Never a dull moment

Great minds?

We're still in Waterford, NY and yes, they do have a very decent looking Chinese restaurant but I can't imagine they're as good as Yin's.

Anyway, our friends on Georgia E pulled in last night in the rain and it was Tony's birthday. I was thawing out some Bahamian lobster and cooked up a seafood alfredo with all the fixings and we had a celebration.

What we were not celebrating however was the continued problems on the Erie Canal. Water levels in part of the canal are actually BELOW datum due to construction on a dam, which is due to be fixed by Friday. But the continued rain and flooding is causing a great deal of debris to be churned up and the option of travelling the next 150 miles of the canal seems to have evaporated for now.

So we've got permission to stay tied up at this dock for a few days. Stu and Tony have agreed to watch our boat allowing us to go home by rental car to check in on our family and a few other chores.

This means we have some work to do before we leave however. One of those is repositioning the mast lying on Messenger's cradle because it was a bit unbalanced when we left Castleton. Scott woke up this morning, looked up through the V-berth to the bridge we're under and had a Eureka. He decided the best way to move the mast was to hook up a pulley system with lines attached to the mast and we could shove it back on the wooden cradle. Stu, Tony, Aidan and I gave a hand and it worked, although we often looked up to make sure no one untied the lines where the cars were whipping by. I must say, we're not bored on Messenger.

So that's one more job done. Now we have a big cleanup ahead and we need to get some things packed up to haul home Thursday.   We're all very excited, I am particularly excited to see family and friends and a bed.

Then it'll be back to Messenger on the weekend and hopefully we can start bringing her home.