I kept saying all summer that I wanted to go for rides in other people’s boats,
but when Clyde Petersen and Gigi Grinstad came to visit from Seattle, I couldn’t resist the chance to show off one of New York City’s greatest attractions;
the Staten Island Boat Graveyard.
We decided that one way to keep within my theme for the summer,
was to visit other people’s SUNKEN boats,
In some cases we weren’t exactly aboard the vessels,
we were inside floating through them.
We visited HILA, a wood-hulled rescue tug built during World War II.
She was steam powered, 116 feet long, and once home to 50 officers and sailors of the U.S. Navy.
We picked our way through the wrecks,
and tucked ourselves inside an old Hudson River ferry,
to wait for a passing ship.
“I wonder what they think of us down here.” said Clyde,
as we came poking back out of the wreck like sea urchins.
It was actually starting to rain,
but we had one more stop to make.
LT 653, another old steam powered tugboat.
This one was built for the army in 1954, and ships of her class would have helped with the D-day invasion.
She’s been sitting right here since 1972, which is longer than I’ve been on the planet,
and she’s holding up pretty well, considering everything.
All this information about the wrecks I learned from Will Van Dorp and Gary Kane’s great documentary ‘Graves of Arthur Kill’.
It was fun to walk slowly through the wreck and imagine the crew that operated her.
From up on the bridge of LT 653, it was possible to get a better sense of the graveyard’s immense scale.
“I wonder why people don’t just move out here and live aboard the boats.” said Clyde.
It started to rain harder, and we kind of figured that out.
The boat was wet and cold, inside and out. There was no place to get out of the weather.
We decided to make a run for it, to get back to the truck and out of the rain.
Even these pacific north-westerners were getting a little tired of being soaked and cold.
“What are you guys going to do when you get home?” I asked.
“Tomato soup and grilled cheese,” they told me later.
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