The Boaty Show

Enjoy this full chapter about working on Monkey Island, from Jeff's newest book. Monkey Farm: A Summer Among the Macaques  Audiobook: Libby Libro.fm Spotify Amazon  Audible  Apple Books  Google Play  Kobo  Barnes and Noble eBook (DRM-free): Bookshop.org  Kobo  Kindle Barnes and Noble  Canadian friends: I set the retail price at par - $10CAD and $10USD. Anything more is bullshit. Keep looking if a site (like Amazon) is charging exchange rate.  It's the least I can do to make up for our bad behavior down here.  International (list created with gemini):  Rakuten Kobo (Global / Ireland) E-Book (EPUB 3) Ireland / European Union €8.99 Retail / Pre-order Rakuten Kobo Ireland Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Belgium / French) Digital Audiobook Belgium / France Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Belgium Audio Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Netherlands) E-Book Netherlands Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Netherlands Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Denmark) E-Book Denmark Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Denmark Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Turkey) E-Book Turkey Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Turkey Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Belgium / Dutch) E-Book Belgium Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Belgium Dutch Listing   Booktopia E-Book Australia Direct Purchase (AUD) Booktopia Product Listing   Storytel (Indonesia Storefront) Digital Audiobook Global / Southeast Asia Monthly Subscription Streaming Storytel Indonesia Listing   Storytel (France Storefront) Digital Audiobook France / Europe Monthly Subscription Streaming Storytel France Listing   Storytel (Iceland Storefront) Digital Audiobook Iceland Monthly Subscription Streaming Storytel Iceland Listing   Bol.com Digital Audiobook Netherlands / Belgium Kobo Plus Subscription / Purchase Bol.com Product Listing   Rakuten Books Japan Digital E-Book Japan Direct Purchase (JPY) Rakuten Japan Product Listing   Nextory E-Book & Audiobook Switzerland / Europe Monthly Subscription Streaming Nextory Product Listing The full chapter follows, enjoy and let me know what you think... Chapter 11 - Monkey Island My summer among the macaques ended with a hangover, fresh stitches and a new tattoo. The story of how that happened began before dawn at a boat dock on Saint Helena Sound.  The skills I'd acquired at the Yemassee clinic, specifically treating lacerations and fight wounds, had qualified me to work on Morgan Island when needed. The Monkey Farm maintained a colony of rhesus macaques on the island under a contract with the government. The macaques had been relocated to South Carolina from a government breeding facility in Puerto Rico fifteen years prior, after monkeys carrying the Herpes-B virus escaped into the community.  After my boss recommended me to the Morgan Island team, the occupational health lab tested me for tuberculosis and hepatitis. The monkeys on the island were disease-free, and the humans who worked there were screened to make sure they didn't infect the animals. The lab also re-tested me for Herpes-B virus, carried by many of the macaques I worked with. Herpes-B was harmless to the monkeys, but could kill me. The re-test confirmed I hadn't been infected by an accidental needle stick the month before. After I stuck myself with that used needle, I rushed back to the clinic and scrubbed the wound with iodine and a stiff brush for ten minutes, then flushed the wound with water for another twenty minutes. Either the monkey hadn't carried B virus or the infection-control procedure worked. Good news! With blood tests out of the way, I was given the dates I would work on Morgan Island and instructions to take the morning boat from Eddings Point. My boss dictated directions. "Take the Carteret Street bridge from Beaufort on the mainland to Lady's Island. Continue on the Sea Island Parkway. Pass Datha, Distant, Warsaw and Polawana Islands. Keep going on to Saint Helena Island. Turn left on Eddings Point Road, go a couple miles across the causeway to Eddings Point Landing. Boat leaves at 6:30 am sharp. Be early because they'll leave you at the dock if you're one minute late." A winding pre-dawn drive across the archipelago of Saint Helena Sound got me to the dock just after 6:00 am. A car and two pickup trucks were already parked in an oyster shell lot between the narrow causeway and the salt marsh. The trucks lit the marsh with their headlights. The beams followed a walkway of planks laid between pilings out to open water where I could just make out a boat tied to a floating dock. Three people I'd never met were ferrying boxes of supplies and bags of Purina Monkey Chow from the trucks to the boat. I got out of my own truck with a duffel bag holding my coveralls and boots. Unsure what do do next, I went and stood next to the walkway, thinking maybe I could help. The three men ignored me as they sleepily went about their stevedoring.  The veterinarian I was to assist that day climbed out of a nearby station wagon and trudged slowly over, a bag similar to mine slung over her shoulder. We exchanged sleepy good mornings. She wore a dark knit watch cap. It was September, and the air was thankfully cool after a shatteringly hot Lowcountry August. That heat pushed me down with a heavy weight from dawn to dusk. It was hardest in coveralls, boots and a mask, but even on my days off I stayed indoors in the air conditioning. That August was the first time in my life I didn't want to go outside, even to swim since the body temperature water did nothing to cool me down. Thankfully, September broke the spell. That morning the breeze off the salt marsh was brisk and fresh. We stayed out of the way while the crew finished loading the boat. The one in charge, a big man I hadn't met, turned off the headlights in one, then the other truck. Big Man motioned to us to follow as he crossed the walkway to join the two people already on the boat. His heavy steps made the planks bounce gently between the pilings. I stepped down a short ramp from the fixed walkway to the floating dock. I followed the veterinarian who had already climbed aboard the boat.  Free from the glare of headlights, my eyes started to adjust to the pre-dawn light. The simple workboat was sturdily built of white fiberglass. It had a windshield on top of a tiny cabin in the bow. The steering wheel and throttle were mounted next to a ship's compass bolted to the top of the cabin. The letters and numbers of the compass glowed from a soft yellow light inside the compass housing. I could see that we were pointed roughly north. The inboard motor repeated a quiet rumble under an engine box piled with supplies. Big Man quickly untied the lines, bow and stern, and climbed into the boat to take the wheel.  He pushed the throttle forward and spun the wheel to the left. The boat rose smoothly on plane as we motored into Jenkins Creek. My eyes now fully adjusted, I could see the glow of sunrise build in the sky to our right, and there was enough ambient light to see our surroundings. We looked up at the top of tall marsh grass speeding by on either side of the Creek. Five months earlier in May, the grass was a green fringe barely above the tidal marshes at the confluence of the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers. The three rivers gave their water and their names to the ACE Basin, a pristine 350,000 acre nursery estuary in Saint Helena Sound.  Smack dab in the middle of the ACE Basin sat Morgan Island, the only completely undeveloped island in the estuary. Undeveloped, but not uninhabited.  The others on the boat didn't say much as we wound through the creeks and rivers on our way to Morgan Island. Between the early hour and the routine of what was regular duty for everyone else, I was left to watch and wonder. We shot out of Jenkins Creek into the wider Morgan River then turned east. Our bow was pointed toward the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The top edge of the sun broke above the watery horizon. A dorsal fin broke the surface of the water in front and to the right of the boat. A shark! No, sharks don't surf. It was a porpoise. The sleek marine mammal caught a ride on the wave of water pushed aside by our bow until we turned to head north up Parrot Creek next to Morgan Island.  Morgan Island is technically six square miles, but only one square mile is high and dry. The rest is marsh. We motored in a long clockwise loop around the island's northern perimeter. At a buoy with a flashing green light, we turned south into the mouth of an unnamed tidal creek that led to the interior. After ten minutes winding through the creek, Big Man pulled back on the throttle. The boat slowed and we putted slowly toward the forested upland of Morgan Island. I pushed to the front of the cockpit to spot the throngs of free-range macaques that must've been gathered on shore to greet us. But weren't. Instead, a sleepy woman took our lines and tied our boat to a simple wooden pier that jutted out of bushes and trees that lined the shore beyond. A second boat was tied up on the other side of the dock, nearly identical to ours but older and more weathered. It was covered in morning dew and had been there all night. The veterinarian motioned me to climb out so the crew could unload. The tide crested during the trip out, so it was a short step up from the boat to the dock. We carried our duffel bags down the dock, walking alongside the woman who'd come to meet us. She wore the dark blue coveralls of an animal care technician. She seemed to wake up and nodded a greeting to me.  "Welcome to Monkey Island son! I'm Dianne, you're in for a big day today!" I still didn't know what I was in for, only that my clinical skills had improved to the point where I could 'go out to Morgan for census.' The low morning sun lit the dock, but it was still dark under the trees on shore. I stepped off the pier onto the island proper. The ground was sand mixed with bits of dry organic matter fallen from a dense canopy above. When we stepped into the shadows of the trees we also stepped onto a dense mat of dead leaves, palmetto fronds, and pine needles. The branches of the pine and live oak trees above interlocked with each other to provide support against strong ocean winds. This mesh of branches was a distinguishing characteristic of the island's maritime forest. A perfect habitat for the rhesus macaques I had yet to see.  We walked up a trail to a decrepit cabin with a low, sagging metal roof. A tall radio antenna shot straight up from the peak of the roof. It's thin outline was visible against the large white plastic tank of an improvised water tower behind the cabin. The cabin itself was painted a drab light brown that blended with the forest. More so because the paint peeled up in places as if to mimic leaves. A screened porch spanned the front of the building. Through its dusty screen I could see an old plaid couch and a worn yellow vinyl recliner. The veterinarian stepped on to the porch through a crooked screen door. I followed her past the junky furniture through a weathered wood doorframe into the cabin. Its old door was propped open by a rusty metal bucket full of sand bristling with cigarette butts. Most of the cabin was one big room. A slightly less decrepit couch and recliner stood against the back wall next to a kitchen area that held a round wooden table and a few matching chairs.  A makeshift office area was to the right of the door. A dented gray metal desk under a cracked sliding glass window held a serious looking two-way shortwave radio set. A thick wire snaked out of the window to the antenna on the roof. The transmitter was surrounded by stacks of paperwork and binders. Above it was a map of the island marked with circles and squares. To the left, open doors led to two small bedrooms on either side of a bathroom. An ancient toilet, the kind with a long chain dangling from a tank on the wall was visible through the bathroom door. The place looked and felt like a remote ranger station on a wildlife preserve, which it sort of was.  A weathered man who could've been forty or sixty sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee. He looked up from a piece of paper on the clipboard in front of him as the veterinarian walked over.  "Mornin' doc. I see you brought the new kid. Hey kid, I'm Jack. Well, I went out this morning and another ten monkeys jumped in the corral last night. That makes 182. Looked like about a third don't have tattoos, but I couldn't get an exact count." Jack's voice held the soft lilt acquired by someone who'd lived here for a while, but wasn't from the Deep South. The veterinarian acknowledged his update and told me to go into the bathroom and change into boots and coveralls. I came out to find Jack gone from the cabin and the vet in her coveralls waiting for me by the door. We walked out to where two of the crew from the boat stood with Diane and Jack between a couple of ancient vehicles I hadn't noticed earlier. The sun shone through the trees on an ancient flat-fender jeep. I loved it at first sight. Either Army surplus or an early civilian model. It was protected from the salt air by multiple coats of whatever leftover paint had been on hand at the time. Where the last coat of beige flaked off, I could see light orange and hints of robins egg blue beneath that. Its windshield frame was long gone. A hole gaped where one headlight had fallen out. There was no roll bar or rear seat. Stuffing poked through the cracked vinyl upholstery of a driver's seat behind a wide metal steering wheel. The passenger had to make do with an old couch cushion set on the floor of the vehicle. A surplus Army trailer painted the same leftover kaleidoscope was hitched to the jeep. It's pickup truck-sized bed held boxes of veterinary supplies.  The other vehicle was an old pickup truck so dented and rusted I couldn't tell you more about it. I admired it anyway. As I stood wondering at the make of the truck, a movement back by the jeep caught my eye. I had to stare for a moment before I could spot the young adult rhesus macaque. He crept across the forest floor, halfway to the jeep trailer from the nearest tree trunk. Big Man was in a nearby storage shed even more decrepit than the cabin, where he stowed the last of the supplies from the boat. Everyone else had their backs to the monkey. The macaque crept steadily closer to the trailer, eyes wide, mouth open. I didn't know any better so I just watched. When he got to the trailer, he stood on his hind legs and peered over the side. A hand darted out and snatched a packet of sterile gauze just as Big Man came out of the shed, saw him and yelled. "Yo! Monkey! Git!"  The macaque streaked away from the trailer in a three-legged dash, the white paper packet of gauze held to his chest with one hand. I continued to stare dumbly as the other four turned around and watched the thief disappear up into the tree canopy. Big Man chuckled as he walked toward our group.  "That one's still at it, huh? Guess he didn't jump into the corral last night."  I finally found my words and asked if that was something to look out for the rest of the day.  Big Man replied. "Not really. Every so often one of 'em gets more curious than scared and hangs around the cabin. They love to get their hands on anything new and different, so the census trailer is better 'n bananas. No big deal so long as they don't steal anything sharp. You put the syringes and scissors on the bottom, right Jack?" Jack nodded, a smile on his face. Big Man stopped next to Jack who handed him a clipboard. Big Man started the morning briefing. He introduced me as Jeff, there to help the veterinarian. No other introductions as everyone knew everyone except me and it was clear I was the vet's problem.   "Ok, me and Karl are on island the next three nights. Jack and Dianne are good to stay overtime this morning, but'll take the day boat back this afternoon as soon as we're finished with census. Dianne, how's everything doing?" "Batteries are at eighty percent this morning, generator ran fine last evening. Propane is good, water tank's three quarters full, next water delivery in a week. The water transfer pump is still on the fritz, but I know what part it needs and'll pick that up before I'm out here next. Did a radio check this morning with Yemassee. Y'all brought plenty of food so you're good for three days." He nodded his thanks, then looked down at the clipboard.  "Ok, Monkeys are in Corral C on the southwest side of the island. As of Jack's final check this morning, a total of 182 animals jumped in over two days." He flipped the top sheet over and went through a checklist on the second page. "Ok, cages, sawhorses and plywood are already staged out at the corral. Lights, scales and measuring tapes are in the pickup. So are census records, tattoo equipment and portable generators. Trailer's loaded with vet supplies, gauntlets, and gloves." He looked at his watch, then at us.  "It's 7:45, we need to set up by 8:30 so we can census all 180 macaques before noon. 1:00 at the latest if there are hiccups. It's cool now, but the temp is gonna get into the eighties later this afternoon. We don't wanna add heat to the stress they're already under. No breaks, lunch after, ok? Everyone good?" Heads nodded, mine included even though I didn't know what would come next.  "Ok, boat crew with me in the truck, last night's island crew in the jeep. We'll go on ahead and set up." Big Man looked at me and the veterinarian. "Y'all walk and meet us there. Take the loop trail and you can't miss it. We'll have your station set up by the time you get there. " I was bummed to not get a ride in the old Army jeep. As I watched it pull away down the rough trail, it bounced over a deep rut. The jeep's rear corner hopped violently because the leaf spring was broken and the body sat hard on the rear axle. Maybe a walk in the woods was better.  The veterinarian used the walk to fill me in. Our black rubber boots were nearly silent on sand mixed with pine needles as we walked next to a rutted vehicle trail that looped around the perimeter of the island. The veterinarian started with background. "Pretty crazy place, huh? The government put a breeding colony of 1,400 rhesus macaques on this island in the 80's. It's more than self-sustaining because now there're about 3,000 of them. I say 'about' because they live free-range in dozens of social groups. There's no way to do a complete count when they roam freely over hundreds of acres. There are four corrals around the island, A, B, C and D. We do census in March, June, September and December. The island staff bait one of the corrals with fruit and biscuits for two days. Monkeys living in the area jump down into the corral for fruit and can't climb back out. Take today's census. 182 macaques jumped into Corral C. We treat that group as a sample from all the monkeys living on the island. Then we use statistics to estimate the total population." She looked up from the ground ahead to see if I followed. I nodded in understanding. "Ok, great. During the census today, the staff will inspect, weigh and measure each monkey that jumped into the corral. Every monkey with a chest tattoo has its own census chart in a binder where its weight and such are recorded each time it's captured. If a monkey doesn't have a tattoo, it means it's never been seen in the census. The animal gets a tattoo and a new census chart with its first weight, length, sex, age and health exam. When it's caught again in a future census, its information is recorded on the same chart. Get why it's called a census?" I got it. The official census in the United States worked sort of the same way. Every ten years, census takers go door to door in a neighborhood and record a bunch of information. Not every door, but enough to create a reliable sample. Experts then do the math to estimate the population of the neighborhood, the state and the whole country. I said as much to the veterinarian.  "Yes! Exactly! Now, I'm not involved because this is primatology stuff, but as I understand it, data we gather today is sent to Yemassee to be entered into the computer database. From that the population on the island gets estimated pretty accurately. Growth and especially replacement rate too, because animals are shipped out to supply federal research labs." I followed what she was saying, but had questions. I asked if the monkeys ever escaped from the island, and most important to me, why I was there.  "Escapes happen but they're rare. Macaques swim, but don't like to cross open water. They're often on the beach or in the marsh hunting for crabs. If they see something floating out in the water their curiosity means they might swim out to it. They've been spotted riding tangled up mats of marsh grass. One was spotted floating on a tree trunk that fell from the island in a storm."  The image of an adventurous monkey riding a floating log made me smile. That was one theory for how the remote Galapagos Islands were populated by tortoises and iguanas.  We walked past a big corral situated on the inland side of the vehicle trail. A big letter "D" was stenciled in black spray paint on the galvanized metal wall. A huge set of double doors stood open on one end. The corral was empty except for a few broken branches and a feeder stand. We were closer to our destination at Corral C. The veterinarian walked a bit faster while she explained my duties for the census.  "When the monkeys jump into the baited corral, they come from different family groups. The  monkeys today could be from five, six different troops. That means they're gonna fight. You're here to treat fight wounds. I'll check the animals for disease, teeth issues, joint problems, skin conditions and reproductive health. The rest of the crew will tattoo, weigh, measure and update census charts in the binders. If there aren't many fight wounds, you're gonna work the tattoo table. How's that sound?" That sounded intense but doable. Except for the tattoo part. I told her I knew nothing about tattoos. She smiled and reassured me that if I could stitch up three layers of tissue I could use a tattoo gun.  Now I understood why the head vet complimented my suture technique by telling me I was ready to go out to the island. I was going to be a field medic that morning. But one macaque at a time was one thing. 180 was quite another, especially with the time pressure I could sense building in the operation. The dull gray metal of another corral appeared through the trees ahead. So did a flurry of human activity. I inhaled sharply and felt my eyes grow wide in a surge of nervous anticipation.  **** Corral C stood on the southwest side of the island in an area dense with pine trees instead of the mix of oaks elsewhere. The trees were mature, two or more feet thick at the base. Their ramrod-straight trunks were spaced wide apart like columns in a giant warehouse. The trunks supported an interlocked roof of pine needles above. The ground was covered in a thick, uniform mat of fallen pine needles. The forest was shadowy and mysterious. A complete lack of underbrush indicated we would stay in the shade even when the sun was high overhead.   The low light combined with the sound-deadening effect of the pine forest made the scene next to the corral surreal. The island crew moved through the quiet, dim woods with a quick economy of motion, feet silent on the carpet of pine needles. They had just finished setting up the census equipment and were returning boxes and crates to the truck and trailer parked off to one side.  A single long table stretched between the tree trunks. The table was made of four foot by eight foot sheets of plywood laid across a row of tall sawhorses. The table stood above my waist, chest high on the shorter members of the crew. The veterinarian led me toward one end of the table.  Mobile exam lights were clamped to the end closest to us, off for now. 25 yards away at the opposite end of the table, a row of three ring binders stood upright like books on a shelf. Hanging scales were suspended from a metal bar mounted above the table next to a collection of measuring tapes and a stack of metal clipboards. Electric hair clippers and a half dozen ink-stained electric tattoo guns were plugged into a long industrial power strip in the middle of the table. A thick yellow extension cord ran from the power strip to portable generators off among the trees. The veterinarian stepped up to the section of table under the lights. It was covered in a sheet of translucent plastic. A crate held dozens of clipboards, each with a blank form. A wire mesh basket held two dozen 100 milliliter bottles of ketamine. Boxes of 50 milliliter syringes stood next to the basket. 50 milliliters was bigger than I was used to for injectables. The veterinarian checked over her section of the table and directed me to do the same the next section over.  "Ok Jeff, I'll do triage here under the lights, you'll be right next door treating fight wounds. If there's something you can't handle, or that needs both of us, I'll step over. I want you to make sure your table has all the supplies we use in the operating room back in Yemassee. You think anything's missing, you tell me."  My section held a neat arrangement of clinical supplies, already laid out by the island crew. Boxes of sterile surgical gloves in white paper wrappers. Squeeze bottles of iodine, alcohol and sterile water. A pile of blue and white absorbent pads. A deep stainless steel tray held scalpels, surgical scissors, clamps and forceps submerged in alcohol. Boxes of different kinds of individually-wrapped sutures, needle threaded and ready to go in each handy packet. Bottles of injectable antibiotics and one milliliter syringes. A dozen tubes of topical antibiotic ointment. Electric hair clippers plugged into the power strip the next section over. The island team didn't miss a thing as far as I could tell. In fact, I noticed there were many multiples of each item, more than could possibly be required. The redundancy held for the rest of the equipment. Six tattoo guns, two lights, two scales, two generators. We were a fifteen minute drive away from the base camp. An hour by boat and car from Yemassee. Census of 180 monkeys had to happen in four hours or less. Once we started, we couldn't afford to have something break. I shared my realization with the veterinarian who walked me through what was going to happen.  "Yeah, you got it. Once this train leaves the station it doesn't stop for any reason. Monkeys'll get run into the cages. You chemically restrain 'em two cages at a time. Once they're unconscious, the crew'll bring em over to me for triage and a health exam. You'll stitch up any fight wounds I find. We pass them to tattoo, then they get weighed, measured, and charted. I'll tell you when to anesthetize the next two cages. We don't stop until we're through all 182." I looked at the long table again. It made more sense. The table was an assembly line for the census process. Clinical evaluation under the lights at one end, then on to stitches, tattoos, weight, height, and record keeping at the other end.  "You focus first on anesthetizing monkeys when I tell you, second on treating any fight wounds. Fresh sterile gloves for every monkey, do your best to maintain a sterile field but we're out here in the woods so… be practical. There'll be a ton of activity around you, so don't get distracted. Ok, looks like it's go time."  I followed her gaze to where Jack stood next to Corral C. I'd barely noticed the corral while I took in the census assembly line. Next to Jack, one end of a long line of metal cages was bolted to the corral wall. The cages were attached end to end in a single row that extended about fifty yards from the hatch in the corral into the trees. Each rectangular cage was about two feet tall, eighteen inches wide, and three feet long. A pair of vertically-sliding metal doors at the junction between the cages stood open. With the doors between the cages lifted up into the open position, the row of cages formed a fifty yard long continuous tunnel, one end secured to the hatch into the corral, the other end closed off.  With a nod from Jack, Dianne pulled the starter cord on a generator. It roared to life with one pull and she walked back toward the census table. As the electricity began to flow, both exam lights came on. An electric hair trimmer buzzed and vibrated on the tattoo table, its switch stuck in the on position. I quickly stepped over and turned it off. The veterinarian and I readied ourselves by putting on blue rubber exam gloves. She told me to set up the ketamine.  "Fill a syringe so you're ready. Check the concentration on the bottle, should be 10 milligrams of ketamine in every milliliter. I know you know this, but we always cross check right? Dose at 10 milligrams of ketamine per kilogram of body weight. That means one milliliter of ketamine in the syringe for every kilogram the monkey weighs. No time to change needles between animals, administer multiple doses from the same syringe. Every macaque on the island has an identical serotype, they all carry the same viruses. Watch your technique, you don't want a needle stick all the way out here."  As I drew 40 milliliters of ketamine into each of two big syringes, Big Man walked to the closed-off end of the cage tunnel. He walked back toward the corral, double-checking the cage-to-cage connections. When he got to Jack, he looked at his watch, then over at the rest of us where we stood by our stations. He yelled over the noise of the generator. "Ok! Everybody ready?" I nodded and assumed the rest of the team did too because Big Man nodded at Jack. Jack reached down and grabbed a loop of rope on the hatch in the corral wall. He jerked it and the hatch slid straight up. Now there was an opening from the corral into the tunnel of cages. For a moment nothing happened. Then a single monkey shot through the hatch and ran down the cage tunnel at full speed.  Three heartbeats later, the remaining 181 monkeys streamed through the hatch in a continuous head-to-tail line. The hole in the side of the corral was their way out, they had no idea it led to confinement instead of the forest. The metal cages rattled from the force of this freight train of monkeys running as fast as they could down the tunnel. When the macaque leading the train reached the end of the line, he came to a stop next to the solitary monkey that ran out first. The rest piled up behind them, shoving them together into an awkward embrace. The momentum of the monkey train pressed the 182 macaques into a solid column of red fur, limbs, and angry faces. The rattle of metal on metal stopped as suddenly as it started. Jack pushed the hatch closed to cut off the possibility of retreat back into the corral. He and Big Man gently pushed the sliding doors closed at each junction between cages, sometimes giving quiet encouragement to the monkeys to "get out of the way." When they got to the end, the 182 monkeys were divided three or four at a time in each of the 50 cages. I looked over at the veterinarian at her station. She'd taken off her watch cap and tied her hair up. Her face was all business in the harsh white of the exam lights. She nodded back at me.  "Two cages. One milliliter per kilogram intramuscular. Go."  My hyper focus kicked in. I started to estimate weight and calculate doses as I walked over to the two cages at the end of the row. I was sure a small young female was three kilograms. That meant three milliliters. I uncapped the needle, pointed the syringe up and flicked it with an index finger. A bubble rose to the top. I pushed the plunger until the air bled out and a droplet of ketamine sparkled at the tip of the needle.  The female rhesus was squeezed into a cage with three others. She helpfully squirmed away to hide her vulnerable face and belly from me, so it was straightforward to inject three milliliters into the muscle of her thigh. Next was a medium sized male, nine kilograms. After injecting nine milliliters, the plunger was at 27. A smaller male looked to weigh seven kilograms so his dose of seven left 20. The fourth macaque in the cage was another young female. Four kilograms, four milliliters. I finished the first cage with 16 milliliters of ketamine left in my syringe. The three kilogram female, the first monkey I'd anesthetized, was already getting drowsy so I kept going through the second cage. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.  Somewhere behind me somebody yelled out the time.  "8:40! We have until 9:00!" It was Big Man over at the census table next to the scales. He called out the time I finished anesthetizing the first macaques. This let everyone know how much time we had to get them through the census process. Anthony, one of the crew from the boat appeared next to me. "Go on, head back and get ready. I'll watch 'em and bring them over when they're unconscious." Back at my fight wound station, I ran my eyes over the supplies one last time, plucked a packet of sterile surgical gloves out of the box and spread a blue and white pad on the table in front of me. Back at the cages Anthony unfastened two latches on the top edge of the cage and folded the whole side down. A random unconscious arm and a leg or two flopped out when the cage opened up. He gently picked up the little three kilogram female and carried her over to the veterinarian, then hustled back to shuttle the remaining macaques from cage to table. The vet did a thorough check for wounds and broken bones. Finding none, she proceeded with the health exam, jotting down quick notes about teeth, eyes and skin on a clipboard taken from the crate next to her. She raised her voice a bit to be heard over the generator. "Young adult female, no fight trauma, no tattoo." Someone, maybe Jack, took the clipboard and whisked the monkey away to the tattoo table. I heard a shaver start to buzz. The veterinarian was through the next monkey in a flash. This one already had a tattoo so was taken to the scales. The third monkey had been in a fight. "Young adult male, fresh laceration on right rear upper thigh, no health issues, no tattoo." She beckoned for me to come take the animal. I carried him to my table and gently laid him down on the pad. The wound on his rear thigh meant he'd been running away from a more aggressive male when he got it. It'd been about five minutes since I knocked him out, so I needed to move quickly. The laceration was new, through the top layer of skin, about an inch and a half long. A small amount of blood had just begun to clot at one end. I used my electric clippers to shave the hair away from the cut. I squirted iodine on the wound and the skin around it, then wiped it away with gauze. Next, I opened up the appropriate suture packet and set it next to the monkey.  Time to get mostly sterile. I put fresh surgical gloves on over my blue rubber exam gloves. I chose a pair of forceps from the metal tray full of alcohol and set about stitching up the wound. I don't remember the details of suturing, only that at the time I was proud of my ability to close a wound leaving only neat knots under the skin. The absorbable suture material would hold until the wound healed, then dissolve into the surrounding tissue. The macaque couldn't tear his stitches out. This was a big deal, since Monkey Island was no place for the cone of shame you see on a dog or cat. The wound wasn't deep or old enough to warrant injectable antibiotics, so I finished with a smear of topical ointment. The vet saw me strip off the surgical gloves.  "Good job Jeff. One down, but we gotta keep moving, I have another one here for you."  Someone from the tattoo table appeared and took  the young male to get his first ink. I put down a fresh absorbent pad and picked up my next patient from the veterinarian's table.  This one was in worse shape but would be ok. The wound was a deep tear with three flaps of skin instead of a simple laceration. It was on his left shoulder, which meant he faced his foe when it happened. The wound was older too, probably from a full two days ago when the corral was first baited. I had to shave away clumps of hair matted together by thick clots of blood before I could tell if there were signs of infection. Some of the tissue was dead, necrotic, so I used scissors to trim it away. The tear was wide at the surface, but had made a small hole in the deepest third layer of skin. I could see muscle and tendons through the opening. I used different kinds of sutures to close each of the three layers, starting with the deepest subcutaneous and working my way back up.  By the time I finished stitching up the monkey with the bad tear in his shoulder, two more were in line behind it. The veterinarian joined me at my station and we took care of those two together. Half of the initial eight monkeys had fight wounds. If that kept up it was going to be a long day. As it turned out, less than a quarter had some sort of wound, none of them worse than the tear I'd just treated and most required only a few stitches. Thankfully no broken bones. Still, that was forty macaques, so the rest of the morning was a blur of ketamine injections and wound closures.  A couple of times the action slowed enough for me to step over to the tattoo table. I wasn't qualified to give a young monkey its first chest tattoo, but they let me freshen up the faded letters and numbers on older animals. I shaved away the soft hair and disinfected the monkey's skin with alcohol. The tattoo guns seemed ancient, but they all worked. A small electromagnet vibrated a needle up and down in a guide. I dipped the tip of the gun in black ink then gently ran the buzzing needle over the skin and wiped away the small amount of blood that rose to the surface. It was harder than it looked. The unconscious monkeys seemed to always be in an awkward position. Their elastic skin moved around easily. I don't know how many tattoos I made better, but I didn't make any worse. A few years later I got my own first tattoo. The artist used exactly the same equipment and procedure we used on Monkey Island. The five person island crew took turns doing all the jobs. They busily weighed each monkey, measured bodies, arms and legs. They noted evidence of recent pregnancy. The sexual maturity of young monkeys was observed and logged. Whoever was doing the measurements calmly called out a constant stream of information to record keepers who listened and wrote it down on the correct chart. Every macaque went through the census process in less than twenty minutes. That meant they still had some time to sleep off their chemical restraint before rejoining the family group they left when they jumped into the corral for a banana days before.  When a macaque had been through the entire process, it was still unconscious from the ketamine. Or at least in the immobile and dissociated state ketamine causes. The animal was carried out into the forest and laid gently on its side in a warm spot of sunshine. Still close enough to keep an eye on, but far enough away from the census table so they wouldn't freak out when they woke up. Since the animals were in a vulnerable state, each monkey was placed a safe distance away from other macaques also recovering from anesthesia. At the peak, there must've been forty monkeys spread across the soft pine needles of the forest floor. I did my best not to anthropomorphize the macaques in my time with them. I followed the policy against seeing them as primate relatives. My colleagues had a harder time keeping their emotional distance. Animal care and more so behavioral care technicians interacted with the macaques when they were more endearing. Hungry. Curious. Nurturing. Annoyed. Caring. Playful. I was a veterinary technician. We interacted with the macaques when they were defensive or aggressive. When their behavior was closer to what you think of as 'wild animal.' It was easier for me to see them that way.  But the one time I felt kinship with my fellow primate? When I watched them wake up from anesthesia in the forest. It was quite the scene. A young male monkey, let's call him Chad, slept peacefully on his right side on a bed of soft pine needles in a spot of warm sunlight. Chad was big for his age and his muscular arms and legs had been arranged gently to one side. His head rested at a comfortable angle, though his mouth was open and his tongue drooped out. He was perfectly still for many minutes, as if he would sleep forever. Then movement. A leg extended slowly, almost a stretch. An arm pulled in and curled against his chest. After a moment, Chad lifted his head an inch off the ground, eyes closed, tongue still out, then laid it back down. Head back up, this time mouth closed and eyes half open as he became aware of his situation. Chad lifted his head higher and opened his eyes all the way. He pulled his arm under him to push himself up. His head and torso wobbled unsteadily, propped on that arm. A groggy expression of surprise came over Chad's face as if he had no idea where he was or how he got there. His eyes rolled from side to side.  After a long moment propped on one arm, Chad shifted his weight onto his butt. Monkeys usually sit on their haunches with their legs gathered underneath, so he looked silly with his legs splayed out to the sides. He planted his other arm and clumsily pulled one leg at a time underneath his butt, still supporting himself with his arms planted on the ground. Chad stayed in this 'dude where am I' position for a while as the fog wore off. His expression drifted between drugged, confused and a grimace of distaste from his dry mouth.  When he picked his hands up off the ground and could balance upright, Chad started to come around cognitively. He could take in his surroundings, though still he still wobbled unsteadily at times. His face took on a very clear 'where the hell am I and how did I get here?' expression. The ketamine wore off faster now. Chad looked down at his chest where it stung from the tattoo gun. His face grew concerned as he lifted a hand to touch his fresh ink.  Chad looked up with a pained almost regretful expression as he processed the fact he had a new tattoo. His hand went from his chest up to his left shoulder. He turned his head to peer down at fresh stitches in a two inch laceration. Chad seemed less puzzled about the fight wound than the tattoo. At this point the acute effects had faded. Chad wasn't wobbling any more, at least while he remained seated. He looked around again, this time he noticed the half dozen other unconscious monkeys nearby. His eyes grew wide. That was not good. At all. Time to get out of there. Chad lurched up on all fours. The sudden transition to vertical caused him to sway left, then right.  He evened out, and after one last look back at his unconscious cousins, Chad walked off into the forest with a hangover, fresh stitches, and a new tattoo.  ***** Find out what happened next in the full book Monkey Farm: A Summer Among the Macaques!        

Events! Steph and Jeff run through all the fun stuff happening in the Boaty Show community (that we know about). From concerts to art openings to film screenings! New York to Vermont, Massachusetts to Maine! Can't wait to see YOU! For fun we also update you on an outboard injury and an electric car ferry!  Thanks for listening, more info in the show notes at www.theboatyshow.com.  Byron O'Niell's art opening at Karma Bird House, a historic warehouse on the waterfront in Burlington, Vermont.  Opening is today, Thursday July 9 with beer from foam brewers, exhibit is showing through August 20th.  Steph is producing a dance party "Friday is for the girls: dance early, feel good" Friday July 10th at The Downtown in Alexandria Bay. An early-evening dance party for people who love great music, dancing with their friends, and waking up without regret. Fine print - it'll benefit River Hospital in Alexandria Bay.  Jay/Garrison/Brooks River Take Me Home concert in TIP Saturday 7/11. Go to jaynash.com/tour for tickets. Jay has a bunch of shows coming up all over the place.  Blake Fitch Built on Cod: Boston's 400 Year Fishing History Opens Saturday July 11 through August 31st at the Boston Fisheries Museum in Boston's Seaport.  Third annual Grog 'n Grub potluck on Rock Island State Park in the 1000 Islands Friday July 17 5:30pm. Kids especially welcome.  River Hospital's Yacht Rock fundraiser cruise August 13th, tickets on sale August 3rd at riverhospital.org under 'events' they'll sell out so get 'em.  I'm doing an AI literacy workshop at the Clayton Library Saturday 8/22 I'll do an author chat at Somesville Library in Southwest Harbor, Maine Friday 8/28, somesvillelibrary.org/events Jay is producing the third annual Vermont Food and Music Festival September 18 and 19th, Garrison Starr and Brooks Hubbard will both play, along with Shovels and Rope, Hiss Golden Messenger, Kat Wright, Dwight & Nicole, Two Runner, All She Wrote and Lily Welch Garrison Starr's new album comes out Friday September 25th! garrisonstarr.com. She has a bunch of tour dates you can find at  Jay's house concert in Philly at Jeff / my house Saturday 9/26, get tickets at jaynash.com/tour. It's the Bala Cynwyd House Concert. Mixologist Marc is catering.  Many Grindstone Winery live music events at grindstoneislandwinery.com/events!

Steph takes us on a steamboat journey with new friends at the steamboat meetup in the Thousand Islands! We debate three gorgeous listener-submitted Century runabouts for Boat Of The Week.  Or is it Boat Of The Century? All that and more on The Boaty Show! Thanks for listening! 

2nd of two new episodes - listen to "Boating on Eggshells" for a normal Boaty Show! Sail on if you're a fan of The Pirates... Avast! MJ is up from tha bilge an' we is here to tell you scurrrvy dogs about foodstuffs from tha bilge an' Boat Wash Number Four in an unasked-for lengthy screed of audiotory promotion. Y'see wee Pirates aren't a-familiar with surfactants and other soapy materrials so we scrub the deck a bit long as we tacks back and forth on the subject. As always wee ones rest your head towards the end for a relaxing sleep story to drift off to the somnolent 'orizon of a good night's sleep.  Warning this podcast contains pirate content that, while entirely kid-friendly, may not be what fans of the Normal Boaty Show are looking for. Listener discretion is advised...

Steph updates us on her houseboat saga, Jeff went for a row for the first time in 30 years! The Pirates do a brief (we promise) advertisement for Dock Deals' new boat soap, Steph and Jeff do Boat Of The Week and Jeff reads a SLEEPER of an Old Boat Ad. It's The Boaty Show! Thanks for listening :-)

Steph and no pirates!  We take a call from Listener Anna who has a question about her Whaler that caught on fire, Listener Christy gets a boat recommendation whether she likes it or not, a pillowy soft Old Boat Ad for Jay, two tugs and a sub from Dockdeals exchange broadsides for Boat Of the Week!  Thanks for listening!

WARNING PIRATE CONTENT. We're topping the charts! Of "comforting sleep stories!" Apple's podcast AI heard the Pirates doing sleep stories and tagged us with the keywords!  And this AI stuff is taking our jobs?  Thanks for listening, we promise at some point the Pirates will get old and we'll move on.  Let's hope Steph comes back next episode!

[this episode contains no pirate content] Here for boaty? skip to 26 minutes. Otherwise enjoy the full Steph and Jeph schtick! Worlds collide for the first time in Boaty Show history: Boat Of The Week and Old Boat Ads combine for an auditory extravaganza.  Thanks for listening!

Twas the night before piratey Christmas and all through the bilge, not a creature was stirrin' except all the rats what lives in the bilge. And all the crabs what lives in me mattresss... Merry Christmas everyone!

Yo ho ho!  Was your time with the pirates ayyye opening? Steph is back for Boat Of The Week with a twist: Boat (I have driven) Of The Week!  Jeff's history of the pontoon boat may or may not bore Steph, same with the wakeless launch. A pirate encore, and that's all she wrote!  

AHOYYYY ye scurvy Dogs.  Lassh yourselves to the speakarrrs and cast off on an auditorrry voyage! Yer bound for listenin TREASURRRE!  If yerr a wee one, orr parrent to a wee one, this herre episode is apprrrrropriate for all agess. 

Happy Thanksgiving you turkeys!  Enjoy an interview with the gin-u-wine heirs to the Blackball Ferry legacy, brought to you by Friends Of The Boaty Show. Skip to that at around 26:00, or dig in for  your dose of BS silly with an epic Old Boat Ad and Steph's stories from the largest outdoor hot tub park in North America... Spa Nordique!  Boaty Show hats are now available at www.theboatyshow.com/merch. We love you and are thankful for you, thanks for listening!    Jeff: Hi. If you enjoy the Boaty Show, you may enjoy my new audiobook. It's about AI and how we can live with it. You Teach The Machines: AI on Your Terms. Out wherever you get your audiobooks. By me, Jeff Pennington. [Music] Jeff: Welcome back listeners. I'm Jeff Pennington. I'm joined by my co-host... Steph: Stephanie Weiss. Jeff: Sipping on her coffee. It is Sunday, still morning. We, uh, we both have fires going. Mine's downstairs, Steph's is right in front of her in her living room. We're remote, and it's been a minute. We're not gonna talk about that. We're just gonna jump right back in. Right? Steph: Yeah, let's jump right in. Jeff: Jump right in. Like it's summer and we're going swimming again. Steph: Exactly. Exactly. Jeff: We have, uh, we have a show today. We're gonna do a segment on the Puget Sound ferry system—the history of. And we're gonna do, uh... what do we got? We got a "Old Boat Ad" from Jay. He was touring down in, uh, Whatchamacallit, Florida? Sarasota. He sent a picture of an alligator, which I will contend is Boaty. Steph: You want my opinion on that? Jeff: I want your opinion on that. Steph: I mean, it does... it does get from one place to the other. I don't know if they do that without getting wet, but yeah. I admit, boat adjacent. If you've seen an alligator, you wish you were in a boat. I mean, I can think of many ways that alligator is Boaty. Yes. Jeff: That was... that was excellent commentary. Thank you very much. Steph: You're welcome. Jeff: Wait, when you were down there last winter for the fundraising visit and you found that waterfront, that waterfront bar that served like drinks in buckets or something? Were there any alligators around then? Steph: Yeah. Well, yes. We were told there were alligators around, but I didn't see an alligator. But I did see lots and lots of signs about the alligators. Remember the signs? Jeff: In particular that it was alligator mating season. Steph: That's what it was! Yes. "Do not approach the mating alligator" or something super weird like that. Like... yes. That's right. Jeff: And then we did a whole... we did a whole, I mean we might have had a series of bits on alligator mating. And why you weren't supposed to go in the water when they were mating? Was it because it was gross? Because it's like, you know, it's the water that they're mating in and what's all that about? Or because you don't want like the throes of alligator mating ecstasy to like, end up with you getting like, you know, I don't know. Maybe they like bite each other in the midst of all that and you don't want to get confused... like get a body part confused. Steph: Right. Is there more traditional aggression? Right. Are they more aggressive when they're mating? These are questions. And then we had—I think we ended up really wondering whether that was a deep water thing or just a shoreline thing. Like if you're out in the middle, do you have to worry about that? Remember? We had this... this was a whole conversation. Jeff: I think... but I do think that it's ridiculous because... because like, if you see alligators whether they're mating or not, could we all just assume you don't go in the water? I just seems unnecessary, but... Jeff: And we'll count that as the only answer worth taking away because I only recall the questions we had at the time. Uh, and I don't recall any resolution of any of this. So, um, interesting though that Jay... winter-ish, maybe mating season or not. It looked like the picture was a solo... solo alligator. It was just, just an alligator. Unless maybe it was an alligator couple and you couldn't see the other alligator because that alligator was underwater? Steph: Like... that just occurred to me when you said... great minds think alike. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Steph: We should ask Jay. Jeff: We should ask Jay what was going on. Steph: Or not so great minds think alike. Jeff: All right. All right. So I think we should lead off with, uh, since we're talking about Jay and his trip through Florida—he played at least one show down there, I saw a picture of a backyard concert, looked lovely. Or an outdoor concert I shouldn't say, I don't know if it was backyard or not, looked lovely. And, uh, he sent a boat ad. And since this is his favorite segment, we're gonna do it. Steph: Mmm. Do it. [Music: Old Boat Ad Jingle] Jeff: It's... I can't... It's been so long that we've done this that when we were in the middle of doing it all the time, it seemed completely normal. And now when we're like... we're like four months away from doing it regularly or whatever, and it's like holy [bleep]. What the hell is this? That was a song about old boat ad copy from Jay and that was like... like, you know, I don't know, six months ago I was like, "Well yeah, of course Jay's gonna make a song saying 'Come on Jeff read those vintage boaty advertisements, give us some of them old boat ads.'" And that was like in the midst of it, it was like "Yeah fine." And now it's like, what the [bleep] is this? Oh my god! Steph: And people want... people are like, "Hey man when are you gonna start making that show again?" 'Cause they want this nonsense! Jeff: Oh god. That makes me so happy. It's good to be weird. Steph: It's good to be weird. Jeff: Okay. All that aside, notwithstanding. Let's do it. Okay. Jay found this ad in the wild. I don't know where it was. Um, I'm looking at the picture. It looks like it's in a frame. Maybe it was in like... I'm gonna say it was in a bathroom at a bar that he was at, or a restaurant perhaps, and it was above the urinal and he saw this. It was right in front of his face. "You can't blame a guy for boasting about his new Mercury. Not only pride of possession, but downright satisfaction comes with the ownership of a new Mercury Outboard Motor. When you put a Mercury on a boat, you are completely confident of quick, easy starting and effortless 'hold the course' steering. You know that there will be instant response to every touch of the throttle. Whether you want a burst of flashing speed or just a ripple of hushed power for the slowest possible trolling. The new Mercury with 'Full Jeweled Powerhead'—bears repeating—Full Jeweled, yes like bling bling jewels, Full Jeweled Powerhead gives you greater all-around mechanical efficiency and endurance never before known in an outboard motor. Yes, with your Mercury, you'll experience that pride of possession realized only by those who own the finest." Scrolling down through the ad... that was the main copy presented next to uh, a lovely couple in a, looks like a Penn Yan outboard skiff uh, with an outboard obviously on the back. Um, she of course is reclining. He of course is driving. Um, and he's holding his hand out like, "Ah! Oh my god this is great!" Like out to the side like, "Can you believe it?" "Of course, of course this is great." Um, he doesn't look so polished, he's kind of look got... he's got some bedhead and a t-shirt on. She looks put together. Um, so he must have a great personality. Steph: [Laughs] Jeff: So scrolling down there's like more details. Um, mostly for him because there's like cutaway diagrams and whatnot. So: "The Rocket. A six horsepower precision-built alternate firing twin with sparkling power that will plane a boat beautifully. Yet throttle down for... oh, yet throttle down to a hush for continuous trolling. Another exclusive Mercury first." This is more on the Full Jeweled Powerhead. "Mercury's Full Jeweled Powerhead. Mercury engineers have developed a method of using roller bearings on wrist pins, crank pins, and crank shaft. It results in reduction of mechanical friction, new power and smoothness, readier response to the throttle, many more months of service-free operation than any outboard with conventional plain bearings." "The Comet. A smooth running 3.2 horsepower single. The ideal family outboard. Just right for your car-top boat or the average rental boat. Mercury. Own a Mercury. Matchless and outboard excellence. Kiekhaefer Corporation, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Outboard Motors. Portable Industrial Engines." There you go. Old Boat Ad. Steph: I have a lot of questions. And an observation. Jeff: Go. Steph: I love how the masthead of this ad if you will—I don't know if that's the right word for it—but it's a... it's a bubble, it's a like a word bubble coming from the guy in the boat, right? "You can't blame a guy for boasting about his new Mercury." I love like the... I love all of the like the um... how proud you should be. Like there's a lot of like, you know, you just... you're just going to boast and it's going to be like everyone's going to be impressed with you. There's going to be "Pride of Possession." Which I think is very interesting. And then what is going on with the jewels? I don't understand the jewels and why are we talking about jewels? There's no jewels in this. Jeff: There's roller bearings. Steph: What is that? And how is it like a jewel? Is it a ruby? Jeff: Well, my guess is given that this is setting the guy up to boast, if it was made out of ruby it would have said that, right? But I can say... Steph: I agree. Jeff: I can say that I don't know whether it's jeweled or made out of a jewel or not. But uh, different... there's different kinds of bearings. I know a little bit about bearings. Not a lot. Steph: Didn't we talk about bearings once before? Jeff: I'm sure we did. I'm sure we did. Steph: I like this sentence... I like this sentence a lot. "The Mercury engineers have developed a method of using roller bearings on wrist pins, crank pins, and crank shaft." What? Jeff: Uh, I don't know what a wrist pin is. I don't know what a crank... was it a wrist pin and a crank pin? Steph: Wrist pins and crank pins. Yeah. Things I didn't know about. But I love... I also love that they're getting into this level of detail right in the ad. This is the good old days. You know what I mean? Like this is... this is the least reductive ad I've ever seen. They're really... they're just... they hit you a little bit with the ego in the top and then they get right into the deep, deep details. I think this is lovely. It was... it was lovely to listen to. Jeff: So you got... I don't know what those pins are. The crank... I don't know. Let's not talk about why you've got bearings or what they're on, but ball bearings are balls. And... Steph: [Laughs silently] Jeff: ...you're laughing silently with our... Steph: Wrist bearings are wrists? Crank pins are cranks? I don't know. Jeff: No. We're not gonna talk about that stuff. We're just gonna talk about the bearings. So you got ball bearings which are spherical, okay? And then you've got roller bearings which are like a... in my mind it's a bearing that's made of a... it looks like a rolling pin, okay? And a ball bearing can... can bear weight while moving in all directions because it's a sphere. Steph: 360. Jeff: Yup. 360 times 360, right? In any direction. And then a roller bearing can bear... bear weight while moving just in like one direction back and forth. One plane I guess. And uh, I know roller bearings because there are conical roller bearings on boat trailers in the hubs of the boat trailer. Um, because the... and they're almost like a rolling pin shape except they're flared a little bit at, you know, toward one end so it's like a slight cone shape. And that's because the axle on your boat trailer has a slight taper to it. And so the wheel spinning on those bearings on that slightly tapered axle shaft has to be slightly... has to match that taper as it spins around and around and around. Um, now, that being said, going from, you know, roller bearings to "jeweled"? That's... that's what I'm talking about right there. Yup. Steph: Full Jeweled. Yeah. I mean I don't know. I guess... you know how I feel about this stuff. I kind of love things that I don't understand and there's a lot here I don't understand. And I think this is a lovely... so we've got two en... Is the Rocket one and the Comet is the other? They have space names. Amazing. Jeff: Yeah. And this was before... this might have been early space era. Yeah. Steph: Yeah. Early space race. Jeff: It look... I like that it's like, it's just a little boat. Nothing fancy. It's just a little tin can. Steph: Yeah. Rockin' out. Or having a great time. They're all proud... proud of themselves. Jeff: They mentioned "Car Top Boats" which was a... that was a big deal in the expansion of boating into the middle class. And... yeah. So Penn Yan, the boat manufacturer, my understanding is they hit it big for the first time with car-top boats. So Penn Yan Car Toppers, you'll still see those around sometimes. And that was like what pontoon boats and jet skis are doing... they did for boating then what pontoon boats and jet skis are doing now. Which is just making it way more accessible. Steph: I hear you. Jeff: Yeah. Steph: I hear you. "There it is. Just right for your car-top boat or the average rental boat." Got it. Yeah. Jeff: Yeah. Give me... give me more opportunity to get in the water without having to be a rich guy with my own dock or a yacht or anything like that. Steph: Mm-hm. Equal opportunity boating. Jeff: E... E... E-O-B. E-O-B-B. Equal Opportunity Boating Board. Okay. Enough of that. Steph: Yes. That's a... that's a worthy goal. Jeff: All right. We're gonna move on to our... our next topic. Which, you know what? Let's... let's step back. What have you been doing lately? Steph: Mmm. That's a great question. Um... Jeff: Have you gone anywhere? Have you gone anywhere fun? Steph: I did. I went to the... I went to the Spa Nordique in... in Chelsea, Quebec. Yes. I did do that. I was... show before the show we were chatting about this. Yes. I did go there with my friend Julie, my personal historian. And we had a wonderful time. Jeff: What is the Spa Nordique? Tell us... You walk up to the Spa Nordique. What's the experience? Steph: Okay. So real... so real quick. It's like... it's not like a spa like people usually think of a spa. It's a "thermal experience." It's got this whole Nordic vibe to it. Everything's made of wood. And it's a very large... it's many acres. And it has tons of different ways to get warm and cold in water. And also not in water. So, for example, there's like ten different outdoor hot tubs scattered all over the place. And there's like fifteen different kinds of saunas. There's like a earth sauna and a barrel sauna and a Russian sauna and a whatever. There's like... And then there's um, also like steam rooms. And there's cold plunges, which is not for me, but for other people. And there's places to eat and drink. And that's it. And you put on a robe, you leave your phone and all your [bleep] behind and you just wander around in this environment for the day. It's very affordable. Like sixty bucks for the whole day, like US. And it is very beautiful and it's very calming. And very relaxing. And it's delightful. And I would recommend it to everybody. So I've been there probably four or five times. And um, it's close, you know it's like two hours away from here. It's not far. And I think it's the largest spa in North America. But it's not like busy feeling. It's very calming and relaxing. Jeff: We're gonna... we're gonna back up to the very... one of the first two... two of the first words you said which was "thermal experience." Steph: Yeah. That's what they call it. Um... yeah, I don't know. I guess you're just getting in warm water. And then you're supposed to get in cold water cause it's good for you, but like I said, that's just not for me. But um... but you know like, it's like good for you. I don't know. You're supposed to like steam yourself and then get... We were... it was like snowing when we were there. There was actually a hail storm that happened. Like a full-on hail storm um, when we were sitting in one of the hot... my favorite hot tub which is like a hot spring kind of a thing. It's up at the top. And um, they totally just started hailing. And it looks like... like accumulating in our hair. It was very exciting. Jeff: Thankfully... thankfully accumulating in your hair and not like... they were baseball sized and like braining you and knocking you out. Steph: Right. No, they were not baseball sized. Which is good news. They were small and they were accumulating and it was very snow monkey. The whole experience is like just being a snow monkey for the day. That's it. That's how... Jeff: Can you make this up? Thermal experience. Be a snow mon... have a... have a thermal expe... we're gonna have to write an ad for this. Have a thermal experience as a... be a snow monkey for the day. Steph: I don't know why that's not their tagline. For... I don't know why not. It makes no sense. Jeff: So the other thing that grabbed me about... about this is you said you leave your phone behind. Which I think is probably healthy because that means that um, people aren't like nervous about somebody taking a picture of them when they, you know, take their robe off and get in the... in the tub or whatever. But also, dude, anything that people do where they leave their phones behind... those are becoming more and more valuable experiences as people just come to the conclusion that their phone makes them sick. And I had this experience recently... did... did an um... one of my book events at uh, the Poor Sethi headquarters in Brooklyn. In Gowanus. Uh, the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. And afterward, my... my daughter Mary Jane was there uh, and it was the first time she'd come to see one of these... these talks. The book talks. And uh, she brought a few of her friends who had moved to New York after graduating... they all graduated last spring. And they were so psyched. They're like, "Oh my god. Why does it feel so... so like novel to get together in person in a room and talk about something and talk to... with each other?" Because it was a... it ended up being a really interactive session. People were going back and forth to each other. And I started to fade a bit into the background which is what I go for with these... these events. They're kind of like group therapy community workshops about, you know, AI in your life. Not so much what AI is, but like how AI merges into your life. Anyway, at Spa Nordique, it's a thermal experience minus your phone. And you're there for the day or most of the day because you want to get... you want to get as much thermal experience as you can for your sixty dollars. So that's a day without your phone. That's freaking awesome. Steph: Yeah. And when I fir... when we first started going a few years ago, it was pretty much like "Don't bring your phone in here." Like it was like a kind of a rule. Now it's like um, you're allowed to bring your phone, but most people don't. So every now and then there'll be somebody with a phone. But the other funny thing is that... that you know, it's an adjustment going... like you said, you go for the whole day because it's... it's big, there's you know places to stop in and have a bite to eat or get a beverage or whatever. So you really do stay there for a while and you do really disengage from the sense of time. And it's funny how many times you're like, you know, think of things that normally you'd be looking up to your phone but you just don't do it cause you can't. But my... but one funny... one funny thing that happened when we got there was... um... when you first walk in on the left there's this very cool like... like experience. Like it's like a... like they do a Boreal Forest experience and they like um, they like wave branches around and like whatever. So that happens at certain times. So do we really want to do it? Because afterwards you were like rub salts all over your body and then there's like a flash dance bucket that you dump on yourself... you really... you have to be... obviously you need to get involved in something like that. So we were looking at the times. And then we were like... and like Julie and I together are like we're always like a little on the spazzy side anyway. Like it's always... things are always just awkward and weird and great. And like... so we were like, "Okay. So we can come back at one at eleven? Or maybe..." And then it's in like... it's like Canadian time so it's like 1300 and 1500 and we don't know what that means. It's complicated. So it's just... it was so hard. We were like talking about it and... and then this... and we were like, "How are we gonna come back? How are we gonna know when to come back because we don't have phones?" And then um, so then a nice young man who worked at the spa went by and we asked him... The other thing is just constant like language situation going on about wheth... you know we don't speak French. Everybody else does. So you know... and they're very sweet about it. But you know you always have to navigate the fact that you're speaking English. And so we in English ask this nice young man what time it is. And he paused. And I thought maybe it was just because he had to switch into English in his brain. I don't know why. But and he looked at us. And he was like, "Well, right now it's blah blah blah o'clock," and he like explained what time it was and um, the fact that it would be this time in an hour and a half we could come back and the thing would do it again. And then he kind of like looked at us and we were like, "Okay great thank you." And we left. But then later when we came back to actually do the experience, I... we were sitting in the sauna and I looked out and there is a clock so big. Like so big. It's hu... it's huge. It's like... it's like seven feet across. And it was right behind... right behind us when we had asked the guy what time it was! And we realized that like the long pause was like, "Should I just tell them that there's a clock right there? Or should I just be really nice about this and just answer the question and not point out the clock?" Like for sure he was like... are these people being... is this wrong? Are these people... Jeff: Are they... are they messing with me? Steph: ...messing with me? And and he's... he's Canadian but he's also French Canadian so like he he also like... because if you're not French Canadian and you're Canadian the stereotype is like you're just super nice and you're just gonna be super nice and... "Oh of course I'll just tell you what time it is." If you're French Canadian you might be like, "You freaking idiot. Like... I'm glad that you're up here... I'm glad that you're up here you know spending your money even though we can't freaking stand you because you're from America, but..." Steph: It was a lot... there were a lot... yes, there were a lot of components. I love the fact that I think a little bit he was just like, it seemed like if he was like, "Dude, literally a clock right there," then it just would have felt a little less polite. So he didn't say that. And then we had to discover the clock on our own. And um, it was amazing and hilarious. So that was, again back to the time thing. Jeff: I have more soapbox about about that. Um, I'll... I'll do it... I'll do it briefly and try not to go on um, and make it annoying. But uh, when you... you treat your watch as your... as your timepiece... I'm sorry. When you treat your phone as your timepiece, and then you don't have your phone, you end up lost. And you can't conceive that there might be a giant clock on the wall. Although maybe you can conceive of it and you just because you're having a nice day with some beverages and with Julie you don't con... conceive of it. But anyway, this is why I'm always on Instagram, I'm always posting uh, these Sheffield watches. Because if you put on a watch that's just a watch on your wrist and it's not an Apple Watch like all of a sudden you've got the ability to tell time without necessarily getting hit by a bunch of distractions which an Apple Watch is gonna do to you, which pulling... pulling out your phone is gonna do to you. And I'm... I'm huge on this for my kids. I'm like, "Hey like... if you're looking at your phone to tell the time you're like, I don't know, half the time you get pulled in because you see a notification. And now you're looking at your phone more. And now you're more te..." Oh wait, I said I wasn't gonna keep going on and get on my soapbox but... Steph: No, but I hear what you're saying. And at first I was kind of like... you know, I have a thing about Apple Watches because they were like they're meant to be like they don't want to make you... to help people avoid pulling out their phone all the time. But they actually just make people look super rude because you look like you're literally just like, "Um, I don't have ti... like every single time something goes off you're like, 'Uh, is this over? Is it time...?'" You know what I mean? So um, but I hadn't thought about that cause you're right. Whenever you look at your phone, of course there's gonna be notifications and all that's gonna pull you in. And that's... it's a very good point. So yes to watches. Agreed. Jeff: Yep. And I'm gonna I'm gonna bring this all home and make it all Boaty. Ready? All right. Spa Nordique is... Spa Nordique is Boaty because in Iceland outdoor hot spring fed pools and indoor became about because the rate of death by drowning amongst Icelandic fishermen was so high because it's the freaking North Sea. And the last thing you want to do there and there aren't any lakes, right? But the last thing you want to do there is learn how to swim in the ocean. But so that meant the entire population of Iceland whose entire existence was supported by fishing... nobody knew how to swim! And it became a... a public safety, public health, community health like anti-drowning initiative to start... to create public outdoor hot springs... public outdoor hot tubs so that people could learn to swim. Uh, and they sprang up all around the country and it became like part of the culture that you go there to learn to swim but then you also go there to hang out with each other. And um, that's all so that people in Iceland can go fishing, if they go in the drink uh, survive... have a great chance of survival. Boaty. Right? Um, also the... the watch thing. If you have to pull your phone out to tell what time it is while you're out in a boat, you might drop your phone on the deck. You might drop your phone in the drink or off the dock. You also might get distracted by your phone and you're... when you're driving a boat or you're out there in a boat, you probably shouldn't be distracted because A, that means it's taking away from the enjoyment and B, because you might run into something. So... Boaty. Boom. Done. Okay. Steph: So... so learn to swim in a hot spring and buy a watch. Boom. Jeff: And have thermal experiences. Steph: Oh. Jeff: Um... Missy just texted me and called. Um... they just got hit from behind on 76. They're all okay. The cops are there now. Uh oh. Steph: Whoa. Jeff: Hold on a sec. Let me... let me communicate. Steph: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Jeff: Everybody's okay. They don't need me to call or come pick them up. All right. Good. Well how about that? Steph: Do we have to move on? Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Steph: I have... I have a th... I have a... one of my... I'll just tell you and you can always like edit this out later if it's boring. But one of the things that's funny about it is when you're at the spa you can tell which are the hot pools and which are the cold pools because there's nobody in the cold ones, right? Um, but there was this one that Julie and I found and they had... they tell you like the temperatures and um, it was empty and we were walking around and it is... I think they said it was like 69 degrees or something like that? But there's nobody in it and it feels cold but then we realized, wait, that's like the river temperature. That's like the temperature of the river, right? In the summer. And then we got in this cold-ish thing and then it was... and that but we got used to it really quickly and it was really delightful and lovely. So we think of it as like that's like the river temperature pool and we... that's the only cold-ish pool that I get in. But it's very nice. Jeff: That... that's awesome because if the river temperature hits 69 degrees we're probably bitching about it cause it's too warm. Steph: Exactly. Exactly right. Jeff: That's awesome. All right. All right we're gonna move on. Uh, next segment. Um, we're gonna play an interview which was uh, listener submitted. So Rob uh, shared this. Some friends of his recorded an interview with the heirs, the descendants of the founder of the Black Ball Ferry Fleet in Puget Sound, Seattle. So we're gonna play that and then uh, I did a bunch of research on all this that we'll talk about after the interview. So here it is. [Interview Segment] I am standing here with the heirs of the Black Ball Line. Yeah. A couple of them. Was that heir or errors? Errors. Probably errors. Doug and Chris McMahon are standing here with you. Doug and Chris McMahon. And our great grandfather was Charles Peabody who came out west in 1885 and started the Alaska Steamship Company and then the Puget Sound Navigation. They were flying the Black Ball flag, which his family owned on the East Coast from 1803 forward. The Black Ball flag's been flying... Nice. ...and uh, his son... I have one on my travel trailer and every time I go camping we post our big full-size flag. Just... it still flies around the region. Yes. She's... she's still flying. And flies in Portland too. So... So and then the state bought it... the ferries in the 50s. And turns out they stopped making money. Started running in the red. Yeah. So. Yeah. So can you give me a brief history of why it's a Black Ball and with a white circle and red in the middle? Well so that's from the Coho. Right. And so the Coho was the last Black Ball ship that's flying. And so they licensed the flag but they added the white circle. And why did they choose that? Well because it was part of the whole ferry system. Okay. And when the Coho started, the Coho started right after... But the original Black Ball flag, which was a red flag with a black ball only, no white circle, was also researched as um, like some kind of a maritime victory award for ships. You know when they when they won a battle or did something good like cannon-neering or something, you know grenade throwing, they would be awarded the flags and they would fly the flag. So it's one of them. I don't recall exactly which one. And the original Black Ball ships that sailed from Brooklyn to uh, England and mainland Europe and back, um, had a Black Ball flag that was a swallowtail flag. So it wasn't a rectangle, it was swallowtail and a giant black ball on the main sail. And they were the first company... Rad. Like pirates. It does look like the hurricane warning flags too. People often catch us about that which is typically a square black in the center of the red. But in some regions it's a round circle just like Puget Sound Navigation's Black Ball flag. Just a couple specific places. They were the first shipping company to leave on a scheduled date. So they were... in the mid 1800s a ship would leave when it was full. Ass in seat. We're leaving at this time. That's right. And the Black Ball said "We're leaving on this date, empty or full." So they changed the industry then. Yeah. So when we were kids we used to get to ride in the wheelhouse every once in a while. Oh yeah. Or if we were with our Grandpa downtown and you'd see all these, you know, basically old men at the time in the 60s, right? On the... on the waterfront. He'd walk up to half of them because they all knew who each were. You know, they worked in shipping or the shipyards together. Yeah. Did he know Iver Haglund? Yes. They lived near one another up in West... up in West Seattle at Alki. Yeah so he absolutely knew Iver Haglund. We also have a relative who was a bank robber. So you know, they... they ran... Keep clam. Keep clam. One of his brothers... One of his brothers was a bank robber. Spent his lifetime in prison. Was on Alcatraz. That's awesome. Twice. So you know... Captains of Industry and... not. Yeah. Pioneers. Pioneers. Please introduce yourself again. My name's Doug McMahon. I'm from Portland, Oregon. And I'm Chris McMahon, Doug's brother. And where do you live? Uh, Des Moines, Washington. Right up here just across the way. Originally from Portland though. We're both from Portland. So nice to meet you. Thank you so much. [End of Interview Segment] Steph: Yeah. But that is... that is... that is very cool. And I think like the... the boat itself is really cool too, right? I remember we talked about the boat once a while ago. Jeff: Yeah. Well there's the... there's the Kalakala and then there's the Coho. The Kalakala is like this really wild uh, streamlined early streamlining Art Deco looking um... I don't know why I say Art Deco I don't really know what that means. Uh, ferry. And then um, and that's that thing's like I think it's just sitting there... maybe it already got broken up. Uh, but it was derelict for a long time. And then the Coho is still operating, which we'll get to. I'm gonna talk this through in a little bit. All right so. Steph: Okay. Jeff: Puget Sound Ferries. So Puget Sound is surrounds Seattle. It's like between Seattle and Victoria British Columbia and there's island after island after island. It's probably my second favorite watery place that I've been to um, after the St. Lawrence River because there's just so much going on. Um, I like islands and inlets and... Steph: It is beautiful. Jeff: Yep. So uh, this presented a big challenge for getting around back in the day. Uh, because if you wanted to get out to one of these islands cause there's timber out there or other resources or because you wanted to live out there, um, yeah you had to take a boat. And the shortest distance between two points on land on the quote mainland was sometimes a boat, not or by water, not necessarily over land. So uh, there were ferries that that got established. And the... there's like three big eras of ferries um, in in the Puget Sound. The first is the "Mosquito Fleet" era which was like 1850s to the 1920s. And it's when people really nailed down and commercialized the... the ferry as transportation infrastructure and the waterways are now how people get around, right? Um, and it helped develop the region. So um, like before the 1880s or so uh, it was all about steamboats. And the... the first steamships that got there cause you had to go basically either come from Asia or go around uh, the tip of South America back in the day before the Panama Canal to get to this place. So the Hudson Bay Company sent the SS Beaver in the 1830s which showed how uh, steam power... Steph: Beaver... Jeff: Yeah yeah... Steph: [Laughs] Thank god for the Canadians. All right. Jeff: The Hudson's Bay Company sent the SS Beaver like around the horn uh, even better... Steph: [Laughs] Jeff: In the 1830s. So uh, all of a sudden like you've got a steamboat that's like cruising around Puget Sound and it works out. Um, and the... the Americans, I think the Canadian... I don't know a lot about the Canadian history of the West Coast but the American history of the West Coast uh, was like, you know okay... 1849, 49ers... uh, the West like opened up in a... the West Coast opened up in a big way because of the Gold Rush. Um, but then timber became a huge deal. Probably more money made in timber than in uh, gold at that point. But the first American steamboat was the SS Fairy. Okay? Begins scheduled service in the 1850s and it linked uh, Olympia and Seattle. And roads were hammered. It was just mud, you know, nothing was paved. Uh, you definitely wanted to be on a... on a steamer. Maybe a sidewheeler like, you know, old-timey sidewheelers on the... on the Mississippi. Um, but it was really the only way that mail and your goods and s... goods and people got from town to town on the Puget Sound. So that was like early steamboats pre-1880s. And then in the 1880s uh, it really started to take off. So as the area developed, the... the something happened called the Mos... the Swarm, right? So the swarm of the Mosquito Fleet. Hundreds of small um, independent privately owned steamships pl... basically started creating a dense network and they were all competing with each other. Cause like all you needed was a boat with a steam engine and you could get going. Um, and there were some some famous boats during this time. Fleet... Mosquito Fleet boats. And this was not like, you know, so-and-so owned the Mosquito Fleet, it was just like "Hey there's a swarm of boats out there we're gonna call them and they're all small so we're gonna call them the Mosquito Fleet." Uh, and this is where the names get names get more lame. The SS Flyer, the SS Bailey Gatzert. Steph: Okay. I like SS Fairy. Direct. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and and then there's this huge opportunity and this dude named Charles Peabody who we heard about. We heard from his descendants uh, and we heard about the Black Ball uh, right? From his descendants just a minute ago. Charles Peabody. He shows up with this... this family history of the uh, Transatlantic Fleet where they innovated and um... this is something you're pretty psyched about which is like "Oh okay we're gonna have scheduled service instead of just waiting until we've got a full load and then we'll go. We're gonna leave at noon." Steph: Mm-hm. Yeah. Well I just think it's interesting like I... I remember we talked about this pr... I guess you said maybe with Rob a while ago. I find it fascinating the idea that you would get on a boat and then just wait for enough people to get on the boat to have to leave. That's... I could see how that would be disruptive to your day. Jeff: Yeah. Steph: Maybe hopefully those peop... they didn't have watches. But um, but they uh... but then yeah I guess I would appreciate the fact that you had some general idea of when it might leave. But I can see how the risk would be uh, you had to travel empty some so maybe you just had to... more reliable. It was a leap of faith, right? They were like, "If we make it more reliable then people will use it more." Right? Jeff: Yeah. And scheduled service for trains was probably a thing but, you know, when you've got this big boat you definitely don't want to... you don't want to go empty. And so I can see the commercial interest in like a full boat being there but also like then you're leaving out a lot of people who were like "I don't want to sit around and wait for this." Um, anyway. I don't know. Charles Peabody. Uh, so he... he's a descendant of the people that started the Black Ball Fleet way back in the early early 1800s. He shows up out there and starts buying up the swarm. Um, he creates the Puget Sound Navigation Company, PSNC, in 1898. And then just starts buying up competing Mosquito Fleet companies. Like he bought up the White Collar Line. Steph: Mmm. Jeff: Don't know why it's called White Collar Line. Um, going to guess it was fancy. Uh, and eventually becomes the... the biggest operator. Steph: You said fancy? Jeff: Fancy. Steph: Okay. Jeff: And then what Peabody did, based... based on this research is he figured out that the automobile was gonna be a threat, okay? To... to the ferry fleet because now you've got cars. People buy cars, they want the roads to get better so that they can drive their cars. The roads do get better so more people get cars to drive on those roads. So then he figures out that this is a threat and starts converting his ferries to carry cars. And the rest of the Mosquito Fleet, many of whom he'd bought up in the first place, but the rest of the Mosquito Fleet that hadn't been acquired by the Puget Sound Navigation Company... they're not... they're not as like strategic as he is. They don't start converting their boats to carry cars... he does. So they die off. No more. Right? So now he's got a monopoly. And uh, he officially at... at this point adopts the Black Ball Line as its name. Um, and the flag that we heard about, the red and black ball uh, flag in the in the late 20s. Um, coincidentally also around the time of Prohibition and tons and tons of smuggling of da booze from Canada into the US. I am not... I'm not accusing the Black Ball Line of being involved in smuggling um, but it was going on. And uh, there was succession also in the family. Alexander takes over um, from his dad uh, and uh, they really nail down... And then ah this is where... so then they launch the Kalakala. K-A-L-A-K-A-L-A. Kalakala in 1935. This is the streamlined Art Deco ferry that uh, that we we talked about last time and our friends Rob and Jen and Byron uh, actually went out and checked out um, while it was still floating. And it's just like really cool. Looks like um, you know uh, like early streamlined locomotives and trains. That kind of thing with like really neat windows and and that sort of thing. Um, but that becomes the international symbol of the fleet. Everybody's super psyched about it. Um, so that was like 20s, 30s. And then World War II hits. And um, labor organizing really took off around World War II. Uh, and the ferry workers started unionizing and uh, probably pushing back on on pay and working conditions and hours and stuff. And this monopoly uh, had, you know... being a monopoly is great unless there's a strike. And then your... you know your workers strike and your boats aren't running and people are like "Well [bleep], I gotta get around." So now maybe they figure out that they don't have to take the ferry. Take their car on the ferry, take their truck on the ferry and they um... they go elsewhere and that starts to... to put pressure on the ferry. But also like if you've got to raise wages, um, now your... your margins are lower. Blah blah blah. So um, ultimately uh, the... you know the... there was a... a wartime um, freeze in wages and operations but the... the unions um, really pushed for better wages which put a bunch of strain on the... on the company. And the... the only way that... that the Peabodys could make this all work was uh, with a big fare increase. So they um... pushed for a 30% fare increase to cover their costs. Um, and the... they had... it had gotten to the point where they were being regulated at this point because it was, you know, privately operated transportation infrastructure that everybody relied on. Um, so they were regulated and the state said "Nope." So like, you know, a public utility commission has to negotiate rate increases with their state regulator. So same thing happened here. Um, and Peabody says "Give us 30% more." State says "Nope." And Peabody says "All right, F you." They shut it all down. They shut it all down. And that stranded uh, like all the commuters. And people were super pissed at them for shutting it down. Um, which then turned it into a political moment. And uh, the... you know people, businesses said "Take over this... this as an essential utility." And that's when uh, Washington State purchased all this stuff from... all the ferries and the whole system from the uh, the Peabodys. From the Black Ball Line. And that created the Washington State Ferry System. And as you heard in the... in the um, interview, uh, was running... ended up running at a loss. I don't know if it still does, it may as... as a lot of public transit infrastructure does. Um, but the state bought out the Black Ball Line in... in 51. And um, they bought it out for 4.9 million dollars which in like "today dollars" is still not even that much I don't think for, you know, 16 ships, 20 terminals uh, which is what it was at the time. Um, but anyway they buy it out and start operating on... in June of 51. And uh, the state said "Hey we're just gonna do this until we build all the bridges everywhere." Uh, which didn't really happen. Um, and the Washington State Ferry uh, system just change... they basically uh, did away with the Black Ball livery. Which is like the Boaty way of saying how you paint [bleep]. Um, what colors. Um, so they went from orange to green. Uh, but the... the company, Captain Peabody, Alexander, um, and his family retained the route... the international route between... between Seattle and Victoria. And that is the MV Coho which still runs uh, and it's still the Black Ball Ferry Line. And it um... basically gives you a through line from like the original Transatlantic Fleet that did scheduled service for the first time ever um, and, you know... you're on board or not we're leaving at noon. Through line from like the early early 1800s all the way through to today. The Black Ball line has been continuously running or the Black Ball uh... the... Black Ball family or I'm sorry the Black Ball line has been continuously running cause the Coho is still going. Was launched in 59 but it uh... it's still the um... it's still a major private auto ferry line in the region. And international. So goes back and forth to Canada. Which is what you did when you went to the Hot Springs as well. Steph: Um, yeah. I love that. I love that it's still running. I didn't realize that. Jeff: Yeah. The Coho. I... I was out there for work years ago and I thought about taking um, taking the ferry up to Victoria. There's a high speed... and I don't think it's the Coho. There's a high speed ferry that runs also. Um, it may even go further than Victoria but uh, cause I was like "Oh man it'd be pretty cool to do a day trip to just like take the ferry from Seattle up through the Sound to, you know, wherever. Like get off get a... get some poutine and then come back." Although it's the West Coast I don't know if poutine... I don't know if poutine made it out there or maybe they call it something else. I love ferries. Steph: I do too. And I... I've actually been to that part of the world only one time, but I was... I went to a wedding on Vashon Island. And then um, so yeah I was to... completely taken with how watery and boaty it was and we totally took a ferry there and it was amazing and I loved it. And yes, I agree. Ferries are fun and um, that's some... that's some very cool history. I like it. Jeff: Yeah. Well we're gonna... we're gonna wrap up now. Um, because uh... I just got a call and a text from my wife and she... Steph: Yeah. Jeff: She and Mary Jane... so Missy and Mary Jane got rear-ended. I think Toby too. Got rear-ended on the highway. And uh, they don't need a ride but just in case they do I want to wrap it up. Everybody's okay. Nobody got hurt. Steph: Yeah. Sounds good. Good. Good. Jeff: Yeah. Um, but couple things. One, I am currently wearing a Boaty Show hat. And uh, the hot admin, the lovely Melissa, set up a freaking e-commerce website so that you listeners if you would like can buy a Boaty Show hat and we will ship it to you. We don't really make any money on this. It's... it's all uh, basically break-even. Um, but that can be found at thebodyshow.com/merch. M-E-R-C-H. Merch. Thebodyshow.com/merch. They're... I'm very excited because I've got a big head and we have an extra large hat. Which means that if you usually put like the... the little snappy back thing on like the last two nubbins, the snap back on the last two nubbins... on the XL Boaty Show hat you get... you get to at least on my head you get five nubbins. You can snap five hat nubbins. And it... and it doesn't look like you're cramming a tiny hat on top of your big head. So that's exciting. Uh, there's... there's Heather Grey, Dark Grey, and Navy Blue. And uh, would love it if you guys ordered some um, because uh... it's... it's a cool hat. It's got the boat tractor on it. Steph: Mm-hm. It's the holiday season. Time to go buy some merch for your friends and families. Everybody needs a Boaty Show hat. Jeff: Yeah. Also these were made by Bolt Printing who who we talked uh, about on the show once upon a time. Uh, they're really cool people and... Steph: You love them. Jeff: I do. I do. And they made a video of the hats getting made that I'll I'll try and repost. Um, and the other thing is that my book is out. So is the audiobook. So You Teach The Machines: AI on Your Terms is available on everywhere you get your audiobooks. Uh, Audible, Amazon, Apple, and then like 35 others. So if you don't mind listening to my voice, uh, I read the book and people are finding it really helpful. And uh, you can support the show and us doing this silly stuff by buying hats and checking out the book. We are gonna wrap it up. Steph: And next time we get to do Photo of the Week. Jeff: Oh yes! Yes. We're bringing back Photo of the Week next time. Um, there have been a bunch of submissions while we've been on our hiatus and uh, we can't wait. So like next week will probably mostly be Photo of the Week discussions. Jeff & Steph: [Singing together] Yo ho ho, that's it for the Boaty Show. Pack the cooler, grab the lines, let's go go go. Yo ho ho... Jeff: That's it for the Boaty Show. Boom we are out. Say bye-bye Stephanie. Steph: Bye-bye Stephanie.  

We're back! Steph and Jeff are in Houseboat Studios to bring you the best Old Boat Ad EVER: You, your girl, and your !  Jeff tells his story of a day spent boat hitchhiking through the 1000 Islands, we do Boat NAME Of The Week, and more! See The Boaty Show LIVE Saturday August 2nd during Chris Peirce's concert in Thousand Island Park, NY. Get tickets at rivertakemehome.org. Thanks for listening! 

We're back! Live from Steph's houseboat! A Whaler, a tall ship, and a Square Beaver walk into a bar to compete for Boat Of The Week, we talk upcoming events, and mildewed mermaids. It's not the best Boaty Show ever but not the worst. Thanks for listening! 

You didn't ask for it so here it is: Hold Please: A Yacht Rockumentary! Your first-ever anthology of every original note of The Boaty Show music by Jay Nash (www.jaynash.com). Go down below for an exclusive look under the hatch. Scandal! Dirty bilges! Leaky sea cocks! This squinty-eyed gaze into the throbbing musical engine compartment of The Boaty Show is for the saltiest, most seaworthy listeners ONLY. Sex! Drugs! Yacht Rock 'n Roll! 

We're back in Vermont this time for an update on the electric boat industry from Industry Correspondent Jen. We review the Kady Krogan Manatee, a custom fantail launch, and Donzi 18 that should be renamed SCRATCH 'N DENT. You'll be surprised at the winner. No really. Get in touch at www.theboatyshow.com and thanks for listening!

A tin Starcraft, electric hydrofoil and floating houseboat? Boat Of The Week is all over the chart! We discuss your listener corrections and contributions, backwards steering and throttles. Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com, and thanks for listening! 

Check out the full unedited show we made amidst Jay's Facebook Live streaming concert. This includes the opening segment in addition to a few behind-the-scenes tidbits during the Boat Of The Week and Old Boat Ad segments.  Thanks for bearing with us, we're a bit behind on our recording schedule with lots of good life stuff going on!  Thanks for listening! 

A musical rendition of Capt David's Spring Checklist? You got it. Be nice, Steph went out on a limb and sang about engine mounts. Encyclopedia John sends us a really cool 1969 Chris Craft Cavalier for Boat Of The Week, including the original catalog copy for your Old Boat Ad.  We had to wrap up and get to a meeting, so this one is short. Thanks for listening! Email theboatyshow@gmail.com, back the Kickstarter if you want an album of original music https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theboatyshow/the-boaty-show-album/  

Recorded at Jay Nash's studio in Vermont! Outtake from our video live stream with Jay on his Facebook page and the Boaty Show youtube plus Get your boat ready for Spring, Summer resolutions (like New Years but better), listener questions and corrections, a startling new recipe, and the Brooklyn Whaler concept boat. Help us fund five original yacht rock songs: the Boaty Show Yacht Rock Album Kickstarter is live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theboatyshow/the-boaty-show-album/ Email us theboatyshow@gmail.com and thanks for listening!

Jeff loses steering and has to limp back to port (literally), Steph relates her experiences with houseboat steering, we review a Grand Banks, Donzi Not-A-Sweet 16, Porsche lookalike runabout, and an abandoned project runabout for Boat Of The Week. Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com, thanks for listening!

Straight outta Ohio! Steph brings us Heather and Matt Sullivan while visiting the gateway to the Midwest. Boat Of The Week is a giant swarthy on the outside glam on the inside renovated tugboat, we continue drooling over Novas and get steamed up over another magnificent vintage ad.  Email us your boaty thoughts at theboatyshow@gmail.com. Check out Matt's music live around Columbus Ohio as Matt Sullivan and His Friends, streaming as Black River Gypsies or Tin Hearts. Thanks for listening!

MJ calls in from New Orleans during Mardi Gras with a Love / Boat question: how do you teach your bae, boo, shorty, your main squeeze to drive a boat?  Steph answers, Jeff pretends he didn't hear the question. Boat Of The Week brings it: mini picklefork speedboat, 70's Wetbike, Jersey Speed Skiff, and a Nova 24 duke it out. Our Old Boat Ad gets RACY all this and more! Email us theboatyshow@gmail.com. Thanks for listening :-)

Boaty Show Mixologist Marc returns to consult on the "Icehole" cocktail. Steph nails description of the Boat Of The Week contestants - two frozen tour boats locked in their own ice holes in Canada. Old Boat Ad returns with our favorite of all time the 1970 Boston Whaler Menemsha including railings "perfect for casual leaning and gripping." Love / Boat rears its ugly head as Jeff is counseled on being a jerk about weight distribution under way.  Email us your own Boat Of The Week, Old Boat Ad, or advice about love and boats at theboatytshow@gmail.com! Thanks for listening! 

A day late and a box of chocolates short.... our first listener call-in show! Is your love life on the rocks? Did your admiral go ashore with another first mate? This Thursday-after-Valentines Day The Boaty Show casts you a line. Listen in on real relationship / boaty advice from two severely underqualified podcast hosts.  But first a special all-dredger Boat Of The Week from the San Francisco Bay Army Corps of Engineers headquarters in Sausalito, CA!  No actual relationships were harmed in the making of this episode.  Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com and let us know what you think!

Steph and Jeff welcome Captain Nervous to the show! Captain Nervous shares cautionary tales to help you stay safe while boating.  New music from Jay Nash plays in our newest segment: Old Boat Ads, we review a wildly divergent slate of submissions for Boat Of The Week: a BMW hydrofoil, a low-buck houseboat, and a 90's Donzi Medalion. Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com, subscribe to the show on your podcast app, follow on social media @theboatyshow.  Thanks for listening!

Gone to California to make a Boaty Show! Steph and Jeff are joined by JK and Jeremy. We run down a bunch of old business: listener corrections, more on lobster boat racing, JK's expert description of the Jones Act, carvel planking. A completely unfair Boat Of The Week may very well result in a new boat, and This Week In Curling delves into tribology, the study of rubbing.  This week on the boaty show you can't make this stuff up!  Thank you very much for listening, email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com, follow on social media @theboatyshow. 

Steph and Jeff review a classic Mastercraft waterski boat, Rasputin's wierd monoski air boat, and a souped up racing lobster boat named RIP SNORTER for Boat Of The Week. Steph presents This Week In Curling, and in our new segment Old Boaty Book Jeff shares the Martha's Vinyard No Man's Land boat design. A cat-ketch double ender written up in a neat book called Good Boats while Steph shares a meditation from her favorite book Pleasure Boating on the similarities between propellers and sails.  This week in boaty history, we learn about the oldest message in a bottle ever found - 136 years!  You can thank us later for skipping our first review of a TV show.  Email us your thoughts, questions, and Boat Of The Week submissions at theboatyshow@gmail.com, Thanks for listening!

We're in person! Jeff journeys North to do boat pose at River Yoga, battery maintenance and a show in Steph's living room. We spin up on propeller performance data shared by a listener, two freighters and a Bertram Baron 20 go head to head in Boat Of The Week, Jeff fumbles the Jones Act, we get hooked on the hottest trend to land in acquatic fashion, stories of Canadian canal adventures, Missy goes corn nuts, all on this week's Boaty Show!  Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com especially if you know what the heck the Jones Act is.  Follow @theboatyshow on instagram, facebook, and YouTube. Thanks so much for listening!

Our hearts go out to our fellow citizens in Los Angeles. God bless you. Steph briefs us on Canadian Super Scooper firefighting amphibious planes dumping tons of seawater on the fires, we run down a dozen LA Fire Boats from the last one hundred and twenty years, big-hair-don't-care on the curling ice, artificial intelligence and marine radar, an unbelievable Chris Craft 32 Runabout for Boat Of The Week, Jeff digs into his Yacht Rock aversion for the Yacht Rock Dockumentary all on this week's Boaty Show! email your Boat Of The Week submission to theboatyshow@gmail.com, check out pictures from the show on Instagram and Facebook @theboatyshow. Thanks for listening! 

Happy New Year! Steph is on the mic!  We both went to Quebec over the break, but to different places. I reminisce about a 2022 trip down the Richeleau River that drains Lake Champlain... to the NORTH. Steph briefs us on the Boundary Waters Treaty and the International Joint Commission.  Steph reviews Yacht Rock: a Dockumentary and I blow her mind with the Williams 28 Bass Boat for Boat Of The Week! Send your Boat Of The Week nominations to theboatyshow@gmail.com, subscribe to the podcast, check us out on all social media @theboatyshow and thanks for listening!

Like three kings, rather two queens and a king we bring you gifts this Christmas Day!  Steph, Missy, and Jeff take your listener corrections, sing boaty Christmas carols, float through the earl history of the Schuylkill Navigation Company, and wrap up a massive Boat Of The Week like a present just for you!  Our second boaty kiddie ride, a Vanquish, metal flake midlife crisis, hot little wooden boat roadster, mysterious commercial fishing vessel, Chris Craft flybridge cruiser, and a polished aluminum tumblehome double cockpit runabout go toerail to toerail for the coveted win.  Recorded live in the bed of a pickup truck, check out @theboatyshow on YouTube to see us make the Christmas ham. Hope you have a restorative and pleasant Holiday season.  Thanks for listening!  

This week we record live in a Whaler!  Missy co-hosts while Steph is out of town helping a friend. We recap on a big part of what makes boating special - clean water. Missy weighs in on The Oil Exclusion and the US Environmental Protection Agency's Leaking Underground Storage Tank (yes, L.U.S.T) program.  Jeff seeks forgiveness for dissing Whalers, and a nice little Boat Of The Week with the very first boat kiddie ride entry!  Keep in touch, thanks for listening, you're the best!  T-shirts, temporary tatoos, stickers and more at https://www.stickermule.com/theboatyshow. Follow on social media,  YouTube @theboatyshow

We need clean water for boats! Get wise on water pollution and the Gowanus Canal toxic waste cleanup from a Superfund expert who wishes to remain anonymous.  We learn how our rivers, lakes, streams, and bays in the US went from industrial dumping grounds and sewars to the beautiful places we boat today, and how the worst of the polluted sites from hundreds of years ago got cleaned up through public private collaboration.  Like the easter egg after the outro? Check out Mac Glocky on YouTube, brilliant.  New merch available at https://www.stickermule.com/theboatyshow check us out on YouTube @theboatyshow.  Thanks for listening! 

This is a good one. From the Gowanus Canal to Rockaway beaches, Jamaica Bay to Red Hook, Stephan von Muehlen takes us along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront.  Stephan has lived, worked, and loved the hidden littoral spaces of New York City for over twenty years.  Learn about a waterborne art and activist community that plays hard and works harder to keep Brooklyn grounded and show people that they don't have to go to the Hamptons to enjoy the water.  We're joined by Stephan's wife and our longtime friend Anna who shares her own view and experiences from a life on the water.  Stephan believes in making stuff in Brooklyn, where he leads a company that builds pour-over coffee machines a block away from the Gowanus Canal. Check out Stephan's company www.poursteady.com and enjoy the show! Thanks so much for listening, look for video of the episode on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@TheBoatyShow.

Steph is alive! We're joined by Younger Demographic Liasons MJ and Hannah. Hanna spots a boat food truck, MJ and Steph plot a hot dog boat empire, Bearing Buddies get on the mic, we officially announce a special musical project.  A drool-worthy Boat Of The Week docks for the second week in a row. Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the States! All that and more on this week's Boaty Show. Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com, follow the podcast and @theboatyshow on instagram/facebook/youtube. Thank you so much for listening, we're grateful for YOU. 

Steph is BACK! Rejoice! A massive Boat Of The Week - thank you Ryan, Patrick, Captain David, Anne! Jeff wants to know what's up with entry level boats, or the lack thereof?  We go deep on sight-unseen internet hookups... of trailers on the boat you just bought and now have to get home.  Younger Demographic Liason crew MJ, Malia, Alexa, and more tackle the big issue of the day: seasickness and more.  YouTube videos of the Brooklin Boat Yard episodes are up now @theboatyshow on YouTube.  email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com with your BOTW, questions, and get well missives for Steph. Follow on Instagram and Facebook @theboatyshow. Thank you so much for listening!

Hi Friends! Final episode from our first visit to Brooklin Boat Yard: a tour of the winter storage sheds where so many cool boats gather for their long winter's nap. John and Sarah Maxwell take us through a collection of saling and motor yachts big and small, old and new. We go through two big barns, you'll hear the gravel floor crunching under our feet as John tells us the story of classic sailing yachts and restored lobster boats. We climb aboard two stunning fifty foot motor yachts, including SYNTAX, launched by BBY just this past summer.  Steph will rejoin soon, in the meantime hope you enjoy this format!  Thank you so much for listening!

Wonder what a well-run boat yard is like? Go on this audio tour of what it takes to design, build, and service the coolest sail and powerboats you can imagine.  John Maxwell leads us on a journey through every corner of employee-owned Brooklin Boat Yard: the rigging deck, slipway, varnish shop, repair carpentry, paint, small boat storage, restoration sheds, and the five story new-build shop where master designers and craftsmen create stunningly beautiful custom one-off yachts to ninety feet and beyond.  

A wonderful conversation about life through rowing with Havilah Hawkins: schooner captain, boat designer and builder, youth sailing educator, master shipwright, and zen bottom paint scraper extraordinaire.  Second in our multi-part series from Brooklin Boat Yard in Brooklin, Maine.  This conversation happened spontaneously in the midst of John Maxwell's amazing tour.  We came around the stern of a shapely classic daysailer in the shop and Havilah was kind enough to pause his work and chat. Thank you for listening! 

Brooklin Boat Yard's John Maxwell introduces us to the world of sailing yachts and the amazing team of designers, builders, movers, riggers, and mechanics who create and keep BBY's peerless fleet sailing and motoring.  Listen after the outro for a snipped of Part Two.  Learn how outdoor education makes for boat matchmaking, Brooklin's origins under famed designer/builder Joel White and it's current employee-owned culture of excellence. Follow @theboatyshow on social media, email theboatyshow@gmail.com.  Thanks for listening!

500 miles in an open 24 foot center console two years in a row? In 2022 Jeff and his son traveled the coast of New Jersey, into New York Harbor, up the Hudson, through the New York State Barge Canal System to Lake Ontario, across an inland sea to the Saint Lawrence River.  In 2023, they started at the intersection of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers and went through Lake Champlain into Quebec, up the Saint Lawrence to Montreal, through the massive commercial locks to the Thousand Islands.  Epic adventures, and way more accessible than you think.  Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com, follow on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube @theboatyshow, leave a comment on Spotify. Thanks for listening! 

Winterization, decommissioning, blah blah whatever you call it we run down all the fall maintenance.  All the oils, self-healing theories, schmutz removal and everybody's favorite: care for the weakest link in boating, the friggin battery. A gorgeous Cigarette 20 pocket speedboat competes with the finest example of a picnic boat yet to cross our headphones for Boat Of The Week.  Chock full of practical information, it's the most Normal Boaty Show ever!  Don't get used to it.  Email theboatyshow@gmail.com, and thanks for listening!

Jeff shares maritime history from Iceland from settlement up through the Cod Wars.  Steph reviews her experience aboard the Foot Ferry (Pedestrian Ferry System) in New York City. Two restored Starcraft, a Hinkley Picnic Boat, an electric catamaran, and a gorgeous Limestone 24 all compete for Boat Of The Week!  Email your BOTW submissions to theboatyshow@gmail.com, follow the show and comment on Spotify, check us out on social media @theboatyshow on all platforms.  Thanks so much for listening!

Þorsteinn Bragi Jónínuson, Marine Engineer with Rafnar Marine in Reykjavik, Iceland takes us on a sea trial of the Rafnar 1100 in her home waters. The most capable high speed small boat we've ever been on.  In all seriousness, this boat is a revelation.  Invented and designed in Iceland to safely navigate the North Atlantic, she can handle any other water and is now built in Greece, Turkey, the UK, and the US.  She safely crossed the North Atlantic in 6 meter / twenty foot waves! Listen for the full story, send us your questions, tell us what you think: comment on Spotify, email theboatyshow@gmail.com, Instagram/Facebook @theboatyshow. New show every week, thanks to Þorsteinn and thanks for listening! 

Back at the boat yenta game with Patrick and Blake who each do a "Why Chart"TM (callback to Walker's Pie Chart of what's important in a boat). Before Boat Of The Week, Steph goes dating game on the results, major surgical engine swap between a Limestone and a Hiliner, propeller selection advice, we all agree bucket seats on boats are no bueno, we review the Formula Junior, Amphibious RIB, and an out-of-nowhere Mako center console for BOTW.  Please leave a review, follow on Spotify or Apple podcasts, and  check out @theboatyshow on InstaBookTube.  Submit your BOTW contestants at theboatyshow@gmail.com. New show every Wednesday, Thanks so much for listening!   Other candidate titles: Ghosted By The Chimneysweep Lousy With Limestones Fight That Granddaughter

Labor Day resolutions are in order as we move on from summer and get our lives back together.  The mermaid bumper helps deliver bad news about major dock maintenance, powerful new analytic methods help answer the important question "what do I want out of a boat", dock chains and mooring whips, and a special contestant for Boat Of The Week. Please donate to Jeff's MS Ride for his best friend!. New show every Wednesday, thank you so much for listening, we truly appreciate it!  Follow the podcast, leave a review, email your BOTW submissions to theboatyshow@gmail.com, and check us out on out Insta/Facebook/YouTube at @theboatyshow.  Thanks! The Hinckley 42 Daysailor:  https://www.yachtingmagazine.com/hinckley-42-daysailer/    

Newest Younger Demographic Liasons Celina and Jack make the case for growing up behind the wheel of a boat.  These two are best friends and might as well been birthed in a Boston Whaler.  Recorded Saturday of Labor Day weekend, you can hear nostalgia creeping in for this summer and summers past.  Thanks so much for listening! Reach out via email theboatyshow@gmail.com, follow the show and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on instagram, facebook, and youtube @theboatyshow.  New show every Wednesday! Stay boaty...

Ride along with our field correspondents on the X-Shore electric speedboat and learn about the first electric autonomous freighter Yara Birkeland.  Byron, Jen, and Rob journey to Lake Champlain for a sea trial of the Eelex 8000 from Swedish boat builder X-Shore.  Byron shares his design work on the exterior of the Yara Birkeland which replaces 40,000 diesel truck trips a year in Norway.  SO COOL!  Thank you for listening, we love you but like in a good friend way jeez calm down. Please connect on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @theboatyshow, email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com and listen to new shows every Wednesday!  Also, interested in electrification of transport? We highly recommend The inEVitable podcast hosted by Ed Loh and Jonny Lieberman.  Learn about civic planning, design, user experience, economics AND all the engineering and performance goodies. 

You have a long Labor Day Road trip so we made you a two hour episode! First up, Steph and Jeff get philosophical, "tumblehome" is defined by a listener in a sophisticated Boat Of The Week contest, the secret to winning said contest is revealed. Next Jeff chats with Scott Smith, former Canadian stock outboard boat racing champion, two stroke motor wizard, fountain of boaty knowledge, and River Rat extraordinairre. Enjoy! We love you for listening! New show every Wednesday. Email us at theboatyshow@gmail.com, follow on Instagram and Facebook @theboatyshow. Thanks so much for listening!

Presley hosts us at the remarkable Thousand Islands Boat Museum in Gananoque, Ontario.  Go check it out!  Very grateful to her and the entire team for inviting us to record aboard WASHINGTONIAN, a beautiful John Trumpy-designed yacht, tied up in the HUGE boathouse sheltering an entirely in-water exhibit.  Presley's extensive knowledge of the boats in the collection as well as local history means you're in for a treat.  We discuss and pick a Boat Of The Week from the floating collection around us, and have our first fight.  Email is back up - get in touch at theboatyshow@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram and Facebook @theboatyshow, new episode every Wednesday, thanks so much for listening!