Some journeys are measured in miles.
Others are measured in sunsets shared.
In Welcome Aboard: The View from the First Mate, Renee Rivera invites readers aboard The Lola, a classic Chris-Craft cruising the historic Erie Canal. What begins as a boating adventure becomes something far richer - a meditation on patience, partnership, history, and the quiet magic of small canal towns.
Traveling west to east across New York's 600-mile canal system, Renee shares life from the first mate's perspective: navigating locks and lift bridges, watching herons rise from still water, learning the rhythm of tides and temperature gauges, and discovering that slowing down is not losing time - it is gaining presence.
Along the way, readers will meet:
- Lockmasters who guard the waterway with quiet pride
- Marina families who turn docks into community
- Fellow boaters with stories that stretch across oceans
- And Flare, the little boat dog who greets every harbor like home
Woven through each chapter is the living history of the Erie Canal - the mule-drawn boats of the 1800s, the stone chambers carved by hand, the towns that flourished because water connected them to the world.
But at its heart, this is not just a travel memoir.
It is a love letter - to partnership, to family, to first dogs and future first mates, and to a waterway that continues to carry dreams two centuries after it was dug by hand.
For boaters, dreamers, history lovers, and anyone longing for a slower, more intentional pace of life, Welcome Aboard is a reminder that the best journeys are not about speed - they are about who stands beside you when the lines are tied.
Step aboard. The lock gates are opening.
