Though we have had Aisling for 4 years, I’m happy to say I have never heard the sound of something hitting the hull, until today!! And a frightening sound it was! Are we sinking? Did we bend a prop? Do you feel any vibrations? We were approaching a channel on southern Lake Champlain where the areas outside of the channel were marked ‘drowned timber’. No lie, ‘drowned timber’!! So yes we were being cautious and in the deepest part of the channel and bang! “What was that?” slow down, listen, check stuff…. Ok, speed up. Any vibrations? Anything sound wrong? Did we just get lucky?
One can imagine that long ago lumberjacks cut trees and floated them to this area and then, well I don’t know why they left them there….. But I do know that this channel was used to move jet fuel north to the Strategic Air Command Base in Plattsburg, NY until it closed (Reagan years I think). So SAC was moving jet fuel to keep our country safe from communism through ‘drowned timbers’. Really? Perhaps my confidence in our Military should increase as someone thought to shutdown this base (maybe because they were not sure they could get fuel…..? ;-))
Thankfully, Aisling seems no worse for wear.
Aisling goes Looping 