Our First Post

                         The Secret of Life is Enjoying Passage of Time

 

 

July 10, 2022, Watertown NY: Well, it has been an interesting week to say the least. We had two intruders jump aboard the boat one night in Phoenix NY and we had a battle with an underwater object and lost that fight. Details to follow but let us start where we left off last week. One thing I now understand in publishing this blog, if we are sharing, we must share it all, the good the bad and the ugly so we are putting ourselves ALL out there.  No Judging Allowed!

July 2, Travel Day 16, Brewerton NY to Phoenix NY, 10 Miles 2 hours total travel time: After not getting anything accomplished in three days at Ess-Kay in Brewerton, they recommend we go to Alexandria Bay. We made arrangements with Horizon Marina in Alexandria Bay to work on our battery issues on July 5^th after the holiday weekend, so we had a short hop to Phoenix NY and planned to stay on the town wall, which was right in town and close to stores and restaurants. We had a leisurely morning in Brewerton and headed out at 10 AM, and arrived in Phoenix around noon, a short 10-mile day, a very pleasant cruise. We walked around town after lunch and did a few projects on board mostly trying to clean the mud from deck and sides of the boat. The ropes that you hang onto in the locks are filthy and covered in mud. We only had one lock that morning and the town wall is located just before the Phoenix lock so would be how we would start our morning locking thru first thing. Went out to dinner and go back aboard went to bed around ten.

We have a forum that the Great Loop Association publishes every day. It is a wealth of information that present and past loopers share their experiences with. I have learned a lot from having read this forum it every day for 4 years. Here is a post that I published earlier this week.

 

It was a spooky event, I was in the salon as I mention and these two guys get on board and walk up to the helm and start walking around and I am yelling at them with this fire extinguisher in my hands ready to blast them if they entered the salon, which they did not. They left and the State police officer showed up and of course no one was located. The police officer left after 15 minutes and of course we did not get much sleep after that event. I also mentioned in the post we had stayed on town walls before without instances and in fact the next night stayed on the wall in Oswego and once again had no issue and Oswego is a city and it felt safe.

 

Day 16 Track

 

 Phoenix Wall 

Phoenix Lock

 July 3, Travel Day # 17 Phoenix NY to Oswego NY: 18 miles, 5.5 hours total travel time. We had been watching the weather in advance to make sure we had a great day to cross Lake Ontario and Monday July 4^th was looking like a perfect day 1-foot seas and 3-5 knt wind from the west so it would be on our stern and make for a good crossing. 

Therefore, we had another short day only having to travel eighteen miles and we had several locks to go thru so we took our time. This would be our last day in the Oswego canal and once again it feels very much like a canal very narrow and extraordinarily little traffic even on the holiday weekend. There was not a lot to see on shore as we cruised the canal. We left Phoenix just after 9 am and arrived in Oswego around 2 pm. We tied up and walked into town to check it out. Oswego has done an impressive job in revitalizing its downtown. Lots of renovated old mill buildings which have been turned into nice apartments and a few new hotels. When we got to downtown, they had the main road blocked off and had a festival going on with food venders, lots of carts and craft venders, and a band playing. It was very well done and so we spent time together and enjoyed a few local IPA’s.

Track for Day 17

Pictures

Oswego Canal 

 

 

We docked at Oswego downtown wall and the fireworks were set off that night from the old railroad bridge which they have transformed into a cool pedestrian bridge which was located a ¼ of a mile behind us. It was an outstanding location to enjoy the spectacular fireworks.

Firework Pictures

 

 

July 4^th, Travel Day # 18: Oswego NY to Alexandria Bay (crossing Lake Ontario): 65 Miles:  8 Hours total travel time. We got up, had coffee, and prepared the boat for the crossing as we wanted to make sure everything was battened down in case the wind or waves picked up, and got underway just around 7:15. The weather forecast was still calling for a light -winds but the waves were forecasted for 2-3 feet which was fine.  It was a partly cloudy in the morning but cleared by mid-day and we had excellent visibility all day. We had two loopers about three miles ahead of us who it turned out were going to Clayton which is ten miles south of Alex Bay and two loopers behind us who were headed to Kingston Ontario. The two behind us passed us around noon as they were traveling at 8.5 knots, and we were doing 7.5 knots. We did not catch up with the two folks ahead of us until we got in the St. Lawrence Seaway channel. It was a very pleasant crossing and we had land in sight most of the twenty miles crossing on the eastern shore. Entering the St. Lawrence seaway is exciting as that is where the Pilot captains get on and off the tankers that travel up to Montreal and beyond. We encountered two tankers while we were in the river one behind us and one, we passed who was headed south. Darn big ships when you go by them. Pretty cool however to look up at them, they sure push a lot of water around.

The St. Lawrence River was beautiful, some amazing estates dotting the shores with a lot of recreational boaters zipping around. It was a remarkably busy channel. About five miles up the river you get into The American Narrows, which is where you pass under the Thousand Island Bridge which connects the USA with Canada. It was a great crossing and an exciting trip up the St. Lawrence River, however as we headed into the Thousand Island Club to our slip, I cut the channel a bit to close and hit bottom with our props. Bottom line was it was a narrow entrance, and I should have been on the starboard side not in the center of the channel (it is a privately marked channel not a government channel), and when we got in, they said “oh yeah someone misses that channel every week!  Wonderful time to find out! At any rate we got into our slip and had a diver go under the boat and sure enough we damaged both props, one slightly the other not so lucky.

 

Track Day 18

 

Pictures Day 18:St. Lawrence River

 

 Wind Turbines  on the Canadian Side of the St Lawrence 

 July 5, Thousand Island Club, Alexandra Bay (Alex Bay): We had previously scheduled work with Horizon Marina in Alex Bay to have the battery issues address so we had a relationship with them and luckily, they are a full-service marina. The owner Mike showed up at 10 AM, he also owns the Thousand Island Club (great spot) and jumped aboard and drove us and the boat over to his haul out area and wanted to check out any other issues with the boat.  He is great man as is his son Graham, who runs the Thousand Island Club and is treating us very well. We are sure glad we had him around. They hauled us out and left Her Idea in their inside storage building, which is where she sits today  

       

Breaks my heart to see her ashore ☹

 

They pulled the two props and brought them to their local company who could not fix the #2 prop. So, Wednesday they then sent it to bigger company, and they also could not repair it. Props must match exactly so you must have an exact pair, so it was not worth fixing one as we could not find that exact prop, (a four blade twenty-four” prop) so we must get two new three blade props of similar size. They are on order and will be ready on this Tuesday, so Meredith and I are renting a car and driving to Flushing New York to pick them up on Tuesday afternoon and get them back to Mike on Wednesday. With luck we will be back in the water by the weekend. They are working on the battery issues (which has not gone away, we had to run our generator twice crossing Lake Ontario to keep the house battery charged enough to keep the electronics on!).

 

Prop 1 (not bad)                                                                                  

                             

Prop #2  (Really Bad)

                                           

Track July 5. Ashley has been tracking us on NEBO, and when she saw the boat on the road, she called us and said, “what’s up”....... are you out of the water???” Ashley, it is a long story” ………. but now you all know. 

As I said earlier, it is the good, the bad and the ugly, hoping this is the worst of it….

 

 

July 6^th, Boldt Castle, Alex Bay we had two days to kill so we went over to Boldt Castle. Mr. George Boldt was building the castle however, it was never finished. He was building the castle (6 stories 120 rooms) for his wife who died, at an early age, and he stopped construction upon her death. However, what he did build was magnificent and here are several photos I wanted to share. Mr. Bolt was an immigrant from Prussia, worked his way up in the hotel business and eventually was the general manager of the Waldorf Astoria in NYC when it opened in the 1904. He was so confident in its success he agreed to work for Mr. William Astor, for a commission not a salary. In his first year as GM, he made one million dollars. Now that is putting skin in the game. A million dollars of earning in 1904, with no taxes, that’s real money.

Pictures Boldt Castle 

 

 

The Boat House

That would be a tight fit!

Meredith said we have to start posting pictures with people in them

We departed Alex Bay last Thursday and are staying in Watertown NY for 5 nights. All the hotels were sold out in Alex Bay this weekend and with luck we will head to Flushing NY on Tuesday or Wednesday and pick up the new props.

We plan to spend a few days at the Thousand Island Club once we are back in the water the end of this week. We want to make sure all the battery glitches are gone and behind us. We are in beautiful cruising country here in The Thousand Islands therefore, we will make the most of it and do a few day trips here and then head to Canada next week with luck.

 

Fair winds