Slow Boat

The saddest sight in the world

We're working our way up the Chesapeake. Hope to be in Annapolis this weekend.

At the first "changing of the watch" this morning, SlowBoat had a moment of drama.

Cap was chasing the morning chill with a steaming cuppa java. He set the cup on one of the stern seats.   And in the shuffling dance to change places . . .  into the drink it went.

We happened to be in a bookstore with a big magazine rack, and this month's issue of Wooden Boat magazine featured, on the cover, a boat with rooftop solar panels and a hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system.

Wait a minute! That sounds like SlowBoat.  But I said "Wooden Boat" magazine.

Yup.  The featured boat is Sparks, and the latest innovation by Ted Moores of Bear Mountain Boats.

Amazingly enough, we got to tour Sparks and meet Ted and his partner Joan Barrett. It was just three months into our year-long SlowBoat cruise.  We landed at the town dock in the hip college town of Peterborough, Ontario, and the dockhand said, "You HAVE to go over to Dock C.  There's a boat just like yours and it's launching today."

We're off the boat for a week.  But other boats are still cruising the Loop. I thought you might enjoy a peek at what some our new boating friends are up to.

MEET THE PARRENTS
The cruisin' Parrent Family is just crossing the border into North Carolina. We first met this inspiring family at a marina in Tennessee. Craig and Danielle decided "life's too short to put work before family,"and sold their successful business. Now they're looping AND "boat-schooling" their three extremely smart and delightful children.

The Parrents' Great Adventure was punctuated recently by a moment of terror. Their boat, Negotiator, was anchored out in a cove with one other boat. During the night, a storm kicked up and both boats dragged anchor. It seemed Negotiator would be swept onto the rocks, then smashed by the second boat.  But the Parrents are self-sufficient and had planned ahead for emergencies, and that preparation stood them in good stead. Danielle tells the story on their blog.

WILD BLUE YONDER
You get to check out lots of boats on this trip, and early on, we admired a particular kind of blue-hulled boat called the Nordic Tug.  Pete and Anna Gulick are cruising in one of these sweet little tugs, which they named Blue Yonder.  We first met them on the rocky shores of Georgian Bay in Canada when both of us docked for dinner at Henry's Fish, a local institution.

SlowBoat (the boat) is docked in Hampton, Virginia, waiting out the weather.  Cap and crew are in Homer, New York with Bill's Mom.   Bill's Dad, Tom Carlsen, ended his long battle with lung cancer yesterday.

Tom Carlsen spent his life helping others.  He was a medic in the U.S. Army, an EMT in his small rural community, a firefighter, a scout leader, a leader in his church, and, to his grandchildren, the guru of good table manners.  As a professor of social work at Syracuse University, he prepared hundreds of students to do good and make a difference.  It's lovely to think of his influence rippling outward in the word.

We'll be here for about a week.  Please do check back on the blog for some SlowBoat flashback stories and some photoessays.  Your love and support means a lot to us.

WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 1, 2011.  President Obama's position on energy policy is making headlines this week.  Hidden among the heated discussions about oil, natural gas and nuclear power was this small but intriguing detail:  The President's plan to rejuvenate America's canals--and add new ones.

Goodbye 18-wheelers.  This is the future of transportation in America.

"One key to a secure energy future is conservation," said the President, "and water-borne barges are the single most energy-efficient means of transporting goods ever invented.  It only makes sense to adjust our supply systems for greater reliance on canals."