For “outatowners,” the Morris Canal was an energy artery in the age of coal.  A remnant of its eastern end is the inlet just south of the Colgate Clock in Jersey City (cropped out to the right below) and right across the North River aka Hudson from Battery Park City.  I’ve posted fotos from the Canal and an ill-fated raft project called Abora here quite some time ago.  I say ill-fated because the expedition didn”t succeed in crossing although all were rescued.

aaaaamcThe Canal today serves as a marina but with some unusual winter inhabitants, like migratory birds.  Cape Race, featured here once before, has some of the lines of the activist vessel formerly known as Westra.

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I know I read something about this vessel somewhere recently, but my filing system prevents me from locating that paper  now.  Anyone know more info?

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Who is Cape Race?  If it had a voice, what stories of  hard work and variable waters might it tell?  With some flaking paint, the name actually reads as “CAFE PACE,” a soothing thought to file away for stress days.

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And Wallaby, also in the Canal.

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If I penned folk songs, this vessel looking misplaced here from downeast Maine or the Canadian Maritimes might inspire rollicking verses about emerging from fog into a metropolis perched on cliffs.  And I’d travel the dirt roads and byways singing for peanuts in legion halls, bars, canal fests, and church basements.  For now, fellow-gallivanters and I adventure whenever possible across ill-defined boundaries to haunt the waterfront for blog fotos and sometimes just to ask questions like Why Wallaby?  Why here?

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Bossanova, maybe ex-Shady Lady, might be classified as a pleasure workboat. Aka “pleasure at work boat” or something?

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Where has this vessel danced, rocked, roamed?

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For now, no answers, but hope you enjoyed the fotos.

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Tomorrow, if the sun rises, I’ll post about tugs in the Morris.

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