The Link

I'm guessing the year was 1974.

"How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now!"

The picture is of the M.V. "Link" which I bought from my Basement Landlord, Michael.

"She was broad and fat and loose in her stays."

In fact The "Link" was quite narrow for her length: 36'  overall length and 9' beam. Just a bit "loose."
The Chrysler Crown power plant was not the first engine in the boat and not the last, but when Mike keyed it up it hummed like a good thing.

The smell of old bilge and the hum of the Crown got to me and I said: "You want $1500 for the boat?"

Mike said: "For you one grand."

I was now the captain of a nicely sized boat complete with a "C" license.

I was also zero on the "learning curve" regarding salt water navigation but no stranger to danger.

As this blog evolves I hope to pass on some of the details I have learned running various types of craft in various types of water.

My first lesson was: Exactly what is "Slack Tide?" 

Obviously high and low tides turn at predicted times in an open ocean environment. Some narrows also are well documented and any mariner with a working chronometer and a copy of Canadian Hydrographic Survey's "Tides and Currents" should be just fine out there.

However, when you run a boat into an area where C.H.S. has no data you take some chances: Lagoons tend to have a water level which may or may not have anything to do with high or low slack tide. When "Slack High" is at the mouth water pours into the lagoon. During Slack Low water pours out. A river running into the lagoon at high tide can be a creek running out at low slack.

Ken LeDuc