(Editor’s note: Financial consultant Andy McClung has just taken a trip of a lifetime: seeing the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, from his own boat. He and his wife, Stephanie, once lived in Gwinnett, but now reside in Athens.-eeb)
By Andy McClung
ATHENS, Ga. | Always I had wanted to pilot my own boat by the Statue of Liberty. This year I got to do it. I had visited New York City a couple of times and both times found myself at the battery staring at the Statue of Liberty, watching all the tourist boats going and coming and thinking: “Hummm, it would be great fun in my own boat and on my own schedule.”
Stephanie and Andy McClung
Fast forward 20 years and my wife’s willingness to go along with the madness.
We bought a boat that we could actually live on, sleeping two. It was a 2018 Ranger Tug, 27 feet long. It was something like RVing on the water. We towed the boat to Lake Ontario behind a Ford F 250 to Oswego N.Y., then took the Oswego Canal to the Erie Canal, near Syracuse.
The next day we pushed to get to Little Falls N.Y., where there is an old Erie Canal depot that the local Rotary Club has rehabbed, with many pleasure boats docking there. Little Falls was once a busy place where settlers worked with local Indians to portage boats up the 40 foot or so series of falls. Later it became home of the tallest lock on the Erie. We spent two nights there, needing a break.
Some boating highlights:
- In Scotia, N.Y., the local fire department each year assembles and installs the local docks as well as disassembles a store before winter. An amphitheater is next to the canal. We saw a show worthy of Cypress Gardens.
- We finally left the Erie Canal at Troy, N.Y. Then to Albany, and before us was 167 miles by water on the relatively flat Hudson River. (Albany is only five feet above sea level!)
- Cornwall Yacht Club, which is basically right next to West Point, is scenic with mountains on both sides. As in other places, we could not have run into a nicer group of people. One of the guys volunteered his truck for me to go into town. I took him up on it and used it as an opportunity to buy groceries. You know, you gotta have greens and salad for wives.
We made our way all the way down to the Statue of Liberty and docked in Brooklyn for the next two nights. Boating by the Statue of Liberty was a surprisingly emotional time. We circled the Statue for three hours!
Seeing Lady Liberty from a boat is something I will never forget. It was a wonderfully poignant experience. Just think about all the sacrifices and perilous decisions that have been made that enabled me to be able to boat around the Statue of Liberty, because I wanted to.
Then it was time for the return trip, which was just as enjoyable. On the trip we must have gone through 50 locks. We came back via Lake Champlain, to Montreal and the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The entire trip took 18 days. Once we were back to Lake Ontario, we connected the Ford 250 to the boat and trailer, and in three days we were back home.
Thank you to the people of France, to the statue’s designer, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, with its metal framework built by Gustave Eiffel, for supporting our freedom, and your gift to us, just as we support your freedom.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité: Viva la France! Viva freedom!
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