Heat Heat Heat Too Much Heat!

Near Athens NY, N42 16 W73 48

(08/04/05) In the morning I made arrangements with a Catskill Marina to unstep the mast. We need the mast down to traverse the canal to Lake Champlain. It took three hours to prepare, two hours to wait for the crane operator, and one hour to actually take it down and secure it on deck. The hard part was the heat. Hot days don’t come more uncomfortable than this.

Poor Nick was very bored. He declined to help us because of the heat, so he just stayed below with nothing to do except try to catch up on sleep.

The guys from the marina were very experienced in handling the mast. I learned a lot from them. I now know enough to do it myself next time. However, it needs 3-4 strong men; more than Libby and I could handle alone.

I sure hope I labeled all the wires correctly and that I didn’t lose any of the clevis pins. We’ll find out when the mast goes up.

We left the marina about 1600 and headed at full speed toward a place where we could anchor and swim. That was Middle Ground Flat, just up here near Athens. Finally around 1800 we got to jump in the water and escape the heat.

There is another blue water sailboat, Shadowfax II, anchored nearby and in the evening the owners came by in their dingy to say hello. They were a young couple who had been living on their boat for 14 years and who were just returning from a 5 year voyage. They looked very healthy and happy to us. It’s great to hear stories from people who have actually done what we hope to do. They said that in all their years in the tropics they never saw weather so hot as here in NY today.

By the way, Athens, and the place where we are anchored, were featured in the current movie War Of The Worlds. I can tell you that if those Martians invaded Athens today they would give up and go home because of the heat.