Check out our new Clearwater online logbook, offering the insights of our educators and crew as they sail this summer. To visit the blog, go to https://hudsonriversloopclearwater.wordpress.com/ or click on “Education” in the green banner on our home page, and then click on “Educator Blog.”
Gracie Ballou and Lucy Potter, two Hudson Valley transplants who are serving as crew members were the first to log in. Please enjoy a couple of excerpts from their entries below:
Gracie writes: During a day off in Haverstraw I ran into a gentleman on a bike path. After mentioning my association with Clearwater, he started talking exuberantly about his love for the Hudson River, Pete Seeger and his appreciation of Clearwater. On another day, while casting off the boat for a sunset sail off of Beacon, a man wandered down the dock, stared at the boat with a look of awe. Turns out he was on the boat in 1969 during the Clearwater’s first sail and taught some of the first education stations. He said that seeing the Clearwater was a spiritual experience. On a public sail, a woman stepped down the ladder, walked into the main cabin and placed a hand over her heart at the sight of a Pete Seeger painting hanging there. She said that coming on the Clearwater brought tears to her eyes.
Lucy writes: Students gain ownership of their learning environment at the very beginning (of each sail) through raising the mainsail together. The traditional Moment of Silence ties students to the river, but also to each other and everyone who has sailed on the Good Sloop and taken in the river before them. And of course, who can forget petting the river’s [arguably] cutest fish, the hogchoker? There is something so very special about all of this…