Albany, NY, June 20 and 21.

Thursday

Erie Canal locks E8 through E15 still closed.  We had some pretty appalling weather but upper New York State has had much worse, very heavy rains and mudslides.  The control dams have been opened to release all the excess water which explains the amount of debris in the river, whole trees and docks in some cases.  It has been fine for almost a week now so the flooding is probably subsiding rapidly.

We took the opportunity of this stay catch up with laundry and groceries, good services close to the marina, including a nice little breakfast place.

We have replanned our onward  route as there is no definite date for the Erie Canal reopening.

We will now travel on up the Hudson to the Champlain Canal and through into Lake Champlain and up the Richleau to the St. Lawrence.  In effect running round the loop in an anti-clockwise direction (the reverse of that originally planned).

That should put us back at the western end of the Erie Canal in late July, if the canal is not open by then we will have to reverse direction and do the loop clockwise to get back here.

In order to get up to Champlain we will have to lower our mast and the bimini top over the helm station.  It also means driving in the wet if it rains for the next few days.

  Continue reading “Albany, NY, June 20 and 21.”

Sauguties to Albany, Tuesday June 18.

Out of our little creek at 8 and upriver towards Troy, quite a stretch from here.

Not much in the way of photographic materials today, colder and windy with showers.

So here are a couple left over from yesterday, saw this sailing vessel at Croton-on-Hudson where the Pete Seeger concert was going on, it may be his ship, anyway the name was Mystic Whaler, and obviously on a day trip with sightseers.

Mystic s

Sublime, and then of course the ridiculous, what do you suppose it could be? The Church of the Eternal Pineapple?

Continue reading “Sauguties to Albany, Tuesday June 18.”

Magic: JW’s Poetry Competition

On a bladderwracked, forsaken isle,
all swirled about with wind-blown gulls,
a wild man keeps his hut and hearth,
eschewing what he held most dear;
awash in toxic madness.

A giant monster, gnarled and raving,
marked by sun and raging winds,
bewitched beneath a pregnant moon,
and twisted like a mandrake root;
harbouring ancient sins.

Continue reading “Magic: JW’s Poetry Competition”

Monday, June 17 on the Hudson, Newburg to Sauguties

Delayed start this morning , had to stock up on essentials, wine, beer and bread with taxi run to the local market.

 Away at 10 towards Saugities about 50 miles  upriver.

 First an anticline for Mrs. O,

ac s

or maybe not, I was no great shakes at Geology.

  Continue reading “Monday, June 17 on the Hudson, Newburg to Sauguties”

And now for something completely different

Yesterday we were privileged to visit the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, opened by the Queen last month.

http://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/

It is a very impressive building indeed, designed to look like a chromosome from the air. (I of course would not recognise one from any angle!) Our names and car registration had to be provided in advance and we were issued with visitors’ ID at reception and warned not to stray from our host. Scientific espionage is presumably prevalent.   The money for the building was provided by the Medical Research Council from its income from patents.  Many of these discoveries were made in the LMB on its old site.  “A Nobel Fellow on every floor” is the title of a book about the nine Nobel prize winners from this one laboratory, though most are now dead or retired.  The spaciousness of the whole place, not just the atrium, was beautiful.  There are even spaces for people to meet and sit and think and talk about science – or have parties, as empty wine bottles testified.  There are rows of cupboards full of equipment to be used as required.

Outside wild flower seeds were scattered, now providing beautiful natural meadows to cover the bare earth and builders rubble.  The most impressive thing to me was that not a penny of tax payers’ money was used to build this.  Britain should be proud of what its scientists can achieve and I hope the Open Day on Saturday will be well attended.

 

Saturday June 15 – into Manhatten

Finally got a good day for outside, so made a run from  Tom’s River to Manasquan and emerged into the Atlantic at 11:00 am.

 Forecast was not great, but this was the best day for the next five.

 Uneventful trip up to NYC, low swell and little wind.  We were round Sandy Hook by 3 and under the narrows bridge by 4.

 Verrazano Narrows Bridge

VN s

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