Home Waters

 It’s been said that there’s no place like home and you know what, it’s true. 

We had a motion filled ride from Sackets Harbor today. We saw 2-3 footers most of the way and Melissa wasn’t feeling the best. Truth be told, we were taking the waves on the beam so we were rolling beam to beam most of the way. That makes for an uncomfortable ride no matter how you look at it. Sophie? Once again she slept through most of it. 😊 Hey FB, why is there no emoji of a Pomeranian wagging her tail huh? Get with the program will ya!

We cruised to North Bay on Carlton Island for lunch and a quick swim, yeah yeah yeah it was hot again, I know, broken record, blah blah blah.🏊‍♂️🤿

After lunch we made our way to Clayton’s Mary Street Dock. We tied to the dock and grilled a couple of  Montreal seasoned steaks for dinner. Melissa sautéed  some mushrooms to top the steaks with and made a broccoli salad for a side dish. YUM! 😋

After dinner we learned of a bass tournament that was taking place in the morning so we decided to go to our favorite anchorage, Picnic Point for the night. You know how I don’t like waking up at “oh dark thirty” when I’m on vacation. 🤣 There is one other boat here, it sure is crowded tonight!

It sure is nice swimming in cool, clear, and clean water after traveling through muddy water the last two weeks. Can you see the loons between me and the gazebo? There are no loons downstate. 

What do you mean? I AM smiling! 🤣

So, now that we’re back “home” so to speak. Here are a couple of cool stats for this trip.

Miles:  507

Engine Hours: 70

Miles so far this season: 1046

Total Sea Miles to date: 8,367 

Whew, that’s a lot of water!

Back in the Cruising Grounds

 We made it safely across Lake Ontario this morning, duh, I guess I wouldn’t be posting otherwise. I saw the weather reports and Doppler radar and determined we could be in Henderson Harbor before the rain clouds arrived. As we crossed the lake I saw the storms dissipate on radar. 

We still saw 2-3 foot waves with a 4-5 second period (interval). That makes for a choppy surface and a squirrely ride. Now there’s a nautical term straight from the back waters of some Louisiana swamp rat’s thesaurus, squirrely. It means not quite right, as in, it’s not exactly the way it’s supposed to be. Used in a sentence it looks like this:

How was the breeze at your house last night Timmy? Timmy says, “Well Billy-Bob, the wind during that  F5 tornado was gettin’ a little squirrily around the edges,  it blew all the dandelions out of my yard last night.”

So we made the turn into Henderson Harbor to look for a slip for the night. After almost getting the boat stuck in soft mud near Bays End Marina we hightailed it to Sackets Harbor and booked a slip at Navy Point Marina.

I strung up a hammock and snoozed a little in the cool shade of a large tree. 

We invited Terese over for dinner and we all went to Good Fellos for dinner. It was great. Ice cream for dessert and now to bed. Good night ya’ll. 

Northward Bound

 Today was our first official “laundry day challenge.” We put everything into the bike trailer and my canvas duffel and started our trip. Six paces into the journey I halted progress and demanded we take the bikes. I didn’t really feel like pushing and pulling that thing. I wanted to let the trailer hitch do all the work so all I had to do was pedal. Much better. 

We got the the washing done and went to Dunkin Doughnuts for coffee and yes, Melissa was good and resisted the doughnuts. I caved and went for the blueberry cake doughnut. We went back and got our laundry and took it back to the boat. Mission successful!

We readied the boat and cleared our first lock of the day at 1100 hrs. We turned north at Three Rivers Junction and are now northward bound.

I know, I’m starting to sound like a broken record but it was another hot day so we decide to jump in the water to cool off.  We saw two boats this morning and none all afternoon so we stopped the boat in the middle of the Oswego Canal and jumped in!

We made it to Oswego with minutes to spare, five of them actually, before the dock master left for the day. Between the canal speed limits and lock masters giving me dirty looks for getting to the next lock too quickly we just barely made it in time. Why do math teachers have to teach those guys time-distance-speed calculations anyway? All it does is get me dirty looks and a stern talking to! 😎 Just kidding, nobody said anything to me…yet.

After spending a little time cooling down and celebrating our safe arrival in port with a little “safe arrival” drink, we cleaned up and I took my girl to dinner. It was five o’clock you know…

Tomorrow, we cross the “Big O”, Lake Ontario. Here’s the latest forecast:  

THURSDAY...South winds 5 to 15 knots becoming west. A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms may produce gusty winds. Waves 1 to 3 feet.

Piece of cake…

  

The Long Slog Through Montezuma Wildlife Refuge

The day started out innocently enough, but don’t they always? 

 We got up early today and rode our bikes to an old Erie Canal lock to see what they looked like and compare size differences. The old locks were a LOT smaller than they are today. The cargo barges must have been much smaller than todays commercial boats.

We enjoyed a leisurely three mile bike ride and then prepared for the visit from one of Melissa’s college girlfriends. 

They spent the better part of an hour catching up in the still morning heat and humidity. After a too short visit, we made our way to the local fuel pump and paid our dues. We negotiated a cash price instead of the usual arm and leg for the amount of fuel we took onboard. After getting the fuel, filling the water tank, and getting a pumpout we were ready for the cruising day. It was one long day indeed.  We did see a family of deer getting water by the edge of the canal, two were fawns with their spots still on!

Melissa wanted some ice cream from Aldi in Baldwinsville and I wanted a 12volt extension cord for the car fan from Autozone. We both wanted 110 volt power for the AC unit so we could get some good rest. Do you know hard it is to sleep in a sauna? Me neither but it’s gotta be a little like what we’ve been in the last two days, or was it three? Not sure. Anyway, when we finally got here at 7:30, Melissa started cracking the whip to get the bikes ready to go to Aldi for ice cream. Who am I to argue with a woman that wants ice cream? Yes ma’am I say and we put the bikes in riding mode in record time and pedaled our way there before they closed. She also got a few bagels for breakfast sandwiches. I love that woman.❤️ I wonder what she wants. We saw a girls softball game and figured that’s as good as anyplace to eat the ice cream so we did. 

Now? We’re enjoying the AC and going to bed.

 Good night. 

Destination Reached: Dinosaur BBQ, Rochester

 We cruised the Erie Canal and took a sharp right turn into the Genesee River and headed into Rochester, our destination and turn around point.  

These are signs I don’t normally see on the boat and I’m a little confused. The sign is telling me to turn to starboard to go to Rochester but if I do I’ll drive the boat into the riprap along the shore. Maybe I’ll just wait for the Genesee River and make my turn then.

We made it to Rochester for lunch at the Dinosaur BBQ! Yay!

We enjoyed a great lunch at one of New York’s best BBQ Joints, Dinosaur BBQ. It’s not the mesquite pits from back home in Arizona but hey, it’s the best NY can do and I gotta give credit where credit is due,  Dinosaur is some pretty great stuff! 

No, she didn’t eat it all herself. I, being the guy I am, ate most of it. Yum! 😋

Did I mention it was a little warm today? I knew I shouldn’t have said anything about Arizona, crap! We did a little walking around before lunch and snapped a couple of selfies on the way. 

We made it to Lock 30 and called it quits for the day. We found some shade and went to work setting up the table and chairs to take full advantage. Tomorrow we plan to go to the old Erie Lock 60 by bike and see the difference in size. Cool! 

Melissa got in touch with the teacher that she worked with when she (Melissa) was a student teacher 30 years ago. They had a great visit and we enjoyed a wonderful sunset before the mosquitos started feasting on us. After quick good byes we buttoned up the boat and fired up the generator to cool the boat down with a little air conditioning.

Casa Larga or Bust!

Today, before we left Fairport and made the short run to Pittsford, Melissa and I made a run with our bikes and trailer in tow to the local Wegmans for some provisions. 

With the groceries in the bag, we made our way out of the parking lot and due south on NY 250 as fast as we could pedal. Unbeknownst to us, but knownst to the local civil engineers, there are five, yes 5, very large hills on Turk Hill Road. You would have thought the name would have given it away and I would have picked a different route, nope, I went to the University of Hard Knocks where I graduated with a BS degree. 🥴
 

We eventually made it to the winery and shared a couple flights of their vintages and selected a couple bottles to bring back home. The jury’s still out on whether it not they’ll make it all the way back home. 

We made it back to the boat and put the groceries away and then made the short run to Pittsford. We relaxed in the shade before going to a cool Greek place called Aladdin’s and ordered gazpacho, a cold vegetable soup, and a mixed grilled dinner with chicken, shrimp, and sirloin on greens and pita bread. TASTY!! We added a couple Greek white wines to wash it down with before returning to the boat and watching a DVD and cooling of with a little AC before lights out. 

This was a cool shore anchor that another boater was using to tie up to the shore, I need a couple of those things too! Very handy to have in remote island shores (think Bahamas)!