Archive: Around Town

Over the past few months, you may have noticed a new boat plying the waters of Cayuga Lake.  In fact, this new boat is the Teal, run by the not-for-profit organization Discover Cayuga Lake.  The 63-foot Teal is distinctive with teal awnings and details, and is the new home of the Cayuga Lake Floating Classroom, as well as a burgeoning boat tour business.  The beautiful MV Teal can accommodate over 60 passengers.

Discover Cayuga Lake was created to continue the vision of the original Floating Classroom, to provide educational programs and lake access for young people throughout the region.   With the recent purchase of the commercial vessel Teal—a big step for a small organization—Discover Cayuga Lake has also introduced a public tour business to support the continuing educational mission.  They are hoping to work with local supporters and lake communities to create a successful model for the future. In fact, starting with a 3-PM open-house and ribbon cutting ceremony at Allan Treman Marine State Park on Wednesday, August 29, the Discover Cayuga Lake board and staff will be reaching out to thank their supporters and offer several community-visioning cruises during the fall.

Along with a new boat, the not-for-profit Floating Classroom has been reorganized and rebranded.  The Floating Classroom is now one of three enterprises under Discover Cayuga Lake.  Discover Cayuga Lake: Floating Classroom will continue to provide lake-access for young people, and  take groups of school kids—elementary, middle school, and high school—as well as college classes out on to the lake for hands-on science cruises.  This program has served every public school district in the Cayuga Watershed, and a number of private schools every year, involving 1500 or more young people annually.

Discover Cayuga Lake: Trout in the Classroom is another long-running program of what was under the Floating Classroom, but what is now a program of its own under the new reorganization.  Trout in the Classroom supports nearly forty elementary and secondary school classrooms in raising trout fingerlings in specially equipped aquaria, and learning about healthy stream ecosystems.  In the spring, the children who raised the trout release them into local streams.


Discover Cayuga Lake: Cruises is the new component under reorganization.  In this program, groups of paying customers may charter the MV Teal for personalized cruises that may run from public eco-cruises, in which participants learn about the ecology, history and culture of the lake and its surroundings, to winery and brewery tours, to graduation parties or other pleasure cruises.  A regular schedule of public tours is also available at www.discovercayugalake.org. Proceeds from these cruises will go to support the educational programs of Discover Cayuga Lake.  We are kicking off a project here where we hope to direct tourist and recreational income directly back to youth access and education in our community.

The goal of Discover Cayuga Lake is to operate "A Boat for Everyone" to make access to Cayuga Lake and knowledge of her ecology and health available to local residents and to visitors alike.  From its very beginning the principal goal of the Floating Classroom was to instill in young people in the Cayuga Lake Watershed an appreciation for and a love of Cayuga Lake and its surroundings.  Discover Cayuga Lake expands on that original purpose by instituting the MV Teal as truly "A Boat for Everyone" so that Cayuga Lake might become a resource available to everyone to love and enjoy.

The Discover Cayuga Lake board of directors undertook the purchase of the MV Teal  last year and began a fundraising program to support this purchase.  Last fall, a crew, largely of volunteers, sailed the Teal from its former home in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, up the Hudson River, and then across the NY State Barge (Erie) Canal and into Cayuga Lake.  She spent the winter at the foot of the lake in the Village of Cayuga being repaired and reoutfitted. In the meantime, the fund drive for her purchase has been successful with contributions from many generous businesses, foundations and private donors, but there are still significant costs as the boat continues to be outfitted for its new purpose.

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