Cape Vincent, NY July 31, 2015

We left Clayton, NY for the last time today at 12:30. Why anyone would want to dock there is beyond the four of us to understand.

Last night was pleasant enough as I mentioned yesterday, cocktails with the locals, etc. Then in the evening, the winds died as they should. It was a pleasant night for sleeping with a great breeze blowing through the open hatch in the V-berth. But, at 3:00 AM the breeze picked up significantly and water started to slap on the hull. By 3:30 the boat was rocking and rolling really badly. At 4:00 AM I got out of bed and added an additional dock line and bumper. For the rest of the evening I laid semi-awake trying to estimate how many feet the bow was rising and falling - 1? 2? - hard to tell. This is the one time on the trip that Kerry asked me to put out the red fenders.

The thing is, it's not just the boats on the outside wall that rock like this. The permanent dockers on the inside do it too. The docks are open at the bottom and the waves just roll through the entire harbor. And if the boats are not moving because of the waves, the wakes from some inconsiderate power boats zooming around keeps the boats rolling. We can't imagine why people dock there.

At 9:00 Jim and I went to the Boat Show while Kerry and Jola went for a facial. We met back at the boats at noon for lunch, and were gone by 12:30.

The boat show was very interesting. The Antique Boat Museum is there all the time, of course, and it is interesting just by itself. Add the Boat Show and you have a great event. Lots of boats for sale, for auction, a flea market, etc. They have tons of old boat stuff. I said to Jim, I hesitate to call this stuff a bunch of junk because it could be invaluable to someone restoring an old boat. He was thinking the same thing. 45 minute rides  were available on the old boats for $25, which is a good deal. We did that the last time we were here.

Nice antique boats giving rides

Restored boats going up for auction on Saturday

Not all boats for auction are in pristine condition

The trip to Cape Vincent was 17 miles, and took us 2 hours. We were going against the current and a 15-20 knot wind but in a powerboat is wasn't a big deal. Coming into Cape Vincent which is very near the entrance into Lake Ontario we ran into bigger waves. Apparently we made a spectacular entrance to the harbor as we had white water busting over the top of Annie against the color of a turquoise sea.

Jola took a picture of Annie in the St. Lawrence River, and also caught a pilot climbing aboard a freighter. Cape Vincent is a key center for pilots to board the big lakers.

The entrance to the harbor is protected by a breakwall. The marina entrance is closer to the east end. Jim suggested that we enter the west end to allow more time for Kerry to set up bumpers and lines for docking, which was a great idea. Thanks, Jimbo!

The best thing that can be said for the Anchor Marina is that is is just across the street from the liquor store. Bob who runs the store is a great guy. He likes boaters and gives them a 10% discount. He is also a Vietnam vet so we got along fine. We were able to buy a case of Cribari Chianti jugs. We love that brand but it is no longer sold in Ohio. He even delivered it to our boat. The docks in the marina are a bit rickety and there is no power for Jim. It is only $1 per foot though. It is tricky to twist into the harbor too, so we are already stressed about leaving.

Anna appears to be a permanent dry docker

Cape Vincent is a nice little town. People are friendly. The American Legion has a Friday night fish fry. There was a musical performance going on in the park. We had a great fish fry dinner at Captain Jack's after cocktails on Annie's upper deck. The decor at dinner was a bit unusual as you can see. The restaurant does not own the boat barn.

We hope to leave early tomorrow for Sackets Harbor, winds permitting. It would be difficult for us to escape the docks in a strong west wind. It should be about 20 miles. A small craft advisory starts tomorrow morning and goes through the evening. After that the winds appear to be near 20 knots for the next 3 days which would be pretty much on the nose as we go to Oswego. Marty is coming in on Monday and we hope to be in Oswego on that day. It is starting to rain and get windy now,  but we still are having a beautiful sunset.

KERRY'S COMMENTS:

Don and I are living in a tiny house, correction floating tiny house.  I have always wanted a houseboat and I finally got one.  "Anne" is approximately 352 square feet and has all the amenities of home, just on a much smaller scale,  Living aboard has been so much fun.  Anyone who knows me knows I am an organizer and a space planner.  I have had many challenges fitting all of our necessities on board. For the record though, I have one shelf of clothes and Don has two large drawers and one shelf.  We each share the hanging locker which is about 18" wide.  Who says women have more stuff?

Clayton NY July 30, 2015

Last night turned out to be very quiet and pleasant at the dock. As expected, the rolling and bouncing ended with the darkness when the small boats stopped running. It was pretty and still, and the lights on the public dock shining on the boats was a pretty sight.

The first thing I did this morning was check the weather and find two conflicting reports. The marine forecast was still doom and gloom, while the Weather Channel forecast was sun and fun. Over coffee and little white powered donuts, Jim and I decided we should stay here today, another change in plans. The wind forecast is for it to come from a favorable direction for our docking situation and it was not bad at all last night. Our plan would be to do the Boat Show tomorrow, then leave and go to Cape Vincent. It is raining now, but radar indicates it will stop soon.

A freighter passes Clayton in the early morning rain.

It turned out to be a tie on the weather reports. We had the sun and clear skies predicted by the Weather Channel, but the winds predicted by the nautical weather website. All in all not a bad day. The front that passed by carried away the heat and humidity.

Kerry and I walked to a drug store this morning, and then to the grocery. The little market here has very nice meats and a buy one package of cooked ribs and get one free special. Had to do that. Then it was off to the pedicure salon for Kerry and Jola, off to the barber for Jim and off to work on the boat horn for Don. 

I have two horns, one of which works. I took the other apart and tried to figure out why it does not work. Nothing was the obvious problem. I cleaned up all the parts and Jim and I checked to be sure it was receiving power, and it still does not work. R.I.P. 

We walked to town in the afternoon. One store has a lot of cute signs. This one was Kerry's favorite:

The winds had picked up by this time and Jim and I were anxious to get back to the boats to be sure they were riding the waves OK, and they were. I made martinis for us and a rum and tonic for Kerry. Jim and I sat on the dock and watched as several sailboats tried to anchor. Eventually they were all unsuccessful. One did get anchored and the crew took the dingy to town. Their boat started to drag anchor and was really moving backwards fast when they came back. One boat never could get his anchor to set. Others gave up when the anchors would not hold. When the anchors came up they were all filled with weeds, like on the boat below - and this captain did not have a windlass!

We met a very nice couple who dock here and live in a town on the Erie Canal, Dick and Joyce Saltore. They gave us some tips on good cities to visit, good restaurants, and told us we need to be sure to visit the Wagman's Grocery in Pittsford.  

We ate dinner on the dock using Annie's tale and chairs. It was just too rocky to eat on the boat. The antique boats were arriving all day today, and they are just beautiful. It is a treat to see them go by. Jennifer, the marina manager, said we could stay until 3:00 tomorrow before we have to leave. This will give us time to go to the Show. 

Kerry has been threatening to write an expose on life aboard a floating tiny house. She says she is ready to go to press tomorrow. We will see. 

Clayton NY July 29, 2015

We are in Clayton now. We were not sure we could get dockage. But finally this morning Jennifer at French Bay Marina confirmed she had room for us. My eyebrows raised when she said we would be on the end of the pier but should be fine because it was a low wind day. So, we probably have two of the worst docks possible to get. We are on the outside of a wall open to the St. Lawrence River. While the winds are not a problem, the wakes can be killers when the big ones hit. We have a gorgeous view, and a nice breeze, but . . . Jennifer said she will move us if she can.

It has been an interesting day, for sure. Last night there were four couples fishing in a pontoon boat about 10 yards from us. They were nice, not real successful, and left at dusk. So, this morning I get up and start my morning hygiene routine as normal. I peeked at Jola and Jim to see if they are far enough away that I can run around a bit in my birthday suit. I finish cleaning, dress and walk out into the main cabin and see the same fishing boat there again, but with 4 guys fishing in it. I don't know what they may have seen (well I guess I have some idea) but I am sure they are no better off because of it. They were still there as we had our morning coffee, and bacon and egg breakfast.

We have decided 9:30 was the time to leave. Jennifer wanted us here early because the docks would be hard to save. Annie was warming up when Jim called and said his engine would not start. We agreed I would motor over, raft off him and he could use Annie's power to run his little portable battery charger. We did that and in short order the engine was running again, but we had one frustrated Captain. 

The trip to Clayton from Rusho Bay was only 3 miles. After we signed in Kerry and I walked to town. I got a haircut and she bought a pretty new bathing suit. Later I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Samsung hoping to find out why her tablet will not work. I was transferred 7 times over 20 minutes, then finally disconnected. 

There are a lot of neat old boats here for the Antique Boat Show. We had planned to stay here 3 nights but the docking situation is not one we like, although it should be fine tonight when the small boat traffic subsides. Instead we made plans to stay Friday night at Cape Vincent, a place where I have never been, and will most likely go back to Rusho Bay tomorrow night. Jim may spend two nights at Cape Vincent. While it would be tolerable here, it is so much more pleasant anchored at an island. Hopefully we can stay here long enough to do the show in the morning. 

Back to Jim's batteries. He reread the manual about his charging system. He has house batteries, an engine starting battery and a windlass/thruster battery, and a switch that can connect them all temporarily. So he should be able to start his engine if any of the three are charged. His battery monitor said the house batteries were 100% charged, which is suspect after he had been anchored for 20 hours. The other day his inverter shut off which it is supposed to do when low voltage is present. So, does he have a problem? We do not know.A few minutes ago he said "I hate to tell you this, but the engine start switch may have been off when the engine would not start." He said Jola asked him if it was on. He could not remember, he said, but once it was on the engine started. I said you know this has to go into the blog. He said, "I know. I almost did not tell you."

Well, I screwed up too. For some reason I thought the Boat Show started tomorrow. It doesn't. It starts Friday. Darn. And my plan for anchoring out tomorrow night - in the dumper too. Some weather is supposed to come through starting tomorrow afternoon with small craft advisories and high winds predicted so it will be better to be at a dock. Showers and thunderstorms are possible tonight.

So, we have a new plan. We will go to Cape Vincent tomorrow morning, hopefully before the weather hits. Then we will rent a car on Friday and drive back to the Boat Show. One possible flaw in the plan could be if there are no car rental places in Cape Vincent. We talked to one local on the dock who said Cape Vincent was stuck in time. I said that was called quaint. He said it was called no car rental. We will see.

We sat out on the dock and enjoyed our cocktails. We are just like real power boaters now, moving our chairs off the boat and on to the dock. And, one of us has backed in. The sterns together prove that one of us did it. We just don't know which one it was!

Which boat is backed in? 

Dinner tonight was pizza at the Wood Boat Brewery which is right across from the Antique Boat Museum. It was very good. Jim said it was the best he ever had. Wow. The small boats have stopped running around and the seas are calm. It is a peaceful night at the dock, thankfully.

Rusho Bay July 28, 2015

There was such a nice breeze blowing through the V-berth this morning that I slept in until 7:00. Of course I turned on Fox News to listen when I wasn't dozed off. Before Kerry got up I was able to confirm that there were no user serviceable parts in my electric horns. Jim decided to show me how his horn sounded now that he had got it working, and guess what. All I heard was clicking from his switch. No sound. At least I was able to confirm that these captains were not horny! I made a post on the Nordic Tug Owners Group to see if anyone could tell me if replacement parts were available. Jim sent a picture of Annie to me taken with the rising sun shining.

 

I made blueberry pancakes for Kerry's breakfast. We enjoyed them on the upper deck. What a gorgeous setting. I could have easily spent another day here.We decided to pull anchors at 11:00. Liberty is going to go along at Annie's speed. We plan to head to an anchorage near Clayton, NY, probably Rusho Bay. This could likely be our last night at anchor on this trip. We plan to be docked at all future locations. We love to anchor though, so if we get another chance we will likely take it. We are going to Clayton tomorrow, one day earlier than planned. No one will take reservations as this is the Antique Boat Show weekend, so we hope an earlier arrival will secure us a spot. There are many beautiful old wooden boats cruising by. I'll try to post a picture of one or two.

The trip to Rusho Bay was uneventful, but interesting. The area around Alex Bay is crazy. Boats zipping every which direction -  big boats, tour boats, small boats, freighters. There is a lot to see also, like Boldt Castle.

Plus there is a serious current running through there, a couple knots at least. The trip was 12 miles. On the way we passed the Thousand Islands Bridge, and a boat house that has seen better days. I don't think the boat escaped. One funny event did happen on our cruise. A small powerboat went by, and one of the occupants was looking at me and waving his arms like crazy. I wondered if he was teasing me about something. Then I realized what he was doing. He was spelling out O-H-I-O! I gave him a thumb's up and got a huge smile in return. Go Bucks!

Rusho Bay is a beautiful anchorage, prettier than I remembered. We were here with Lew and Gretchen Myers when we had Excalibur. We anchored first, then Liberty rafted off of us, and we spent the afternoon together. First order of business was an anchor beverage, of course, which turned out to be margaritas today.

The scenery here reminds me of the North Channel - granite rocks and pine trees. Here are a couple random pictures.

We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. Both of us fussed with our horns. Mine started honking, then stopped, then started again. I must have hit it in the right place. Jim had similar results. Strange. I did take another swim. The water is so beautiful that it is hard for me to stay out of it, although the other three crew had no problem doing that. Jim brought out his Captain Morgan's Private Stock rum about 3:30. Kerry and Jola produced a fantastic dinner of vegetable lasagna and grilled romaine lettuce with butterscotch pudding and chocolate for desert. 

I really regret that this is probably our last anchorage of the trip. These last two days have been amazing. As I type this I hear a loon in the distance. These are the days I imagined when I planned this cruise last winter. We are so fortunate that it has worked out for us. New adventures await next week, however, namely the Erie Canal which will be new to us. 

Summerland Island July 27, 2015

Today has been a great day. One of our favorites, and we really did not do anything special. Sometimes things just fall into place.

Kerry was up early today so we got to have our coffee and tea together. She made a nice little breakfast for us, which we enjoyed anchored on our top deck. The first time we ever saw a Nordic Tug we sat on the top deck and imagined having food/drinks while anchored near a beautiful island. And here we are, living the dream. I got up early and snapped a picture of the sunrise.

We pulled up anchor at 9:30 and headed for Alexandria Bay. There were only a few weeds on it which is a great start to the day. Kerry as always gets any weeds and mud off Annie. Here she is using the wash down pump to clean the decks.

The trip to Alexandria was very pleasant. We love our boat. It is so comfortable and well built. It has all the options we could ever want. I love piloting it through the islands. Many of you may have seen my auto pilot remote control. It worked great today. Its just a stick with a rubber end, but it does a great job. It also works the radio too, and takes no batteries!

If you look closely, you can see my bottle of Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure close at hand!

We got to Alex Bay at 10:45. We were not sure if we would stay the night. We learned we could stay for 4 hours for free, or spend $1.50 per foot for overnight. Since there is no power or water here we decided there would be no reason to pay to stay and we would anchor for the evening. There is one long boardwalk there. We tied up together. Its a real social place and we met lots of nice people, including some Buckeye fans. My Canadian courtesy flag is down and the OSU flag is up! While we were tidying up one guy came by and said we were real boaters - if we weren't running we were cleaning. 

The first order of business was to fold up the Debbie K. Then it was time for lunch. After that, we got out the bikes and visited the grocery and liquor store. We refreshed our supply of beer and Meyers Dark Rum. This is the first time we have had to buy booze. We did a great job of forecasting our needs, and did not have to purchase any alcohol in Canada, where it is really expensive - free health care, eh? We need another bottle or two of jug wine, but did not like the brands they carried. We are spoiled now, and miss the discount we got on our Canadian purchases!

After we walked to town looking for a bargain t-shirt we had 15 minutes left of our free 4 hours. We used it for a quick beer on Annie's upper deck. Since we had no dingy now, we would not be able to get together once we were anchored. 

We left Alexandria at 3:00 and headed to Summerland Islands. This is where we thought of staying last night, and it was recommended to us by a lady at the marine store. I had actually motored by there this morning on the way to Alexandria. 

Its beautiful here. Since it was very warm today, I decided to go for a swim, which turned into me washing the waterline of Annie. Kerry held a line  that I held on to and walked me around the boat while I washed. After that we both took showers off the back of the boat in the warm sun, which was fun. Being in a cleaning mood, I scrubbed my new big white fender and the felt fender covers for Annie's regular fenders. Then it was time for rum and tonics on the upper deck, followed by some reading. A cigar after dinner finished off the day.

Jim and I laughed about this, but both of us always stay in the marked channels, even when it is obvious we do not need to do so. Perhaps it is because we both owned deep draft sailboats in the past. In the picture below, you can see by the black course line that Annie is headed between the green and white buoys on the left of the screen, even though it would be shorter and safe to go to the right of the red buoys and straight down the channel. 

Today I noticed that my horns have stopped honking. At first the breaker would blow when I pushed the horn button. Now I just get a small peep when I let up on the horn button, but the breaker does not pop. I hope to open the horns up tomorrow and see if there are any "user serviceable parts."

Cedar Island State Park, NY July 26, 2015

It is not a beautiful morning in Brockville. It is raining, cloudy and foggy. It was forecast to rain last night, but to stop at 6:00. It's 7:30 and still raining. In fact, it did rain quite hard all night. We had thunderstorms and lots of lightening. The good news though, is that my front hatch did not leak all night!

We taped the bag on the ceiling in case it did leak. Who wants to get up in the middle of the night and deal with a leak. This morning one side of the bag had come off the ceiling, but  there was no leak and no water in the bag.

Too bad I did not hit the post button. Kerry just yelled that a drop hit her pillow. Darn! I was ready to claim victory. However, I think I saw where it is leaking and stuffed a tissue there. It appears to be where the glass meets the rubber seal on the starboard side. I may have to ship the hatch back to the manufacturer over the winter. In the meantime - where is my bottle of Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure?

We plan to leave at 10:00 today and hope to stop at Singer Castle on the way. Our tentative  plan is to anchor at Summerland Island, which is an American Island just across from Grenadier Island. If that does not work, we will likely go back to Grenadier for the night.

One item I hope won't have to be mentioned anymore is Jim's head - not his actual head but Liberty's head. Seems it is sounding different and gives a little gargle when flushed now which it did not use to do. A broken head would shut a boat down about as quick as anything. He has ordered a rebuild kit which will be shipped to Kerry's sister for delivery when she joins us August 3rd. Good luck, Jimbo!

We left Brockville at 9:45. We all agreed that this was one of our favorite ports, a must stop if we come back to the TI. Another favorite was Picton. Kerry and I think if we come back we will do so via the Erie Canal. This would bypass the Welland and we could scoot to the TI from Oswego, NY pretty quickly.

The sun was shining brightly when we arrived at Singer Castle. The dock hand, Zech, was excellent. He turned out to be our tour guide too. The castle is really interesting, full of secret passages and, for the times, some high tech gadgets.

Zech pointed out that Cedar Island had a State Park and it was right across from the castle. Since we were looking for a spot we decided to try it. We anchored in 3 places before we decided we were happy, but like where we are now.  The trip covered 12 miles. I even went for my first swim on the trip. The water was brisk, and the swim was short. 

We rowed the Debbie K to the island and enjoyed cocktails in the gazebo on the point. It is a great setting for cocktails. 

We pulled the Debbie K on the dock during cocktails. There seemed to be a lot of water in it. While most of it was probably from the rain, we were not sure if it had developed a water leak, and we wanted to make it back to the boats. Jim had pumped most of the rain out he thought. But we knew it would not sink on the dock. And, not previously reported, the port tank leaks a bit, and enjoys a little air to be added on a regular basis. We made it safely back to our boats. I think it was the last voyage of the Debbie K on this trip, as Jim mentioned Alexandria Bay would be a good place to pack it up. We go there tomorrow.