In the Wheelhouse

Our Dispatch Manager, Nick LeBlanc, received the picture above along with the email below...

Now, I'm not encouraging anyone to stick our stickers in inappropriate places, but if you see some Safe/Sea gear in unexpected or remote locales, snap a cell phone picture and email it to us. You'll likely make it on my blog! (Not that that's much of a prize, but that's all I can offer at the moment.)

...Nor anything boating-related, really. I'm currently on my last vacation before the boat-driving begins in earnest for the 2009 season, so I thought you might be interested in what I'm doing with my family this spring. It's about as far from boating as you can get...caving!

I piled everyone in the car last weekend and drove 1056 miles to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky to experience some of America's natural beauty. Believe it or not, Mammoth Cave is the world's longest known underground cave system, with over 350 miles of mapped caverns. We did the "Introduction to Caving" tour on Easter Sunday, which is a guided, off-trail 3 hour long trip into the bowels of Mammoth Cave that's designed to give visitors a taste of real caving. It's not for the claustrophobic, as you can't go on the tour if your chest measures over 44", for fear you'll get stuck in some of the narrower passages. The only light comes from the headlight worn on your helmet.

As you can see from the picture above, everyone had a great time, and I managed to not get stuck in "The Keyhole", the narrowest of the passages we traversed during our adventure. We all worked up a sweat and emerged from the cave covered in plenty of fine clay and a little mud from our crawl. The most fun was when our group popped out of a small tunnel that crossed the lighted tourist trail and surprised a group taking a more traditional guided tour. We sure got some funny looks!

Hopefully, I'll have some more vacation pictures for you this weekend! Next week, it's back to business.

It's been very quiet on the bay this week, which is not surprising considering the cold and wind. Capt. Andy did our first job of 2009 nearly two weeks ago, and there hasn't been a sniff of work since. However, there are a couple of discoveries I made during my seal-watching jaunt of last weekend that bear mention... Wickford Harbor has received a couple of upgrades that boaters should be interested in.

First, there's been some nice work done on the North Breakwater. As you can see, the end of the rip rap has been build up from its sad state of repair and a new concrete mount for the light tower and dayshape has been poured. It appears that the tower could be re-installed on its new perch any day, and certainly before April is out.

Second, there's been a major expansion of dockage at Wickford Shipyard. All of the shipyard's docks have been extended significantly to the west, making them even with their fuel dock. This does reduce the width of the Wickford Cove channel that extends down to the village, but there's still plenty of room for comfortable maneuvering.

Hopefully I'll have a job or two to report on this weekend, as the forecast is pretty decent for tomorrow and Sunday.

Well, the boating itch finally got the better of me yesterday and had to be scratched. It was still pretty cold and generally grey, but a fine day for my first boat trip of 2009. On the way out of the harbor, we were treated to the sight of the North Kingstown High Sailing Team getting in some practice time in their 420's.

As many Rhode Islanders know, Narragansett Bay is home to a huge number of seals over the winter months, and seal watching is one of my family's favorite excuses for a weekend outing. Yesterday was a perfect day for it, so my wife and I loaded up our daughter Sarah (12) and son Will (10) for a quick trip out to Rome Point, just south of Wickford Harbor, to see how many of our blubbery friends we could spot.

We were not disappointed! The rocks just off Rome Point were loaded with what had to be over 50 seals. I don't have any pictures of them, as getting too close to a marine mammal is a considered harrassment (and, hence, a felony), but they were all over the place. There were huge grey adults and some juveniles that still sported their white baby fur. The beach at Rome Point was covered with other seal-watchers who made the short hike from Route 1A, where there's a parking lot maintained by the state. As you can see at right, high powered, electronically stabilized binoculars come in rather handy for seal watching.

If you get your boat in the water before the weather gets too warm and the seals depart, Rome Point isn't the only place to see them around the bay. Just about any tidally-exposed rock that's big enough is likely to host some, although Rome Point is usually a sure bet, as it's a great spot that can be accessed by land or sea. Just remember that it's illegal to get too close or harass the animals in any way, so bring your binoculars or a telescope.

Avast ye landlubbers and prepare to be boarded! Seems about the right caption for this somewhat scary looking guy, right? Well, looks can be deceiving! The man at the podium is Capt. John Aydelotte, a Vessel Assist company owner from Whidbey Island, Washington.

Capt. John is one of the unique personalities in our business. He's been assisting boaters on the west coast since 1978 and running his own boatyard as well.

But, what's with the spyglass? Well, Capt. John likes to style himself as rather salty, with just a dash of pirate thrown in for good measure. So, when John was retiring from C-Port's Board of Directors at this year's annual conference, the association presented him with a spyglass worthy of his image!

Many thanks for your years of service to C-Port and our industry, Cap. We all appreciate the work you've done, and continue to do for the association.

Check out Capt. John's website here.