Sylvan Beach to Little Falls, Ny.

We left Sylvan Beach around 7:30am heading for Little Falls , 50 nautical miles to the east. We enjoyed our time there. It's a small town , population 1000, noted for being a party town. They have a amusement park on the north side directly across from where we docked, the music was good ( 60s) so we liked it but the beach wasn't what we thought it would be, so time to move on. The had a Cruise Night where classic cars show up on the beach. We walked over had $1.50 draughts and checked out the cars. We've  been doing a lot of walking including slugging fuel jugs. Who said this was going to be easy?
  We met a couple who have interesting story, the man took 9 years to build his boat in his barn, the day it was finished he sailed it to Florida. Now a year later he wanted to do it again but has some health issues. They accompanied us here. They are headed to Waterford, Ny., before turning around and going back to Phoenix. They travel with a Harley motorcycle on their back deck. Name of the boat......Lost Navigator,..... we took a chance and followed them. We arrived in the right place.

We have decided to take a day and explore this quaint little town. The people here are so nice, the harbourmaster gave us the key for the Dock house so we are sitting here watching TV and updating the blog. We even had an offer to ride in a 3 wheel motorcycle, "Redneck Pickup"  to town but chose to walk. 

Moving on from Phoenix, Ny

   Left Phoenix early this morning, heading to Brewerton and a couple more locks 18.2 NM. Why are we going so slow?..... A storm called Issac. We don't want to arrive too far south before hurricane season has blown it self out. The weather around here has been fantastic, 80 or close to it every day. The mornings are a bit chilly but soon as the sun comes up it starts to warm up. We have been getting up early, maybe thats the problem.
   As we were leaving , one of the Bridge House Brats came over to take our bag of cans to the recycle bin and help us untie. When we started to move away, she said sir do you want your shoes?, then threw them to me. What helpful kids.
  The trip to Brewerton was a nice easy motorsail, again only seeing the odd fisherman not any boats going our way. Hope the navigator knows where we are going. We got to Brewerton early and tied to the state dock.
  

Heading into the Canal

  We set off soon as the locks open this morning to travel south through the locks. We had met a couple and they gave us their old gloves, we had new ones , didn't want to get them dirty, so we used the ones they gave us. Boy, were they were not kidding, the locks are filthy, slime up and down the walls. After the first one we knew what we up against, and got better at locking through as we went along.
  The scenery along the canal is beautiful, we had the whole canal to ourselves, only seen one other boat today, heading back to Toronto. The banks are lined with great looking homes.

We chose to call it a day around 2:30pm, stopping at a small town, Phoenix, Ny. As we came up to lock# 1 they actually lifted the highway, stopping traffic to allow us to pass.
 This is very interesting town to stop at, free docking , free internet, free pump out everything a boater would want. But the coolest thing about this town are a group of kids called the Bridge House Brats.   www.bridgehousebrats.us   They deliver coffee and muffins to your boat in the morning and or do errands for you.
So here we are spending this evening and part of the morning to enjoy this beautiful little town. They even fly the Canadian flag.

 

 Actually, after seeing a sign on the main street I don,t think I'm going to sleep well tonight . I don't know what hell their up to but I'm not sticking around to find out.

Taking down the mast

  Well, the stands were built last night after the heat died down, it's been in the 80's. Went and grabbed a bite then off to bed to get up early this morning to tke the mast down. When the time came the wind was not cooperating, it was whipping through the marina. Let's just say we had lots of fun moving the boat over to the crane. Some slight damages, but fixed them all, needed a beer afterwards. All part of the adventure, right.
 We were going to move on but the rain moved in so we thought we will start fresh tomorrow. Don't need any more excitement today.
  Went for a walk to Fort Ontario, which is right on the lake just a 10 minute walk from the marina. I love historical sites but it was the exercise that we needed .

                                             Damn.............The americans caught me!!!!!!!!

Sunday

  Spent the day getting the boat ready to take the mast down, so since I had the sails off I gave them a wash. Amazing how much dirt get on them . We then spent the afternoon building a mast stand on deck to hold the mast. Scheduled time to take it down is 7:00am so have to be up and ready even earlier. This cruising life is very busy.
  When we leave here we might not have internet for couple of days but we will update as soon as we can. We have been reading and enjoy all the comments, keep them coming. Keeps us from being lonely.

Our sail Plan

Everyone keeps asking where we are heading . Maybe this will help.

We entered Oswego harbour from Lake Ontario, then will travel down the canal to Lake Onieda, cross the lake , then continue to the Hudson river to Albany, Ny.  Better on Google earth.

Oswego Harbour

  Spent a relaxing day here in the harbour, had to it's too hot to start preparing the mast to be taken down. It will take us about a couple of hours to complete it but we got til monday to get it done so we're not in a bind yet. When I first checked the weather for this week it was suppose to be rainy but like always Mr weatherman got it wrong. We are not complaining.
   In the early afternoon we were going to take the bus to Walmart but It only runs about every hour so called a cab instead. Did some more restocking and now our lockers are full. We have enough food for 2 months. They have an amazing selection of different foods. I don't think you should go shopping hungry.
  When the sun went down we started to take the sails off, but were slowed down by a couple who were asking us about our boat. We find so many people that are interested in classic looking boats.

 

Crossing to the U.S.A

   We were up before dawn and quietly slipped out of Presqu'ille Bay and set sail for Oswego,
60.8 nm. away. It was very easy getting out of the bay which is known to be shallow and weedy but we followed the markers and had no problem. We were worried that it was going to be nightmare, trying to get out of here in limited light. We had to leave so early as to be in the US before dark, and call into US Customs during business hours. Thats what I thought.Turns out there opened 24 hrs. We arrived at about 1800hrs.

 

We had great sail with light winds all day listening to music, our retirement CD we recieved as a present was great. We toasted our crossing with a bottle of pink bubbly at the half way point. We made jokes about a tactical force coming out of nowhere and tazing us with the theme from Cops playing in the background. Sailors Are such rebels......feels great.

 

 

 

Our passenger enjoyed the ride. Notice the fish hook piercing...Argh!!!  Can't get the mast taken down til monday because of fishig derby, the guy that does it is away fishing, so we have the weekend to explore Oswego.

Gosport, Presqu'ille Bay

  After a easy sail from Cobourg we arrived at Presqu'ille bay. We chose to dock at Harbourview Motel and Marina in Gosport. The wind was howling when docked but we had no trouble tying up. We have  learned from a couple slight mishaps earlier in the week where a finger got cut and a fall in a hole in the grass. The rule is now, to wear shoes when docking. We are learning as we go . Our afternoon project was to remove all 200 feet of anchor chain out of the locker then mark it at 50 ft. intervals, this way we will know the correct amount of chain to let out when anchoring.

  If the weather holds out, which has been fantastic we will set sail in the early morning to cross the lake to Oswego, Ny. where the canal starts. 

On our Way To Cobourg

We had a great but long sail from Toronto Islands to Cobourg. We got up at 4:30am, but by the time we got going it was an hour later. The sun was not up and it was amazing to sail through the harbour looking at the skyline of Toronto.  Once out in the lake we turned east and hand steered for the next 58 nautical miles(12 hours) till we reached our destination. This sailing life really gets to you, we are taking a day to relax and do some shopping then on to Presqu'ile Bay before we cross over to American side to reach Oswego, Ny. and the start of the canal system.

Departure

 
We left Port Credit around 1100 hrs. Headed for Toronto Islands. After saying so many goodbyes it was hard to leave, even though it has been our dream for a long time.
We had a great sail to Toronto Island, We put up the sails and had a toast to friends left behind, the champagne courtesy of our good friends Pat and Karen. We spent the rest of the day organizing the boat stores and putting things in proper places, to sail safely.

 

We are finally on our way!!!!!!!

Home Port

We Installed the  lettering to show our home port, this morning and then cleaned the hull. Sitting at the dock causes the bottom to become covered with algae. This will only slow us down as we are travelling . I was going to put on a coat of wax but I was invited to go fishing so I will put it off til tomorrow. Still have things that have to be done before casting off but we have lots of time to complete them.

Voyager Windvane

                                                      

 Today we installed  our new windvane. We ordered it more than six weeks ago, and were kind of worried that it was going to hold us up. Our friend Peter Tietz came through and delivered the windvane on time. We spent yesterday afternoon installing it in the rain.

 There are still a few projects to complete before departure day which has been set for around, Tuesday, August 14

Scavenger Hunt

A lot has happened in the last few days, the most important was that both of us signed our retirement papers. So we only have a few days of work left. We can then turn our full attention to Mistress, and getting her ready for the trip south.
    On saturday we enjoyed a day of crewing for our friends on Life Styles, in the first annual Port Credit Marina Scavenger Hunt. Part of the fierce competition was to make up a limerick about our boat.

Mistress is furtive and mean
You must keep her in close quarantine
Or she sneaks to the slums
And promptly becomes
Disorderly , drunk, and obscene