"Now then, Pooh," said Christopher Robin, "where's your boat?" "I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends." "Depends on what?" "On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it."
-A. A. Milne
This was the weekend we picked up the boat for its shakedown cruise, a fraught couple days for someone prone to worry.
We drove up to the Cliff, Peg's name for our condo on Canandaigua Lake, on Friday evening. Around suppertime I realized the keys to the pickup we planned to drive over to Richfield Springs were still sitting back in Corning. Off to a hot start, we were.
So very early the next morning we zoomed down the hill in the roadster, located the keys to the truck. wolfed down some scrapple and eggs, and raced back to the condo, all with an eye toward our planned noon arrival at Captain Skip's farm to pick up the new (to us) boat. It would take a shade under three hours to reach the village at the top of Lake Canadarago, near Albany.
The weather couldn't have been more lovely for the drive on the New York Thruway, past old locks on the Erie Canal and down through the village of Mohawk into some of the most beautiful, rolling farm country you'll ever see. We arrived at Captain Skip's barn right on time, and he emerged from his RV to give us a few minutes of shore school on the new boat. Skip's a retired blue water ship's captain, irreverent and a little crusty and unkempt. It was obvious he knew a lot about boats, and had taken good care of this one.
With a couple shots of ether down the two carburetor intakes, the 1957 engine started with a roar, and everything seemed to check out on the boat. Within a half hour we were pulling away, this time taking two lanes back home because we'd be going slow. We stopped at Patty's Pub for a late lunch and a toddy enroute, the same place we stopped when we first decided to buy the boat seven months ago.
The waitress remembered us from the last time. Small world.
We arrived at the Canandaigua Yacht Club around quitting time, and parked the boat up on the hill. So far, so good.
The next morning we pulled ourselves together and drove into town to attend church at St. John's, a beautiful old sanctuary with a truly multi-generational congregation that seems a lot more alive than the lovely mausoleum of a church around the corner from where I'm sitting.
They've run a food ministry continuously for forty years. Their prayers of the people include a prayer for the end of the death penalty. They meet out on the front lawn for lemonade after services when the weather's warm. I think we'll end up moving our card up there soon.
After church we ate brunch at the Village Diner, went to Wegman's to stock up on boat food, and drove back to the condo to lounge around a bit before the challenge of the shakedown cruise.
We arrived back at the boat at around 3:30, and noticed immediately that a 1957 Chris Craft Capri has no cleats. How does one tie on the fenders for launch? We jerry-rigged them the best we could, and walked down to the boat ramp to think through how we were going to launch the vessel, getting good advice from a nice young couple just then pulling their boat out of the water.
Finally the moment arrived for the launch. It went surprisingly well, although the lake was rough as a cob from all the other boats and a brisk north wind. Our fender arrangement was quickly pushed to the side, and I thought P was going to cry when the dock dented the wooden hull.
With the truck and trailer parked back on the hill, I jumped into the cockpit while P opened the engine bay to spray ether down the intakes, just like the day before. Except this time it didn't want to start. Then BOOM as the ether ignited and the engine croaked after seeming to fire off. We repeated this cycle several times before the old engine finally sprang to life. Peg hopped in next to me, and soon we were on our way.
Our very, very slow way, that is. The engine didn't want to power up beyond 1500 RPM, basically half of where it should have been. We'd been told it could easily pull two skiers; instead we we plodding along at a sailboat's pace.
Still, it was a pretty afternoon, and we slowly bounced down the lake to get a view of the condo from the water.
A slow boat ride suited us fine. We looked at real estate on the other side of the lake, had a drink, and made the best of it.
That is, until we approached the dock at the end of the ride. About two hundred yards shy of our destination, as I throttled back a little, she just died and refused to restart. We drifted in the wind toward some private docks nearby. A young man and his girlfriend in an aluminum bass boat offered to drag us to the yacht club dock, but he was clearly a novice and after a couple turns the wrong way basically slammed us into the private docks. The owner came down the steps from his house and helped us push away. He advised that the water there was only about four feet deep, and I made the fateful decision to strip down to my shorts and jump into the sixty degree water and pull the boat to the launch.
Except that it didn't stay four feet deep for long, and soon I was swimming against the wind, dragging the boat at a snail's pace and wondering if a heart attack was imminent as I puffed along in the frigid water. Finally, mercifully, we made it to the boat ramp, with me ducking out of the way at the last minute to avoid being squeezed like a grape between the 2500 pound boat and the concrete seawall. Inertia is merciless like that.
And then, finally, the boat was back on the hard and I was back to trying to figure out what to do about the motor. Skip texted that it might be the old gas. Perhaps. I'm guessing we have a very expensive journey of discovery about that old girl this summer.
So I reckon it's time to pay for all that with a little drafting today. Much to do and little time. It's looking like a rainy one, so at least there's no temptation to wander off outside.
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