(Doubleclick enlarges fotos.) With a favorable weather window,  tomorrow nightfall may find Wanderbird out the Narrows and at sea, bound for Puerto Rico.    But midday today, she was

anchored off Piermont, off the old Camp Shanks.  More Camp Shanks later.

Captain Rick Miles came calling ashore in the skiff.

At daybreak Paolo and Pitsik bade farewell to Atlantic Basin as

we left  the Basin–where Clipper City and Cape Race remained–and

steamed upriver past a very sleepy version of the so-called “city that never sleeps.”  This morning I had doubts about that moniker.  And with an icy blast coming out of the north, sleeping in would not be such a terrible option, but

for me, the ride up to Piermont–in a wheelhouse listening to yarns from Culebra to Greenland and  smelling soup savors wafted up from the galley–it was sweet.

Thanks to Captains Rick and Karen for the chance to steam upriver a few hours.  Here’s their site.

For folks who want numbers:  Wanderbird‘s Industrie engine generates 510 hp, consuming a gallon a mile while cruising at 500 rpm and spinning a 8″ shaft and a 62″ four-bladed prop.

A great picture book about the hundreds of very similar North Sea trawlers, check out Arie van der Veer’s Van Zijtrawler naar Hektrawler (From Side Trawler to Stern Trawler).  It has hundreds of fotos.  An English-language article with pics on this category of trawler can be seen here.

Check out this blog from Labrador for more info on the Canadian husky above named Pitsik (scroll to August 18, 2010) AND the schooner Issuma (scroll to August 10), currently on Lake Ontario and written about here last month.  Here’s another Issuma post.    For pics of Wanderbird in the Caribbean, check out these by David Blitzer, whom I met on the trip to Piermont.  See info on David’s show at 350 Bleeker Street here.

Fair winds, Wanderbird.