new email adress

Hi,

I realize some of you don't email me, are or infrequent contacts. Anyways, going forward, my new email is as follows: alcirceo@gmail.com

what is there to say?

Sometimes, there's just not a hell of a lot to say! We got on the boat Thursday and it's been a pretty normal hitch so far. All paper runs so far, with some good standby time in between. I like the standby, as long as it's not too much of a good thing. Catch up on some reading ( Game of Thrones book 2 ) and catch up on Breaking bad, which I didn't start watching until just past November, and then a little of chart corrections too.
That needed a little attention because for some reason it's been neglected over the past year or so while i was away. I found all our publications to be out of date, so those are on order,as well as a couple of charts.

so, I'm just basking in the glow of being back with my crew, on my old boat. Life is good! I'm thinking of a series of interviews with other captains for a monthly blog entry, so look for that soon. Oh yeah, dieting now. goal: drop 75 pounds in the next 7 months. 10 pounds a month - healthy, doable. I'm taking the calorie counting route this time around because after all, calories is king is king as far as eating goes.

Anyways, that's it for now, just a run of the mill, non interesting dispatch, day in the life sort of thing ~ Al

Lady Liberty

 I took this one while coming down the river with the paper barge the other day. I liked the way the sun beams came through the clouds.

I

STATENGRACHT unloading salt at Beth 30 Port Newark

Not exactly blind, but not the best visibility either.

Ice on the North River

I

Long Time No See

Funny thing about this blogging thing, you've actually got to write something every once in a while! It's been a long long time. I always thought I had a lot to say, but I guess that's not the case.

I'm back at DonJon now, after about a year and a half. I left to pursue an opportunity as master at another company. I'm not sorry I did it, but I really missed DonJon marine. this is a company that really knows how to do this tugboat thing. Every thing is aboveboard, lots of documentation, safety consciousness, etc...

I gained a lot of valuable experience while I was away. I got to do some coastal towing, and more than a few tandem tows, which I'm happy to say I've had my fill of thank you very much

Here's a picture from one of those trips. this is taken from the tug Lynx, of the dump scow MERC Shevlin. We took it brand new out of the shipyard in Palatka Florida. This was a very interesting trip. Palatka is on the St John River, about 50 miles or so up river. It was Christmas week 2012. We had to sell almost all our fuel in order to reduce our draft enough to get up the river. We got rid of 8000 gallons, leaving just enough - about 700 gallons or so - to get up the river and back to the fuel dock.

 We used an assist boat on the stern of the tow to help keep the tow straight going through the bridges. One of the bridges, the Buffalo Bluff RR bridge, was especially hairy. As I remember, it was very tight going through that one. I'm looking at the chart now and it tells me there was about 20 feet or so on either side of the barge, which doesn't seem that bad in retrospect. I guess the big deal was I didn't have much experience at the time towing through a narrow space like that so it seemed pretty dicey at the time. It's really not that bad though. I just lined up on the center, and had the tail boat backing to keep the tow straight, piece of cake!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Every thing I've had to do with the boats, I've said "you want me to do what?" but then you realize that it is doable, people have done it before, and you just get it done and it's another notch in your belt. It's all about having a little bit of boat sense, and the tools and confidence to get it done. The rest of that trip was pretty straightforward, out the river, turn to port at the sea buoy, and up the coast to New York. We did get caught in some weather just south of Hatteras on that trip, forecasting about 4-6 foot seas that turned out to be more like 8-10 foot. I sometimes forget the tongue in cheek rule of thumb: When they say 4-6 foot, they really mean 4+6 foot - that is, add them together.

Well, that's it for now, I'll try to be a little more consistent with the posts. - Al

IMG00420-20120120-1240.jpg

Northbound at Ellis Island

IMG00419-20120119-1532.jpg

Lady Liberty

IMG00418-20120119-1419.jpg

Eastbound through the Rose Bowl

IMG00416-20120119-1340.jpg

North Bound Arthur Kill

Virginia C II

VIRGINIA C II

This is where it all began - as far as my maritime career goes. Dad acquired this boat in 1978. He found it sitting in Merrit Island Florida where it had been languishing out of service - for a few years. She was built in 1962 in Biloxi Mississippi. At 86 feet overall length, 5 foot draft, the hull is 3/4 inch mahogany, double planked. Power is 2 Detroit Diesel 16-71 engines.

There's a lot of history to this little boat. One of the neatest things about her is that she saw service as ferry in Cuba in her early years. We had been told that by the previous owners, and it was always part of the story that goes with the boat (all old boats have stories). Well, low and behold, a friend of ours was watching a documentary about the Cuban revolution and the Bay of Pigs invasion, and sure enough there's the boat, loaded with people in some harbor in Cuba.

Besides that little tidbit, there's tons of personal history around her too. In 1978 I was 12 years old. I'm now 45 and this boat is still here! The following year, 1979 she went from Boston down to Miami to work the winter season. At 13, I was able to make the trip from Savannah Georgia to Miami. Right around this time is when I began to learn how to stand a wheel watch - there was no auto pilot - and to make engine room checks. Somewhere between Boston and Savannah one of the fuel tanks split open, and Dad tried to salvage almost a thousand gallons of fuel out of the bilge by filtering it through rags back into other fuel tanks that were still functional. The result was stuck injectors that got progressively worse as the trip went on. When we got to Miami the problem was that there was no throttle control. My job was to go down in the engine room and shut off the fuel supply when the engineer's call signal went off. I imagine that was a pretty tense moment for the old man, shape up for the dock, say a prayer, and shut her down. At the end of the season I made the trip all the way back to Boston, pretty cool for a young kid!

Yeah, so I learned all those things that make up the skill set of a mariner, and then I learned a whole lot about working with the public too. I learned how to pretend I was having a good day even when I wasn't. I learned how to tend bar, sling burgers, all that sort of stuff.

Over the years she ran countless trips between Boston and Gloucester, and became a familiar sight at the Studio Restaurant in Rocky Neck. Besides that she did a lot of Whale Watching on Stellwagon Bank, and many evening party cruises. She made the trip to Newport RI a few times to carry spectators for the America's Cup Races.

We took her down to New York in '86 for the Statue of Liberty centennial and the Tall Ships. That was a fun trip. We spent a week in Newport with the Tall Ships, then went down to NY and ran trips from Hastings on Hudson down to the City for a week. A lot of memories there. I looked around for some better pictures, but this all I could find so, well, ya................... ~ Al

You live on a boat?

I used to get that question all the time back in high school. Yeah, I live on a boat. This is the Joseph J Luna, a retired Boston fire boat. Dad bought it in '78 and we lived aboard, Mom Dad, four kids, a cat and dog.

As Ma would tell the story, it wasn't the plan, but the summer of '78 wasn't exactly a banner year for A.C. Cruise Line. One boat had a fire, and the other sank, all in the same week, so funds were a little tight and as often happens, temporary measures became shall we say, a little more long term.

So there were six of us on board, and it was a little tight, yeah, but cozy, even comfortable. The lower deck consisted of the galley, the master stateroom, and a head with bath. The galley served as kitchen, office, dining room, and T.V. room. We never knew who might be sitting there when we came in from school: Potential customer, sales people, old family friends......... "Alan, this is so and so." ' Oh, hi - howyadoin?' I'd mumble as I started rummaging through the fridge for something to eat. There was always someone coming or going.

The upper deck had three staterooms and a smaller head with shower. After a while the wheelhouse also got co-opted as a stateroom too. There was heat, and laundry facilities, and all the comforts of home - maybe a little abbreviated -but it was all there.

She served as dad's home after we all grew up and went our own ways. She finally sank a couple of years ago after thirty something years of faithful service.

IMG00414-20120111-1611.jpg

Bucking tide and dodging ferries in NY Harbor

New boat, same old job

I switched boats a few months back. I'm on the Sarah Ann now. I had went over here to fill in for a couple of weks and forgot what it was like to be on a boat that had some room, and that had enough height of eye to actually see over and around the tow. so here I am. It's a good deal in all respects except one: The schedule is three weeks instead of two. To put it mildly, I HATE IT!! I really didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but the extra week is a killer. On an offshore boat, it makes perfect sense. You never know where you're crew changing, and three and three gives the boat time to get somewhere, and gives you some time to get to and from the boat between hitches. It also cuts down on travel expenses over the year. On a harbor boat though I find it exhausting. We're pretty busy on this boat, running up and down and back and forth all over the harbor. It can get a little stressful, what with all the other traffic, and the radios going all the time. After a few days, your can get just wore out. It doesn't seem to be so bad this trip, we've gotten a litle down time since we got on last Tuesday - so I'm not trying to say it's all gloom and doom - but still, it's a little much.

Other than that, it's great, there's plenty of room over here, compared to the Brian Nicholas, and the crew is great. And the boat is an absolute dream to run, real manouverable, good visibility, it's really nice.

I quit smoking last week, and I seem to be sleeping a little better, so that's helping with the fatigue level this trip too. I'm missing the smokes a little, like when I first get up, but just because I feel like I need a smoke doesn't mean I have to have one. And really, just because I feel like a want to smoke, doesn't really mean I want to smoke either. It occured to me earlier tonight that the discomfort of withdrawal is probably less than the discomfort of being a pack and a half a day smoker, what with all the wheezing and coughing and shortness of breath and whatnot. So with that in mind, I'm going to keep going. today will be nine days smoke free, and other than the cravings that come and go, I feel really great. I'm using the patch to deal with the cravings a little bit, although they are still there. This way, what I'm mostly dealing with over the next couple of months is getting away from the ritual of the smoke: the lighting, and puffing, and all of that; Also, the triggers too: Eating, drinking coffee, waking up, getting ready for bed, driving, hanging out with friends..............All of that. It isn't easy, I'm not going to lie, but I feel awesome, I can already breathe much better. ~ AL

more on living aboard.....

Yeah so there's the space thing, the water thing, and then there's other little adjustments to get used to. Some people say that it must be kind of cold in the winter. It's a little bit cool maybe, but I wouldn't say it's cold. It's true that most boats aren't insulated, being designed for use in the warmer months. Besides that it is a little drafty for sure. I insulated some of the windows and hatches with some foam panels, and others I put up some of that clear shrink wrap window insulation - to stop the drafts somewhat - and then got some heavy insulated drapes too. It's really kind of cozy though I admit I haven't really seen a deep freeze yet. I think the coldest it's been so far is about 32 or so. We'll see what it's like when I get home at the end of January, when I expect we'll get some serious cold snaps.

Some people build frames and make a plastic tent to protect them from the wind and snow, and they get some radiant heat from the sun with this too. I didn't have time to get that all together this year, time sneaked up on me pretty fast - what else is new?

My heat is a couple of electric heaters that I bought out of a marine hardware catalog. they seem to work well. My electric bill is a little high though, but considering how reasonable the winter dockage rate is, I think it's not too bad. One thing that helps is that I'm only there half the time, and work the other half - three weeks home and three weeks away - so it's pretty doable.

I paid $1470.00 for dockage from Nov. 1 to May 1. the electricity is probably going to come to another $700 or so - maybe a little more. So even if the whole total is $2500 for six months, that's pretty good i think for six months of housing in Boston. I haven't asked many other liveaboards how they feel about the whole thing, but I'd bet many of them would probably agree with me on this: If I could afford to keep a boat and maintain a house or apartment, then I'd rather live on land in the winter. I don't have a lot of money, and I love boating, so this is how I make it happen. In the warmer months, its great. Lots of people around the docks, long days cruising around the harbor, or anchored out somewhere. What's not to like? But in the winter it can be a little bit much. ~ Al

Inbound Newtown creek