Day 2-231 to Brockport on a nice sunny day.

We left the dock at Fairport about 8:30 am with sunny skies, and the temperature was already in the low 70s. Our trip was only 32.3 miles, but it included 2 locks with a lift of 25 feet each as well as 64 bridges. The prize for the most unusual bridge of the day goes to the very first bridge at the west end of the Fairport town dock. In August the town is having a celebration in honor of the 100th Birthday of the Main Street Bridge (see picture at right). When this bridge was built, the town had already grown up very close to the old bridge. The new bridge had to be 8 feet lower on the north (right in the picture) end. Also the bridge crosses the canal at an angle.

The other unique thing is that the bridge goes straight up 9 feet everywhere. The geometry of all of this was complex enough that no two pieces of the bridge are the same. Thus, it must have been a nightmare to fabricate the pieces and then assemble the jigsaw puzzle. The picture at the left shows the bridge in the up position, and yes, it is still tilted to the right. The lift was more than enough for Lucky Us to safely pass under.


 

The second of the two locks this morning had what appeared to be a very unusual outlet. Generally there is a rush of swirling water on the downstream side when the water is let out of a lock. At this lock there was more like a fountain of water squirting water several feet up into the air. Fortunately, it was well outside of the channel into the lock, and we were well away from the turbulence.

Most of today's trip was along the south side of Rochester, NY, and as the bridge count for today illustrates, the area is fairly heavily populated. As such the Canal Pathway, which is a walk, jog bike path along the canal was very busy even for a Monday. At one point I looked ahead and thought that I could see what looked like the mounted police. Sure enough, as we got closer we could see an officer on a horse patrolling the pathway.

The Genesee River crosses the canal and goes right through downtown Rochester before it empties into Lake Ontario. The Genesee has a large drainage basin and as such, it is subject to flooding. Since the water level in the canal is relatively constant, the flood waters would also flow out into the canal on either side and deposit lots of silt. They solved this problem by adding flood gates on either side of the river that can be lowered during floods to keep the river flowing only in its own channel. This does not entirely solve the problem since the canal would be closed to traffic when the gates are down. They solved this problem by putting two flood gates on each side. During normal water levels, both gates are up and you just pass through. During flooding of the Genesee, they used the two flood gates as a lock to lift you up to the level of the Genesee and then back down on the other side. In the picture the boat ahead of us has just passed through the second gate, and we are about to pass through the first gate.

BIG NEWS! Well, at least I think it is big news that we were finally able to put the bimini top up on the flybridge. We did this right after passing the pair of lift (flood) gates on the west side of the Genesee River. According to all of the bridge information that we have for the canal, we should be able to clear the remaining fixed bridges without having to lower the bimini again.

Near the Genesee River we also went under these three beautiful, arched pedestrian bridges. It was quite a sight in a location where the banks of the canal are heavily forested. They actually do provide pedestrian access to a large park on the east side of the Genesee.

Downtown Brockport is nicely restored, and it seems more like a normal old fashioned downtown without a lot of tourist type stores. The buildings are interesting from an architecture stand point and have been nicely maintained.

There are self guided walking tours of the architecture, and there is even a tour of the many different local trees. This is definitely a town that is trying to attract visitors!

The town wall (dock) has plenty of room and power pedestals for boats. There is also a very large new welcome/visitors center with bathrooms and washing machines, etc. There is also this large piece of art (?) in the little waterfront park. It does have a nautical theme of sorts, and at least someone thinks it might be stolen because it is bolted in place... By now you might have gathered that they do not have to worry about me stealing this.


As for the future, we are going to look at the weather forecast again in the morning, but we tentatively plan to travel in the morning tomorrow. The forecast for tomorrow afternoon is not great with a chance of thunder storms. Normally, we would just stay here for the day, but we are trying to plan a little ahead with the Fourth of July weekend coming up in 4 days. Time will tell...

Day 2-230 Fairport, NY a day of work and rest (?)

First, we received an e-mail today from Bob S. who was one of our 2 different "Greeters" at Lyons, NY. He was kind enough to send us pictures that he took as we were departing Lyons. Thanks Bob! We have many pictures taken from Lucky Us of locks the we were about to enter or had just left, but it is nice to now have pictures that show Lucky Us actually in the picture. Somehow the Admiral does not want me to leave her on the dock to take a picture while I go on ahead. Could it be that she is afraid that I might forget to come back and pick her up? Surely not...

Well, the weather forecast for today was not great, and we had not taken a day off for a while so... We had a leisurely time today in Fairport, as well as completing many jobs. I changed the oil on both of the main engines, which took about 2.5 hours. The time included running each engine about 20 minutes to get it up to normal operating temperature, and then pumping the oil out as quickly as possible before "bad stuff" had a chance to settle out of the oil. The orange 5 gallon bucket has a 12 volt DC pump on top, and the black hose goes to a brass slip fitting. From the slip fitting there is another hose that goes to the bottom of the crankcase. It is messy but efficient. After I pour the three gallons of new oil into the engine, I reverse the pump and pump the used oil into the empty gallon oil containers for proper disposal. Meanwhile, the Admiral did 2 loads of wash and vacuumed the boat so we will be heading out tomorrow all clean.

The dock walls on both sides of the canal were busy with boats leaving and arriving. At the end of the day both sides were pretty full of boats. Given that today is Sunday (June 29), the boats staying overnight must be folks on vacation. In the Spring we found that the transient slips were likely to be full on Saturday night, but then they were empty again on Sunday night.

We had lunch on board, but we went to a great Mexican restaurant for dinner. About halfway through dinner, the skies opened up with a  real down pour and lots of fairly close thunder/lightning.  Fortunately, the rain let up just as we were finishing dinner. We hurried back to Lucky Us before the next shower started, but we were also able to make a quick stop for two scoops of  ice cream for me!

The weather during the day was quite warm and humid, but there were plenty of walkers along the canal and lots of canoes and kayaks on the canal. I even spotted this nice old fiberglass "speed boat". It was about 9 feet long and held just two people. With just a small outboard it would easily exceed the 10 mph speed limit on the canal. On the canal wall in the background is a small (home made?) gaff rigged sailboat with the mast folded down. Lots of sights of all kinds...


Tomorrow we plan to go further west (and up) to Brockport, NY. We are slowly getting closer to the west end of the canal. Somewhere along the way we plan to take another break and go visit Niagara Falls.

Day 2-229 to Fairport, NY in warm and sunny weather

We left Lyons, NY at 8:25 am and travelled 25.8 miles to Fairport, NY. In Fairport the canal walls on both sides have power, but the north side has more foot traffic and loud music so we opted for the south side where us old retired folks might get more rest... After leaving our mooring on the wall in Lyons, we went through 2 locks in the first 1.5 miles. At the west (upside) end of the second lock there was a huge dry dock for the canal system. It was large enough to hold many canal system tugs and barges for repair or winter storage at one time. It is an interesting dry dock in that it was like a one ended lock that was self draining out the down stream end.

 

 

We also saw the cutest little tug, and for lack of anything better, I named the picture "Little Toot" after the children's book. Yes, you guessed it. This is a picture specifically for Grandson Will.

Speaking of locks, we went through 5 more locks today with a total lift of 76.4 feet. The lockmasters talk to each other to tell them of approaching traffic, and indeed they are often waiting for us with the lock open and the green (OK to Enter) light on. One of the lockmasters "reminded" the Admiral that the speed limit was 10 mph and that he thought that we "might" have gotten to his lock a little early. She gave up after she had told him three times that we cannot go 10 mph let alone more than that. Maybe he was just bored?
Since we re-entered the Erie Canal from the Oswego Canal, we have had a lot more bridges to pass under. In the eastern canal the bridges uniformly had a clearance of 20 feet or more. In the western canal there have been many more bridges, for example, today we went under 26 "bridges", including 2 pipelines and one pedestrian bridge. About half of the bridges have a clearance of 20 or more feet, but the remainder of the bridges have clearances down to 14 feet, which is the reason for lowering the radar mast and removing the bimini top (see the last few days posts).

In the past few years several companies have begun chartering "European" style canal boats on the Erie Canal. They come complete with air conditioning and even bikes and solar panels on the cabin roof. They look like a fun way to cruise the canal, and with a 10 mph speed limit on the western part of the canal, they fit right in with the traffic.

 

Otherwise, it was not a productive day in terms of wildlife sightings unlike yesterday.

 

Fairport has done a great job of creating a boater friendly waterfront. The only charge is for electricity and that is based on boat length, which is a reasonable $11.00 per night for Lucky Us. In the picture at the left, Lucky Us is framed by nautical art in the form of navigation buoys. There is a small grocery about a block away along with numerous little shops. We visited several of the shops while in search of dinner. We ate dinner at the Fairport Village Inn (and bar but no hotel?). Great food, and we each ended up bring enough home for lunch tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, we may stay here an extra night since the weather prediction for tomorrow (some rain and thunderstorms) is not great. Neither of us would be disappointed if we ended up here another day...

 

I will close today's post with one more photo of an "oddity" along our trip. One of the bridges in Fairport is a one-way bridge with alternating directions controlled by traffic lights. The ramp on either side is very steep so that you cannot see traffic coming the other way. Must be fun when the power goes out or starting up the steep incline must be a challenge when the roads are icy...

Day 2-228 to Lyons, NY -our hotest day this year!

When we left Baldwinsville at 7:50 am it was already about 70F, which was not a good sign... Our destination was Lyons, NY about 49 miles to the west. Once again we were headed into a current of about 1 mph so the trip was slower than our usual slow cruising speed of 8 mph. Well, we were not in a hurry as usual... Over night the water levels have gone down, and the weeds that had already begun growing in the shallow areas now were visible on the surface. This was especially true in places where the canal followed existing stream channels. For example, streams are deepest on the outside of a bend and shallowest on the inside. Thus, we saw more weeds growing on the shallows on the inside of a bend.  In the places where the canal is an artificial cut the depth is pretty uniform and too deep for the weeds to grow.

The wildlife viewing was very good today, but unfortunately, not all of it was captured by the camera. We "followed" this bald eagle for several miles as it appeared to be after some easy prey. It finally landed in this dead tree fairly close to the canal. We also saw deer, 2 snow geese, llama, muskrat (?), and of course hundreds of geese and ducks. I slipped the llama in there just to see if you were paying attention, but we really did see a small herd in a farm yard.

We only went through 2 locks today and both of them raised us 6 feet. After the first lock, we lowered the bimini top since we were approaching several low bridges, including the lowest one on the Erie Canal. The top (blue) and frame have been folded and tied down to the railing on the flybridge. Wow! All of a sudden it was very bright in the full sun. In addition to the direct sunlight, I am surrounded by plenty of white fiberglass and off white seat cushions. We travelled this way for the last 2 hours of the trip in the hottest part of the day, and I did not realize how much the sun had gotten to me until we docked for the day. When I went inside the main cabin, it felt so cool, dark and comfortable...

We lowered the bimini so that we would not hit several low bridges. Any boat using the western portion of the Erie Canal must be able to get under a 15 foot bridge, which restricts the traffic on the canal. Larger pleasure craft cannot get down this low and must use other routes. In the photo at the left I am sitting down in my captain's chair and touching the bottom of the bridge. If the bimini top is up, I can stand comfortably with several inches of extra headroom.

Of course I have to include an obligatory train picture for Grandson Will. This is a CSX freight train that passed us. Unlike the eastern part of the canal, we only had a railroad track along side for a couple of miles. In the eastern canal the railroad, NYS Thruway and the Erie Canal are all crowded into the relatively narrow Mohawk River valley. Today the terrain was relatively flat and wide open so the transportation corridor is also pretty wide.

Next on the left is my "favorite" picture of the day. Here comes a genuine red neck cruise ship...  I do not know if this vessel had wheels on it, but it sure enough looked like a travel trailer on the water...

The picture on the right shows Lucky Us at the free town dock/wall in Lyons, NY. Last night the dock in Baldwinsville was free, but we did have to pay for electricity. Lyons did them one better with a free dock and free electricity. Wow! That's a deal that is hard to beat - free electrons. There is a dam and lock just out of view to the left, and the town of Lyons is in the background where you can see several domes.

Last, and I may not be kidding about the "last" part, this was my dinner this evening. We had an unofficial greeter stop by the boat with brochures, and she made several suggestions about restaurants and shops. We chose a 1950s retro style diner for dinner. My dinner (picture at left) consisted of a double hot dog topped with pulled pork and covered with cole slaw and chopped onions. Yes, it was served on paper with the lovely home made French fries. Most of you probably know that I generally eat pretty healthy, but this sandwich was off the scale! Guess that I will need to eat healthy for a couple of years to make up for this???

Day 2-227 (finally) off to Baldwinsville, NY

We left the dock in Oswego, NY at 8:00 am, and headed up the Oswego Canal. It was hazy at the dock, but there was fog out on Lake Ontario. The further we got away from the big lake the better the weather got. The trip included 7 locks on the Oswego Canal and one on the Erie Canal for a total lift of about 130 feet. The photo at right is of Lock O (for Oswego) -5. All of the other locks are on the side of the river. At this lock there is a power plant with a discharge on the right and a dam with its spillway on the left. Thus, entering this lock there is turbulence on both sides of the channel, which makes for a more difficult entry/exit of the lock.

We have come through the Oswego Canal before on Day 2-203 on our way from the Eastern Erie Canal to Oswego and Lake Ontario. So, the views were something of a repeat but in the opposite direction with different sun angles. After about 23 miles and 7 locks, we reached the Erie Canal and headed west to Buffalo 192 (canal) miles to the west. We got a kick out of the speed limit...  Since we were going upstream against a fairly strong current, our cruising speed of 8 mph was often 7.2 mph or less. The current was stronger than normal due to recent rainfall while we were on our weather delay for 2 days in Oswego.

Once we made the turn to head west on the Erie Canal, the scenery was new and at times quite "unusual". For example, the photo on the right shows a life size pirate on a rope up in a tree.

After seeing this pirate, I thought that I would make a comment about "red necks" in New York, but in all honesty, there were no junk cars in the yard, no over-stuffed, living room couches used as lawn furniture and the house was not a mobile home...

Well, we did see some really beautiful things as well. For example, we passed slowly by these three swans who seemed quite oblivious to our presence. This is only the second time that we have passed swans in the wild, and as you can see, we were really close.

In case you have not noticed, sights like this are just one of the many things that I love about this trip!

Okay, it is now time for a picture for Grandson Will who likes tugs. Here is some of the traffic that was tied along a lock wall. This is about all of the commercial traffic that we saw today, but we did pass numerous cruisers and trawlers and one classic, 85 foot Burger motor yacht. Absolutely beautiful!

We went about 12 miles west on the Erie Canal to Baldwinsville, NY. The Erie follows relatively flat terrain in this region. For example, our trip tomorrow covers 48.6 miles with only 2 locks with a total lift of only 12 feet. That's pretty flat! We are moored along the town dock (wall). The dock is free, but we do pay a modest ten dollar fee for electricity. Quite a bargain, but the small towns along the canal have learned that the boaters staying overnight buy meals, groceries, fuel, etc. Tonight there were 8 boats moored along the town dock, and the picture at the left was taken from Lucky Us looking back at the lock (far right), town park(left) and the historic downtown in the background.

All in all, it was another great day on the water!

Days 2-225-6 "Conflicted" in Oswego

We had planed to head south on the Oswego Canal yesterday morning, but after checking the weather, we decided to stay an extra day. Then we did the same thing again this morning. So why "conflicted"?  Well, it means to be "at odds with", and after making a decision to stay in port, it is easy to spend a lot of time second guessing that decision. For example, we had a bad line of storms come through late last evening, but it was well after we would have reached our next destination. Also, we had intermittent rain showers both days, but the rain total was less than half an inch on each day. The bottom line is that we did not spend a lot of time second guessing, but rather we ate lunch out and went to movies (Jersey Boys and Edge of Tomorrow) both days. Even more important is that the admiral was able to get her hair cut.  In addition, we got a lot of routine maintenance/chores done. We also found out that NAPA Auto Parts delivers. At least they deliver when you buy $190.00 worth of oil and filters...

As of 9:00 pm this evening, the weather looks good for the next 4 days so maybe we will be off in the morning? Stay tuned.

Day 2-224 in Oswego, NY -"lowering" the air clearance

It is nice to have a "catchy" title for each blog, but today is not one of those days. We entered the Erie Canal from the Hudson River and traveled west to the Oswego Branch Canal, which we took north to Lake Ontario. As we traversed that portion of the canal the minimum clearance under fixed bridges was 20 feet. Our air draft or vertical clearance is about 18.5 feet so we had no worries. When we leave Oswego in the morning, we will take the Oswego Canal south to rejoin the Erie Canal and head west to Lake Erie. After we re-enter the Erie Canal, the last fixed bridge for the day has a clearance of 15 feet. This is a problem that we knew about in advance, but today was the day to take things down.

Today we took down the radar mast which has a large aluminum hinge. That reduces our air draft to just over 16 feet (see photo at right). The radar dome is in the lower left corner and you should also be able to see the mast with the hinge at the bottom. We knew that we could lower the mast easily since we had the hinge custom made to our design and installed it ourselves. In the picture you can see that the side panels have been removed from the flybridge enclosure. The top, which is called a bimini, is still mounted on the stainless steel frame. The frame has about four hinged arms or supports on each side. In order to lower the whole frame without completely removing it, we have to remove 2 set screws on each side. Then we can fold all of the cross bars together along with the (blue) bimini top and lower or swing the whole thing toward the stern. We successfully lowered the top once without any problems, and this reduces our air draft down to 13 feet 9 inches. However, it took a lot longer to put is back up since the bimini is tightly stretched when all of the set screws are replaced. So, the first three set screws were easy, but the final set screw was difficult to get threaded... We will probably want to raise and lower the bimini often, since the bimini provides a lot of protection from the sun and fairly good shelter from rain.  However, we will try to find an easier solution.

The Port of Oswego was pretty busy today so we have plenty to see while we worked up on the flybridge. At least 5 boats came out of the canal and into the marina while several others either moored on the free canal wall (no electricity) or went on out into the lake. There was also one tug and a huge barge unloading at the Port Authority. The picture at the left is of the tug Margot which came out of the canal with a barge. The tug was moored on the canal wall in order to raise its radar mast, light and antennae before entering Lake Ontario. We also saw two sailboats that had come out of the canal yesterday get their masts re-stepped today. Like I said, it was a busy place here today...

Day 2-223 to Oswego open water cruise on a "mill pond"

We left the dock at Navy Pier Marine at the "crack" of 8:05 am this morning and headed 42.2 miles back to Oswego, NY. As we rounded Navy Pier and entered Black River Bay, we passed the Commanding Officer's home at the edge of the battlefield. The picture at right shows the back porch and the waterside of the house. The small building is the pump house that pumped water from a depth of 30 feet in the bay. To the right of the pump house was the site of the outhouse. The outhouse actually had a flush toilet that was primed by water from a tank in the attic. The effluent was piped out to the cliff at the waters edge. Thus, the sewage outlet and the water inlet were only a few feet apart. In today's world, that close proximity would be considered unsafe at best...

A short distance later we passed the site of the battlefield. The picture at left shows the battlefield with a steep cliff at the waterside. The earthen works and several small forts with cannons would have made any landing from the waterside impractical.

The attacking British and Canadian forces landed safely several miles to the west. The picture at the right is looking south with Horse Island on the right and the mainland with the battlefield to the left. The enemy landed on the west side of Horse Island (out of view to the right of the picture). They crossed the island and forded to the mainland along a shallow sand bar between the island and the mainland. They then proceeded east (left) through thick forest for a about a mile until they reached the clearing where the defenders were entrenched. Later the retreating enemy would have to repeat the fording and cross Horse Island to rowboats waiting to take them to the warships. Their casualties amounted to about 30% dead and wounded who were left behind in the hasty retreat. Walking around the battlefield and then passing the entire scene on Lucky Us really helped to put the whole battle in perspective.

About 8 miles west of Sackets Harbor, we passed the Stoney Point Lighthouse on the mainland and actually entered Lake Ontario. There were still at least two good sized islands, but otherwise, we were in open water for the remaining 34 miles to Oswego, NY. As you can see in the picture above, the wind was so light that there were only small ripples on the water. Believe it or not, there was no wind out in the Lake Ontario. Hence the reference to cruising on a mill pond in today's title.

When we approached Oswego, there was a light onshore breeze starting about 3 miles out from shore. In the picture at the left you can see the glassy water with the start of ripples from the onshore breeze in the distance. The large cooling tower on land is part of the Nine Mile Point (nuclear) Power Station. So, at this point we are a little over an hour away from Oswego.

As we entered the out harbor at Oswego, there was a crane on a barge that was dredging the channel with a bucket and dumping the sediment in barges to be dumped just off shore in a deep part of the lake. This ended the smoothest open water crossing that I have ever been on. We then proceeded to the Oswego Marina where we had stayed almost three weeks ago when we first arrived in Oswego via the Oswego Canal from the south.


We plan to spend two nights here in Oswego before heading to Lake Erie at Buffalo, NY via the Erie Canal. Between the start of the Erie Canal at the Hudson River and Oswego, all of the bridges were high enough for us to pass safely underneath. On the way to Buffalo we will pass under quite a few bridges with vertical clearances of as little as 15 feet.  With the radar mast up we have a clearance of about 18.5 feet. I say "about" because the weight of the boat is dependent on how full our water and fuel tanks are. We carry about 300 gallons of fresh water and 600 gallons of diesel fuel, which when full would weigh about 7,000 pounds. Its pretty simple. The more the boat weighs, the deeper we float, which reduces vertical clearance but at the same time it increases the draft (depth of the hull). One of the things that we will be doing tomorrow is practicing lowering the radar mast to get our height down to about 16 feet. We will also be removing the sides of the flybridge enclosure so that we can lower the bimini top to get under 15 feet of vertical clearance when necessary.

Day 2-222 Historic Sackets Harbor -a relaxing (?) day

We are staying 2 nights at the Navy Pier Marine Marina in Sackets Harbor. The previous sentence sounds like a lesson in bad grammar and poor spelling, but... Our location is Navy Pier Marine, which does have a marina, and Sackets has only one "t" and no apostrophe (possessive case). Confusing, but it is a nice marina just across from the restored downtown. The marina is built on Navy Pier, which appears to be a natural pier that protects the harbor. I took the picture of Lucky Us standing on Navy Pier, and the town is to the upper right across the small bay (i.e. across Sackets Harbor).

At the start of the War of 1812, the US sent 4,000 men, including over 1,200 shipwrights, to Sackets Harbor. The purpose was to build a fort and ships to gain control of Lake Ontario and to protect the US from any possible invasion by British and Canadian forces. They were able to build as many as 15 ships per year, including several in as few as 8 weeks. The photo at left shows the home of the Garrison Commander and his family, which is just outside the gate of our marina. If this looks like a southern style plantation home, you are correct. The government, or at least the Navy, was building this style home for its base commanders no matter where the base was located during this time period. The walls were not insulated, and it had no heat.  The walk around balconies were omitted from the sides, which saved enough money to add a crude central heating system.

The garrison at Sackets Harbor came under attack by a fleet of ships on May 29, 1813. The actual battlefield was right in front of the Commanders home. The small forts and earthen works have long since been removed as the area returned to farming after the war. The big trees were planted on the 100th Anniversary of the start of the war, and the smaller ones were planted on the 200th Anniversary to replace ones that had died. You can see the waters of Black River Bay down low through the trees. There is a near vertical cliff about 20 to 25 feet high at the edge of the water. This made an idea location for gun emplacements to defend Sackets Harbor against attacks from the water. In a surprise (?) move the enemy landed troops just to the west and attacked by land because of the strong sea side defenses. The fierce day long battle ended with both sides retreating after apparently thinking that they had lost. The invading forces re-boarded their ships and headed back to Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The US was able to gain control of the other Great Lakes but not Lake Ontario as no other major battles took place after this one.

The town is very pretty with an array of historic and newer buildings. Pictured at left is the Union Hotel, which was completed in 1817 about 3 years after the war ended. It is constructed out of local limestone and has been restored by the state, which now owns the building.

One of the art shops downtown has a lovely "Fairy Garden" planted in the front yard. The picture at right is just one small spot in a garden with about 20 other fairy settings. It is quite an eye catcher as you walk down the street. We couldn't help but think this would be a grand place for Sarah and Katie, our granddaughters, to play. 

After all these posts, you might have gathered that eating is an important part of my "learning" about local towns. Last night we had dinner outside with live music. The picture at the left was taken from a balcony over the harbor where we had dinner tonight. The marina is across the harbor at the upper left. The weather today was picture perfect with only a few scattered high clouds. The temperature was in the low 70s due primarily to the "cool" water all around.




After a full day of (relative) rest, education and great food, we will be heading out in the morning back to Oswego, NY where we will use the canal system to head to Lake Erie. See ya!

Day 2-221 to Sackets Harbor via Clayton, NY

"Oh Honey, I just read that there is a Hand Weavers Museum in Clayton, and we missed it when we stopped at the Wooden Boat Museum". Okay guys. Of course, you would say "Well, we'll be going right passed there today, and it would be no problem to stop for a couple of hours". As it turned out, there is a free city dock right downtown about 2 blocks from the museum.

Judging from the pictures that she took, I missed a nice but small museum. However, all was not lost, since there is a large, marine-oriented Ace Hardware right in the middle of downtown.

She also took this picture of a very unusual hand woven purse. It certainly looks very intriguing, but I am not sure how useful it would be unless you were a army sniper in full camouflage. However, remember this is "art" on display in a museum.

On the way back to Lucky Us we found a great little cafe for a mid morning coffee, and the Admiral ordered me French Toast Fingers as a snack. I guess that I gave the correct answer (see above). The cafe had booths along one wall, and the back to back bench seat featured these replica wooden boat sterns on the ends. This is quite an elaborate  and beautiful piece of art and not "just" a bench seat. However, remember that we were in a town with a wooden boat museum, lots of gifted woodworkers and long, cold winters... There were five of these boat transoms, which were similar in shape but with different, fun names.

Then it was time to fire up Lucky Us and complete the rest of our planned trip of 54.2 miles to Sackets Harbor, NY. After only 4 days of having islands everywhere, it was a big change to come out of the St. Lawrence River into the wide expanse of Lake Ontario. As we reached Lake Ontario, I counted 68 of the large windmills that generate electricity. With prevailing westerly winds the east end of the lake is a logical, if unattractive, place to generate electricity. Once out in the lake we headed in a southerly direction between some large islands and the mainland toward our destination of Sackets Harbor. Finally, we turned east into the Black River Bay where Sackets Harbor is on the south side a few miles into the Black River Bay. We plan to spend 2 nights at Navy Point Marine to see some of the important War of 1812 history of this area and to rest up after our busy tour of the Thousand Islands.

Day 2-220 our day to tour the 1000 Islands

Today we had a very busy day with a two hour boat tour through the Thousand Islands and tours of Boldt Castle and Boat House. First, the Admiral let me sleep in a little because she had a long day arranged. We had planned to take either Lucky Us or the dingy on a tour through the islands, but she surprised me by arranging for a guided boat tour instead. This was wonderful for me since I was not busy navigating around the islands and had much more time to enjoy the views. Also, aside from the usual corny jokes by the guide, we got a running narrative of what we were seeing.

As we left the dock, one of the first sights was of the Boldt Castle, which we would tour at the end of the boat tour. Construction on the castle began in 1900 and was halted in 1904 when Mrs. Boldt suddenly passed away. Since it was a gift to her, Mr. Boldt deemed that it would never be finished and that none of his family would ever live there. After many years of neglect and vandalism, the state of New York purchased the castle and the island for $1.00 with the provision that it never be renovated beyond the point at which construction stopped. In this view, you can see some scaffolding due to ongoing renovations. On the water in the foreground is the children's playhouse.

On the boat tour we crossed over into Canadian waters, and saw many more mansions although most of them are relatively new. The Admiral thought that it was interesting that we passed only one town, and it was Rockport, Ontario. We have taken Lucky Us to Rockport, Texas several times to visit her parents. They are about 4,400 boats miles apart. Quite a long way to travel to see two Rockports???

We passed the shortest international bridge between the U.S and Canada (picture at left). The owners live on the island on the left, but they also own the island on the right, which is in the U.S. In all there are over 1,800 islands large enough to have at least one tree growing on it. No tree? Then it is just a hazard to navigation and not an island...

We passed many beautiful homes, such as the one on the right. Many of the landforms in this area were created by the glaciers, which left only a thin layer of glacial till. Till by definition is poorly sorted, which means that there is a wide range of grain sizes from fine powder to large boulders. Thus, many of the homes have elaborate fences, stairs, gardens, etc. made from the larger rocks.

Oh yes, there are even islands that appear to be completely uninhabited. We were treated to views of eagles, ospreys, geese, and ducks, and well as many "babies".

The water is remarkably clear, and we thought that we could see the bottom in about 30 feet of water. Part of the clarity is due to Zebra Mussels, which are an invasive species that possibly came in via water ballast in a ship from The Black or Caspian Seas. They are filter feeders so they filter out fine sediment and also some pollutants. The clear clean water is nice, but the zebra mussels have created many other problems (sort of good and bad news).

The boat tour ended at Boldt Castle, where the first thing on our agenda was lunch... After a grilled chicken sandwich, small bag of chips and a Diet Pepsi, I was ready to tour the island and the castle. We started at the east end of the island where there is a "small" stone castle complete with a clock in one of the turrets that housed the electric generators and water pumps.

Then, and I know that you have all been waiting for this, the Admiral and I had our picture taken in front of a nice garden with the castle in the background. It was a beautiful setting, and from some angles it reminded me of the Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, Canada.


The elaborate stone work everywhere is really amazing, and don't forget that while the exterior shell was being completed, they could only work 8 or so months a year at best due to the severe winters.

Then it was off to the west end of the island to see the children's playhouse. The Boldt's had two children so there were two bowling alleys (but only one indoor swimming pool). There were several play rooms and an array of beautiful staircases. The stone work on the playhouse was much more random, which gave it something of a spooky look to it (?).  As with the main house, much of the interior restoration is a work in progress.

The guests arrived at the boat dock in the back (north) side of the castle and entered through the main entrance on the front (south) side. As you enter there is a beautiful staircase ahead, but the area is lit from above by this spectacular stained glass "skylight". I was standing on the bottom step of the stairs when I leaned back to take this photo. Thankfully, the Admiral was there to keep me from falling over backwards...

Most of the rooms on the main (living) floor have been restored, and some of the Boldt family bedrooms and parlors on the second floor have been completed. The ballroom is shown at the right, and no doubt an invitation to a party here was indeed an honor.

I also liked the large formal dining room, which in spite of the "rules" was partially furnished. In addition, there were parlors, billiard room, living room, reception area, etc. The is quite the place!

The next (and last) stop on our visit was to take a water taxi to the boathouse, which is located on a large island just to the north. The boathouse had huge doors to allow several large launches (40 plus feet, a speed boat (or three) and the large "barge" La Duchesse to enter. The high doors allowed the steam yachts to enter without lowering their smoke stacks, masts, etc. The four story tower area at the left is where the captain(s) and crew were housed. The windows on the top floor allowed a view of the castle so that they could be signaled whenever a boat was needed.

Once inside, the boats could be lifted out of the water by an elaborate system of vertical screws that were turned by hand to lift up a steel cradle that would hold the boat. There were shops for wood, engine, etc. work. The picture at left looks across two boat slips at a third slip where one of the yachts has been lifted out of the water like for winter storage. The high turret near the center of the boat house (above) contained a metal smoke stack that could be lowered over the smoke stack on the biggest yacht to allow the crew to fire up the boiler so that the huge boat could then back out under its own power. For 1900, they designed and built quite an amazing boathouse...

Our little 6 hour adventure was coming to close and it was time to take a ferry back to the resort and Lucky Us. Did I mention that the resort at our marina had both indoor and outdoor pools and hot tubs... What a nice way to relax after such a "strenuous" day...

Tomorrow we will head back out of the St. Lawrence River and head to Sacket's Harbor, NY. Time for a history lesson about the War of 1812.