--our LED lights, the water pump, the fridge, etc. That means we can anchor out--the boater equivalent of wilderness camping--a lot longer.)

Busted Battery

Did you try Boat Finder today? Did you notice we are still in Lyons? That's because one of our propulsion batteries had a meltdown.

It's a long story why; Cap has a bead on the problem and a new battery on order. Let me know if you want more gearhead details, or if you're just waiting for the "What IS It" quiz to start back up.

What do you think of our sleek new look?

That boat looks strangely familiar!

We've spent a year giving our canal boat an adventure, taking her places canal boats never go. Out of sight of land in the Gulf of Mexico. Racing down the fast currents of the Mississippi. Bucking the waves in Albemarle Sound. Through all that, she's enjoyed celebrity status.  In every port, she's the cutest boat on the dock--or at least, the most unusual.

But the party's over.  Today, after touching in Albany, NY (to put our guest boater Ally Berger, who's been cruising with us from Catskill, on a train home), we locked through in Troy, NY . . . and Dragonfly re-entered her home waters, the Erie Canal.

Where canal boats are, um, practically common.  Here's one, sharing our dock in Waterford.

Cisterns collect rain to flush toilets

The crew of the Dragonfly was off the boat and in State College this weekend for Penn State graduation.  Now, on big Penn State weekends it can be hard to find a hotel room.  But we lucked out.  We stayed at a place that was not only comfortable and stylish, it was green.

The Nature Inn at Bald Eagle State Park (opened this past September) is expected to earn the Green Building Council's LEED Gold certification.  It's located on a knoll above Bald Eagle Reservoir, with a stunning view of the water--and also a nestful of baby eaglets in a tree on shore.

The Inn uses a geothermal heating system, energy-efficient lights, solar-heated hot water, and other alternative technologies to keep guests comfortable.  Saturday afternoon, we took the official tour with innkeeper Charlie Brooks.

We started in the breakfast room, where the Stickley-style oak furniture was made from Pennsylvania white oaks grown within 200 miles of the site.

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

What? This is NOT the world's largest rooftop solar system?  Well, it's definitely the prettiest.

We're in New Jersey (Motto: "Second only to California in solar capacity.")  The casinos in Atlantic City are over the top--and so are the solar arrays. Really. The world's largest rooftop solar system was just installed here.

Before we left Cape May on Monday, we stopped at a marina for a pump-out.  The dockmaster, Bob, scratched his head over our solar propulsion system.  "I've got solar panels on my house," he said. "Never seen them used to run a boat!"

Green in name and in fact

On Wednesday, the crew pried the Cap'n free from the engine room to explore Charleston a bit.

Our visit to a green shopping center, back in Savannah, made us want to know more about green building technologies.  So we arranged for a tour of the "Green House Learning Center," a facility run by Charleston's Sustainability Institute.

The Green House IS a house. It's painted pale green. And at first glance it looks quite unexceptional--just one more little box in a neighborhood full of similar modest one-story houses.  Then Jay Bell starts pointing out the features. Rain barrels that collect water to flush the toilet.  Spray-foam insulation in the roof that reduces air conditioning costs in the hot summer months.  Energy-efficient LED lights throughout.

We're in NY. Boat is back in Charleston, makin' watts.

The Dragonfly is docked in Charleston this week; the crew is in Upstate NY visiting Cap's folks. We lugged our broken flex coupler with us on the plane, and Monday we drove up to Macedon, NY and our home port on the Erie Canal, Mid-Lakes Navigation, where joy of joys, we picked up a replacement.

It was surreal to be transported so quickly to the place our adventure started last June--the place we're  spent 8 months sloowwwwly traveling AWAY from.

We said hello to the other canal boats, hauled out on shore and propped on stilts and wrapped in plastic against the winter ice, and laughed about Cap's weekend adventures this time last winter, climbing up a ladder through the snow and ice to work on the boat. His first trip to Macedon, the local police pulled up just as he was crawling headfirst through the plastic cocoon. Good thing he had ID and the bill of sale.

 I like to read books that are set in the places I'm visiting. At the end of this post, you'll find my reading list for the Low Country.  But first, the boat news . . . .

Isle of Hope looks like the movie set for "small, charming Southern town"

When the Dragonfly stopped at Isle of Hope, the first mate cruised to Savannah to tour the "Ships of the Seas" museum.  The main attraction: A scale model of a very innovative boat--a hybrid vehicle.  The S.S. Savannah was built in the town it was named for in 1818.

Notice that date.  Years before barges started plying the Erie Canal, dragged by mules, Captain Moses Rogers of Connecticut conceived of a powerful hybrid boat, a sailing vessel and steamship combined. The Savannah's claim to fame: she ultimately made the world's first steam-powered transatlantic crossing.

Full disclosure: She covered only part of the distance under steam.  It would be 30 years before another American steamship made the crossing.  But innovation has to start somewhere, and in the case of hybrid boats it started in Savannah.

The next day, at the Isle of Hope Marina, we spotted pictures documenting the work of another local inventor with an unusual vision for boat design.  Captain Matthew Batson built the world's first flying yacht.  (Photo HEREhttps://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-flying-house-an-aeroplane-invented-by-capt-arlington-news-photo/3280068#/5th-december-1913-the-flying-house-an-aeroplane-invented-by-capt-picture-id3280068)

Check out this water feature at Abercorn Common! Don't you think a solar boat would look good there?

Our route doesn't take us near many shopping centers.  But when we docked this past Friday afternoon at Isle of Hope (about 10 miles from downtown Savannah), we made special plans to visit a strip mall.  

It's not that we were dying to shop at Books- a-Million or grab a burger at Mickey D's. We just had to check out "the first retail center in the United States to become LEED-certified."

Part of the reason for our curiosity: About two weeks ago, President Obama visited Penn State University (our home base). His visit focused media attention on a PSU-led project involving energy-efficient buildings--a $122 million DOE grant to turn a portion of Philadelphia's Navy Yard into an "Energy Innovation Hub." 

With the PSU project in mind, we wondered whether Savannah, a sizable city, is doing much sustainable building.  And hey!  Just a few miles from the dock, we learned, was LEED-certified Abercorn Common. Road trip!  

(And before you turn the page, lots more photos HERE.  If you like 'em, remember to tell Facebook by clicking the button)

Croquet, the sport of kings--and captains of industry

Yesterday, we were docked at Jekyll Island, Georgia. A mandatory place to see is the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. This grand hotel opened in 1888 as a private playhouse for famous millionaire captains-of-industry, including William Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Joseph Pulitzer, Everett Macy, and J.P. Morgan.  

Sir?  Your car is ready . . . .

The hotel is an elaborate Victorian confection, with a turret, and gingerbread trim, and--yesterday--a croquet game in progress on the lawn, with the players properly attired in white flannel. The place looked like a movie stage set (which, indeed, it has been). 

In our grubby boater duds, we've been mistaken for homeless people. In this more egalitarian age we ate lunch at the grand hotel . . .  in the sandwich shop, at the back. 

Afterward we biked around on the island's plentiful bike paths, under the arches of the grand old live oaks weeping with Spanish moss, and one of the most interesting places we stopped was . . .  the airport.  

It's quite a small airport, so there are no shops or concourses or baggage claim or rental car counters.  What you DO find is something a bit unexpected: An alternative energy rental car agency called Red Bug Motors.

The owner, Rich Van Iderstyne, says his business was inspired by the original millionaire inhabitants of the island.  During Jekyll's heyday as a winter retreat for the wealthy, the transportation of choice was tiny electric cars called Red Bugs. "Gasoline engines of the day were noisy, and those millionaires liked their peace and quiet," Rich explained.

Don't you hate running out of bait? These guys deliver

Centre Daily Times reports President Obama will visit Penn State-University Park (our home base) this week to support PSU as an innovation hub for energy-efficient canal boats.
Oh wait!  It already is.

Actually, the Prez is meeting with folks on campus who are making BUILDINGS more energy efficient.  

And the target market for bait boats

Researchers from Penn State (along with Princeton, UPenn, Rutgers and some others) will use buildings at the Navy Yard in Philly kind of like "lab rats" . . .  to test different building designs and energy-saving technologies. They'll also use their projects to train workers in energy-efficiency construction techniques and retrofits.  Cool!

I'm not sure it represents an innovation in energy-efficiency, but the little bait-boat pictured above (which we spotted en route to New Smyrna Beach) surely represents innovation in marketing.  Now if only there were a boat that delivered hot barbecue shrimp (locally and sustainably fished, naturally) direct to your canal boat anchorage. That would be heav-en-lee!

P.S. Photos from our current location available HERE

Lawsy me, solar panels on a trash can!

No grocery store downtown, but good veggies on Saturday

Working our way north up Florida's east coast, we stopped Friday evening in the former town of Eau Gallie. (It's been merged with Melbourne, but Eau Gallie still has its own sense of place . . . and its own little downtown studded with more or less functioning art galleries).  

Part of the attraction for the stop was learning that the town had a Saturday farmer's market, year-round. (Even in Florida, many markets shut down in winter.)  "Good choice," said the guy in the burlap apron as I picked out an avocado.  "Those are from Naples."  

Not, "Those are from my farm," but, "those are from a town about 150 miles away" (though still in Florida).  Behind one stall was a litter of crates and cardboard boxes: lettuce from Lake Placid.  Blueberries from Gainesville.  

This was a market where vendors had picked up produce from a variety of places.  Fresher and more local than most big-box grocery store stuff, but not exactly "from farm to fork." 

On the  other hand, I'm always collecting examples of innovative public uses for solar power, and I found one at the Eau Gallie market: a sleek, shiny black "solar compactor." With a little research I learned, this is not such a novelty!  Many municipalities are turning to solar trash compactors to reduce the likelihood that public parks will have overflowing trash cans after a big weekend. 

Fellow electric-boat owner: Thomas Alva Edison

The SlowBoat "Visitors" page has been freshly updated; however one august visitor we failed to document photographically was the Mayor of Fort Myers himself, Randy Henderson, Jr.!  The mayor stopped by the boat Monday morning with his son Marcus. 

From the moment we stepped onto Fort Myers docks and noticed the multiple recycle bins (including one for batteries!), we knew this was our kind of eco-minded town. Mayor Henderson told us one current project is a downtown water feature that will reduce stormwater runoff.  City Hall is also about to get solar panels on the roof.

The mayor introduced us to Chris Pendelton, CEO of a fascinating local attraction, the Edison and Ford Winter Estates.  This museum-plus-historic homes-plus botanical gardens complex has a brand new solar installation that provides light for (fittingly enough) exhibit halls documenting Edison's invention of such modern essentials as electric power and electric lights.

One of America's most important inventors and innovators (he pretty much gave you your modern lifestyle!), Thomas Alva Edison ("The Wizard of Menlo Park")  took his family to Fort Myers in the winters to escape the cold weather in New Jersey.  Chris gave us the insider's tour of the amazingly preserved laboratory where, spurred by the threat of shortages in World War I, Edison worked to develop a domestic substitute for an essential foreign import (rubber).

If you are wondering, "Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?" . . .  I mean, SlowBoat, well, we left Steinhatchee before dawn Tuesday morning:  air temperature 19 degrees,  boat decks and solar panels liberally coated with ice.  After 10 hours of hard driving under a clear but cold sky we finally dropped anchor last night outside of Cedar Keys, Florida (population 790).

First the "Grand Canyon of Florida," and now here we are at the "Niagara Falls of Florida"

Santa sells seafood by the seashore. Say it six times fast!

In a small town like Steinhatchee, nuthin's open on Christmas Day. I mean, nuthin'.  So we went foraging for provisions the day before, to tide us over.  Imagine our surprise to find THIS guy selling seafood at the Steinhatchie Fish House!

We had rented a car--which is to say we gratefully paid $20 bucks to borrow the aging Ford Explorer usually reserved for the resort housekeeper to make her rounds in-- so we could do a spot of sightseeing.  First stop: The Road to Nowhere.

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?

We anchored Thursday night on the Tensaw River, near some rough-hewn fish camps, and early Friday morning we set out on the last leg of our journey down the Tombigbee River.  

We were a mere 12 miles north of Mobile Bay and we marveled at the mostly unspoiled landscape: a bald eagle perched at the top of a cypress snag, a raft of pelicans foraging in a little cove bordered by palmettos.

Mirage? No, Mobile.

We started to see evidence of civilization:  dumpsters, one, then another, then another, mangled and mashed and shoved into the mud on shore.  After days of anchoring out, we joked about how convenient this was for boaters with a boatload o' trash.  But we held on to our Glad bags. (We figure the dumpsters were carried up river during a storm or hurricane and never retrieved.)

Then we spotted an incongruous sight:  an elegant spire, rearing above the marsh grass.  It was the top of a skyscraper.  The city of Mobile was just ahead.

Wednesday we cruised past a dock where Scott Paper has a shipping terminal. On the bank was one huge pile of sawdust and another huge pile of bark mulch.  Nearby a crane was stacking tree trunks with as dispatch, ends butted neatly like soda straws in a dispenser.

As we cruised towards Columbus, Mississippi, I checked the local paper to see what I could learn about sustainable energy projects here.  Apparently I had just missed a local Rotary Club meeting where the speaker proclaimed that "Mississippi is poised to become a national leader in renewable energy production."  And the reason:  The state's abundant timber.

My brother Scott Berger and his wife Jan are spending a few days on board the Dragonfly. Scott is a chemical engineer whose work involves helping chemical plants to pollute less . . .  while saving money.  This is his guest blog:

Where we stayed:  At anchor off Swallow Island on the Tennessee River.

Some friends and family members have requested that SlowBoat do more on Facebook. Your wish is now granted.  Check this page for a photoessay on our travels along the Tennessee River.  Then--well, you know the drill:  Click "Like" at the top of the page. And let us hear from you!

With permission, I thought I'd share a email we received recently from another person who is interested in solar-powered boats. Carter Quillen is an engineer who has developed a solar-refrigerated ice cream cart.