Day 2-219 to Clayton and Alexandria Bay, NY

We left Cape Vincent as fast as we could, which turned out to be a little after 8:00 am. The weather had cleared, and we left in light winds to head east (down river) on the St. Lawrence River. Our trip for the day was only 26.1 miles, but we planned a fairly long stop at Clayton, NY (14.7 miles) to visit the Antique Boat Museum.   ...and have lunch! Let us not forget about lunch. As we approached the dock at the museum (picture at right), a fleet of 7 (small) steam launches was just getting under way. Several of the museum's modern buildings are also visible (center and right).

The museum houses a large collection of antique boats from rowing, sailing and paddling small boats to speed/race boats to skiffs to larger pleasure craft. They restore boats in workshops on site, and they also have classes where you can learn to build a wooden boat from scratch. It is a boat lovers delight!

The picture at left shows a restored steam launch that is temporarily on display outside. These early steam powered boats were a wonderful advance, but given their propensity to explode, you can see how dangerous it might have been to ride in this launch.

They also have a fleet of three speed boats that they use on a daily basis. The photo at right shows one of these boats passing Lucky Us just after we departed from the museum. The beauty of the varnished mahogany is amazing, but of course, they require quite a lot of maintenance.

At the museum you go from building to building, and during one such traverse, we took a break and had a nice lunch at a new pub just across the street from the museum.

One of my personal favorite exhibits was this reproduction Captain's Chair. The Admiral found me in this chair several times... It was not as comfortable as my chair on Lucky Us, but during the long walking tour of the museum, it felt pretty good.

Lastly, we got a small taste of the Boldt Mansion when we toured La Duchesse, which was part of the fleet of boats at the Boldt Mansion which is just across the channel from the town of Alexandria Bay. La Duchesse is actually a large barge that was towed by a tug boat, but mainly it was moored at beautiful locations to entertain guests. There are two fireplaces, an original Steinway piano, guest and owner's quarters, dining room, lounge and spacious decks for viewing. The "boat" is currently being restored at the museum after many years of neglect. The original wood hull was replaced at some earlier point by a steel hull, but much of the interior was intact although modified by a previous owner.

We left about 2:00 pm to head for our final destination at Riveredge RESORT in Alexandria Bay. Yes, I did mean to put emphasis on the word resort. After a bad experience last night, we were looking forward to a little "pampering".

We followed the St. Lawrence Seaway channel some of the time, but we also went out of the channel to go around several islands. To be "officially" counted as an island, there must be one living tree. We passed several islands that barely qualified as islands, such as the one in the picture at the right.

We also passed several beautiful lighthouses, such as the Rock Island lighthouse shown in the picture at the right. Almost everywhere you look it seems like a post card view. So far, this side trip to the Thousand Islands has definitely been worthwhile!

As we began to approach Alex (short for Alexandria) Bay, we began to see both modern and old (early 20th Century) mansions with huge boat houses. The photo at left shows a "new" one... Tomorrow we hope to tour around the Alex Bay area on both the American and Canadian sides of the boarder so there will be plenty of pictures of "Millionaire's Row" in the next post.




I had not known what to expect about water depths, but depths outside the channel were often over 100 feet. The depths in the channel were variable, but they were occasionally over 200 feet. They did have to build several dams and locks since Lake Ontario is about 246 feet above sea level, but the river had naturally eroded its channel to great depths in between the rapids where they built the locks. It was truly amazing to be going 200 feet off a rocky point and see the depth gauge read 180 feet. Of course, there are some shallow areas where extreme care is necessary.

The last picture is of Lucky Us docked at the Riveredge Resort. The hotel is at the right and the Seaway channel is about a quarter of a mile out from Lucky Us. Speaking of depths, the depth finder read 164 feet just a short distance beyond the hotel. The hotel has both indoor and outdoor pools and hot tubs. Whoop!

Day 2-218 Fair Haven to the Thousand Islands

Today (June 17, 2014) was a long trip across the eastern end of Lake Ontario. It was 60.7 miles in open water, except for about the last 5 miles in the St. Lawrence River, to our final destination at Cape Vincent, NY. Of course, there were more "Goodbyes" on the dock before our 7:00 am departure. Notice how happy Hank and Joan appear to be... Surely, it could not have anything to do with me leaving after so many wonderful days???

They were such good hosts that we might just have to do the Great Loop again to have another long visit. :o)  Seriously, we had such a great time!

About an hour out into Lake Ontario we finally hit fairly dense fog. We had been able to see the fog bank up ahead since leaving Little Sodus Bay. The visibility very rapidly dropped from 6+ miles in haze to about 1/4 mile. Cruising at 8 mph means that it takes us about 4 seconds to go one full boat length. This means that even with the limited vision we had plenty of time to avoid obstructions or even stop. However, I do get tense after a period of time spent staring at the water ahead. We traded off some and moved around (stand up, sit down, repeat) to relax and break the monotony.

Fortunately after a little over 2 hours, we did finally get out of the fog for the remainder of the trip. The final picture of the day shows the entrance to the St. Lawrence River, which looks like a wide bay. In the picture Lucky Us is headed east with the south shore of the river on the right, and a small island just visible left of center. We did pick up about 0.4 mph due to a slight current in the river at this point. No doubt the current will go up at narrow spots in the river later on.



My first impression of our marina in the small town of Cape Vincent, NY was that it had a rather "unloved" look about it. The young man who helped with the dock lines said that the owner would be back later for us to register. Well, at least the price was good, and the two 30 amp electric power outlets worked.  That is they worked for about an hour after the owner left then the power went out. We made several calls to the owner without success. Fortunately, there were two regular (as in household) electric plugs that continued to work. Thus, we could have a fan and the refrigerator plugged in and running. We ran the TV and various phone/computer chargers off of the house batteries using an inverter to make 110v AC from 12v DC, which we do most of the time anyway. Just as we began to settle in for the evening, a strong thunderstorm with winds of 25+ mph struck. Our luck just seemed to be getting worse...

The only good news in all of this was that the storm did cool the air enough that we got a fairly decent nights sleep with just the fan (and no air conditioning).

The good news is that tomorrow night we are staying in the marina at a "fancy" resort hotel with indoor and outdoor pools and hot tubs...

Days 2-206-217 in Fairhaven, NY R&R and great visit with Brother and Sister-in-Law

This is a planned break at my Brother and Sister-in-Law's home on Little Sodus Bay off Lake Ontario. We will get back to the "Rest and Relaxation" part later, but you might guess that there was some opportunities to rest but not a whole lot. At Hank and Joan's home in Fair Haven we are a 20 minute drive west of Oswego, NY where a branch of the Erie Canal enters Lake Ontario. The photo at right is of Lucky Us at their dock. The evenings were cool (50sF) so we declined the kind invitation to sleep in their home and slept well in the gentle rocking of the bay.

In the previous post you saw the greeting (by boat) as we entered Little Sodus Bay. This is Drift ,n Wood at her dock. She is a classic 1965 Lyman Soft Top Sleeper. Lyman Boat Works in Sandusky, Ohio is long gone, but many of the boats have been preserved and/or restored. She is 25 feet long and has lapstrake (overlapping) planks over steam bent oak ribs and beautiful teak and mahogany bright work. Interestingly, the boot stripe, water line and seat trim are all in (Aggie) Maroon...



During this time frame, the Admiral flew to Texas for a busy 7 day trip. She saw her Grandniece Terry Ann graduate from high school (which included a party with many family members and friends), had several visits, including an overnight, with our Grandkids, visited her parents in Rockport, TX for several days and also saw her nephew's triplets. Also, she got to spend quality time with her sister. Indeed, it was a very busy trip.

For over 25 years, my brother Hank has been the driving force behind the construction of the schooner OMF Ontario as a floating (and mobile/sailing) classroom. Starting with plans and a pile of steel plates she has been entirely built by volunteer labor. She is about 65 feet long on deck, but with the long bow sprit she is 89 feet overall. I was "invited" to go along for the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning work sessions. Just like most of the other volunteers, I learned a lot about the rigging, sail covers and setting sails. GREAT FUN!!!

The second schooner picture shows me all bundled up and reporting for work. The schooner is moored in the port of Oswego, and the wind seemed to always blow strongly off the lake, which is around 50F. To say that it was brisk would be an understatement.

There were lots of other activities including eating out, driving tours and a walking tour of downtown Fair Haven, which took about 5 minutes. The really special day was Father's Day when all of the nieces, nephews and their spouses showed up as well as all but one of the grand nieces and nephews. In spite of the cool water there were plenty of boating activities, and we moved Lucky Us out and anchored her to make room at the dock.

There were boat rides in Drift 'n Wood. The picture at the left shows the Admiral enjoying a ride around the bay.

The Admiral showed her sailing skills on a Sunfish while I went kayaking. The kids really enjoyed the "towables". This one (at right) would completely leave the water and "fly" when it hit a wave. It seems that Hank has a natural talent for finding high wakes, including his own.

In case you loved throwing wet tennis balls out into the bay, there were also four large retrievers just begging for a chance....

...and food. Let's not forget the food. There was plenty of it, and I was not bashful.

After dinner, it was time to take the "water taxi" out to Lucky Us to bring her back to the dock for the night. The taxi driver (my brother Hank) was proud to show off his cab. This overhead view from the flybridge shows more of the beautiful varnish work.

After all of the family was gone, we said a sad farewell to Hank and Joan with this lovely sunset as a back drop...

Day 2-205 off into Lake Ontario to Fair Haven, NY

At our dock in Oswego, NY the wind was perhaps 15 mph this morning at our planned departure time of 11:00 am. We were near a long line of trees and several large buildings, which tend to deflect any wind. Sometimes all you can do is to stick your nose outside and see what it is like... We went across the marina for a pump out, and then we headed out into the harbor. This was our view back toward Oswego, as we headed for the mouth of the outer harbor. The Oswego River is in the very center with various commercial building on the waterfront.

The Oswego lighthouse flanks the west side of the entrance to the harbor. It reminds me of the lighthouse in Lorain, Ohio where I grew up. Once we got well passed the lighthouse we would know what the (unobstructed) waves would be like. The decision to continue southwest to Little Sodus Bay was a pretty easy one since the waves were only about 1.5 feet. The sky was beautiful, but with a water temperature of 46F, the breeze was chilly. The actually trip was 17 miles overall with about 14 miles of that actually in Lake Ontario.

As we approached the channel between Little Sodus Bay and Lake Ontario, we saw Hank and Joan (brother and sister-in-law) coming out to great us in their classic Lyman runabout. Then we began a "classic" round of people in a boat taking pictures of you in your boat...

After lots of waving and a little horn tooting, they headed off to dock their boat and get ready to help us dock at their home. I will post some more pictures of Drift-n-Wood later since she is a beautifully restored wooden boat.

Little Sodus Bay is a little over 3 miles long, and the (little) village of Fair Haven, NY is at the southern end. The bay has many summer cottages and some year round homes along the shore. Lots of swimming, sailing, fishing and boating in the summer. The lake is continuously frozen over for 3 or 4 months in the winter and  very active with winter sports like ice fishing, ice boating, snow mobiles, skiing, etc.

Here is a picture of their marina (aka home). They have about 11 watercraft, and the number of water toys swells when their 3 children and there families (spouses and 5 grandchildren) visit. The photo was taken from the fore deck of Lucky Us and show just some of the water toys. It really is an idyllic setting!

We will be here for a while since the Admiral is flying home to Texas for a week. She has a busy week planned including seeing her Grand Niece (and namesake), Terry Anne, graduate from high school.

Day 2-204 rest (?) day in Oswego, NY

The term "rest day" is kind of a misnomer... I did get to sleep in, take a nap and go to a movie, which certainly qualifies as rest, but there was also some boat cleaning, putting away, etc. Fortunately, lovely, kind Admiral did more than her share of the "dirty work".

About half of the 40 odd slips in the marina are filled by charter fishing boats, and there are at least 6 transient slips. Our neighbors keep changing as masts, radar arches, etc. get stepped by mobile cranes, and then they seem to head out into Lake Ontario. The operative clearance height for the eastern Erie Canal and the Oswego Canal is about 20 feet so the yacht in the first photo has already had the arch, radar, satellite antenna, etc. replaced. All of that had to be removed from the deck at the bow where if was stored and then lifted into place for remounting. It was quite an operation to watch and hopefully good preparation for when we win the lottery...

Our other new neighbor today is a brand new US Coast Guard Response Boat – Medium (RB-M) boat. It is 45ft long with a top speed of nearly 50 mph. As the mission of the Coast Guard has evolved, this boat now has much higher speed, can mount 2 machine guns, bullet proof glass, infrared camera, etc. Obviously, one of its uses will be boarder patrol and drug interdiction.

My bother, Hank, stopped by for a quick visit this morning, and if all goes well, they plan to meet us outside the channel into Little Sodus Bay where they live. I have a mental picture of this escort through the channel from Lake Ontario into the bay, and it does not involve fire hoses shooting fountains of water into the air. Knowing my brother, the only water involved would be more like water balloons...

This picture shows some of the water (river) front with two hotels and some of the Port Authority facilities. There is also a classic Great Lakes style lighthouse in the outer harbor that I hope to photograph close up when we leave tomorrow (?).. The city of Oswego has done a great job developing walkways along the river, and the downtown area has undergone a nice revival. The old huge theater where we saw the movie "Maleficent" this afternoon has been subdivided into a 6 screen theater. Quite a novel idea that worked out very well.

The next photo shows part of the River Walk in front of the hotels in the previous photo. The bulkhead is part of a system of free walls that boats may tie up at for up to 2 days for free. You cannot beat that price, but of course, electricity, when available, does cost.

On the way back from the movie, which involved crossing a bridge over the Oswego River, the Admiral met a new "friend". We walked down to the last lock that we passed through yesterday, and there was a marmot who evidently has taken up residence in a lovely flower bed. There are a lot of activity near this spot, including fishermen, walkers, joggers and boats in the lock so it evidently used to being photographed (or perhaps fed). Marmots look like a large (and in this case -fat) squirrel. We have seen marmots at two other locks in the Erie Canal so perhaps they like the state's flower beds?

Day 2-203 Down the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario

We left the dock in Brewerton, NY at 7:45 am and passed through Lock E-23 (drop of 7.1feet) on the Erie Canal before we reached the start of the Oswego Canal about 8.7 miles away. The Erie Canal continues west to Lake Erie near Buffalo, NY. The photo at the right shows the junction with the Erie Canal going to the upper left and the turn north to Oswego on the upper right.

We will return to this junction in a couple of weeks to continue west to Lake Erie. However, in the interim we are going to visit my brother and sister-in-law (Hank and Joan) who live on Little Sodus Bay. The bay is on the south shore of Lake Ontario about 17 miles southwest of Oswego, NY. Should be lots of fun! The photo does do justice to the beautiful weather with clear skies, temperature in the 70s and a very light breeze.

Today was the warmest weather that we have had since late last summer traveling in the Atlantic Intra Coastal Waterway in the Carolinas. This was also the first day that we have had all of the windows in the flybridge enclosure open, and I was still sweating away... (I know that is unattractive but it is true...)

Many ducks and geese were out in force with swimming and feeding lessons, including this one family with an "ugly" duckling. The one duckling looked like a Mallard but was definitely yellow in color. No big deal, just a little different sight.

The locks in the Oswego Canal lowered us a total of 118.6 feet, but the canal itself has a fairly high gradient, which resulted in a 2+ mph current. I kept the engines running 2 to 300 rpm less than our normal cruise at 1500 rpm, and we still were going over 9 mph with the current. Well, that was nice, but when we come back going against the current we will lose that advantage.

The canal is so steep in places that there is a separate channel for the canal (left in photo) while the Oswego River (right in photo) flows swiftly along its own separate rocky channel.

We tried something new today. We stopped in the town of Fulton for a lunch break. We tied up along side the free canal wall and walked about a third of a mile to the Blue Moon Grill. Not only was the walk refreshing, but the food was really very good. We had met a couple on the Erie Canal who did this most every day, and as they pointed out, it "doubles" the number of places (e.g. small towns and parks) that they visit along the way. Obviously, we were lucky to find an excellent restaurant, but we do plan to try this concept of taking a mid-day break again. The photo at the left shows Lucky Us "resting" while we went off to Fulton for lunch.

Fulton is an old manufacturing town that had several gun makers as well as other industries. The view from the waterfront park is really nice, and the town has a nice shopping/dining area right along the waterfront. The picture at the right shows the town marina at the bottom. The lock is at the right center with the dam in the middle and a hydroelectric plant at left center. There is also a bridge in the background, which completes a very busy view.

The lock above is O-3, and here is a picture from inside the lock when we reached the bottom. We came down 27 feet, which is the biggest drop of the 8 locks that we went through today. I must give some high praise for the lockmasters on the Oswego Canal. We had been averaging a half hour or more on the Erie canal from the time that the gates opened for us to enter until the gates opened for us to exit the lock. On the Oswego Canal the locks were open as we arrived, and the whole process was about twice as fast. Thus, we saved several hours today during the locking process.

The photo at the right shows the beautiful dam at Lock O-6. The photo was taken from Lucky Us inside the lock before we went down another 20 feet. Being from Aggieland, where we hear all of the Aggie jokes, we felt somewhat at home on the Oswego Canal. We passed though locks 3 and 5 without going through lock 4... Indeed, there is no lock 4. It seems that at some point during the construction of the present version of the canal they decided that they did not need lock 4 so they left it out but never changed the numbering. Go figure...

Tomorrow is a day of rest at the Oswego Marina. Please note that "rest" includes a certain amount of boat cleaning as well as the movie "Maleficent". Oh Yes, food -let's not forget good food!

Day 2-202 crossing Oneida Lake

We left the dock at 7:00 am and went below our normal cruising speed to enhance our experience today. Our trip from Rome to Brewerton, NY was 36.7 miles and included 11 fixed bridges and 2 locks. On the trip up the Erie Canal (Mohawk River) we had gone up a total of 420 feet while passing through 20 locks. Today we went through 2 locks where we went down 25 feet in each lock. It is not a big deal, but the view changes going down (see photo at right). Before, we would enter the dark, empty lock going up to emerge into sunlight at the top. Today, we went into the lock in sunlight and went down to emerge from the dark cavern. The photo shows the aft end of Lucky Us as we were leaving the first of the two locks. Trust me, it is a more exhilarating experience to go up into the light. We have 8 more locks until we reach Lake Ontario via the Oswego Branch of the canal. Lake Ontario has an average elevation of 246 feet so we still have quite a ways to go (down).

After about 15 miles, including the 2 locks, we entered Oneida Lake, which is about 20 miles long east to west and perhaps 8 miles wide. It is another lake that was carved out by the glaciers, and water depths for us today were 35 to over 50 feet, which is by far the deepest water that we have seen since the lower Hudson River. The photo at the left shows the channel and adjacent breakwater at the entrance into the lake. You can see the ripples about 2 inches high on the water. The wind was from behind us and parallel to our route west on the lake so the little ripples grew into waves less than 1 foot high by the time we reached the far end of the lake. We did see two small fleets of sailboats racing and dozens of boats fishing around some rock piles in the lake. When we reached the far western end of Oneida Lake, it was about Noon and dozens of boats were streaming out the Erie Canal into the lake. They were going to have some of the best boating weather of the Summer. The western end of Lake Oneida is close to Syracuse and is connected by major highways. There were groups of houses along much of the lake, but the density increased at the western end and along the shores of the canal. There are quite a few marinas as well as restaurants in Brewerton at the junction of the canal and Lake Oneida. We chose a marina that is well known for its heated inside winter storage of larger boats like Lucky Us and bigger. Who knows? We might just come back here some day and want to store Lucky Us over a winter...

After we docked at Winter Harbor Marina, we had fun watching families of geese swimming past. In all cases there was one adult in front followed by the goslings in a row with the other parent at the end of the line. It was kind of like a military style march with straight rows. The goslings varied quite a bit in size from group to group, which probably meant several weeks difference in age (?). We saw the same kind of lines of geese later when we went to a waterfront restaurant about a mile away.

The last photo is of Lucky Us at her dock for tonight. It's not what you think! We were not pulled over by the Oswego County Sheriff. In fact, they were quite friendly even though our stern stuck out enough to partially block their slip.

Tomorrow we plan to start toward Lake Ontario at Oswego, NY. It is a distance of 32.4 miles with 8 locks. Our "big decision" for the day will come in the late morning when we will decide whether to stop overnight along the way or to do the whole trip in one day. Boy, I just love this retired life when something that simple is the biggest decision for a day...