Aboard the Pathfinder

Sunday, July 21, 2013

I may have felt good riding four-plus hours yesterday, but that kind of stuff comes back to haunt your legs…as it did on today’s ride. 

I started out feeling a little lethargic and went downhill from there.  I didn’t fight the feeling and decided it would just be a scenic, serene ride – pain or not.  I took to my Waite Hill course, which is full of small to medium-sized hills, and completed it in my normal time of a little more than two hours.  Once home, I hurried through my personal cleaning process of jumping in the neighbor’s pool, made a smoothie and drove downtown to the Cuyahoga River and the Osborne Stone plant.  I was going there to meet my nephew, Nathan Duer, who serves as Chief Engineer on the 700’ Pathfinder barge/tug.  He wanted to show me around the ship and go over navigational charts for our upcoming kayaking trip for Tour Ohio.  I drove onto the property and pulled up alongside the ship, which was in the process of unloading its almost 18,000 tons of stone, quarried somewhere in the upper Great Lakes and transported here.  I saw my nephew on the deck and tried to hear what he was yelling.

“WE CAN’T REACH THE DOCK WITH THE GANGPLANK.  YOU’LL HAVE TO CLIMB UP ON THE LADDER WE’RE THROWING OVER,” I understood him to say.

I was holding my camera, some maps, a pad and a book on the Lake Erie shoreline and realized I’d have to climb this extension ladder, angled at 45 degrees ship to shore and bouncing on the cable over which it was being propelled down to me with one hand.  If I should slip, I’d drop thirty or so feet to the muddy Cuyahoga River between the ship and the pier…not a good scenario.  To hell with all that I thought as I took hold of the ladder and began to ascend.  When I reached the top where a hand was holding securely to the ladder to keep it from swaying and falling, I handed him my gear, put a foot on the steel cable which acted as a rail for the ship and was supporting the ladder, and bounded off the ladder and onto the deck.  I landed cleanly and with grace and dignity.  Thankfully.

Nathan took me on a full tour of the barge/ship, including climbing down into the bowels of the 7,000 horsepower engine room that propelled this beast at 10 knots through the waters of the Great Lakes.  It was an impressive vessel, particularly the tug that did the propelling.  I was surprised to find a workout room outfitted with weight training and aerobic exercise equipment, though it was steaming hot and rather small.

“Interlake Steamship is looking to improve fitness and wellness of its employees,” he said, which surprised me since it would seem that the work would require people to be in good shape.

We climbed four stories to the bridge where we went over some maps of the waters heading east of Sandusky Bay.  There did not appear to be any opportunities for camping.  We then finished our tour and I climbed down the normal gangplank to the shore below.  I had some work to do on the kayaking course and little time left to act. 

Bike duration:  Two hours and 5 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  120 bpm.

Calories burned during workout:  1750.