Roy,me, Dawn & Randy

 Wednesday afternoon Duane joined us, he's helping us thru the locks.
Randy, Dawn, Duane, and Lynn (Duane's wife) had dinner at O'Brians in Clayton as a farewell for now.
This morning we were all up around 8 am got everything ready and off the dock by 9-9:30. 

Duane took the helm for most of the day while Roy trimmed, worked and navigated.  I was able to take many pictures, enjoy the scenery, keep the crew fed and watered and taking turns at the helm to relieve Duane.  Having a third person made it much easier today.  The wind funnels around the islands and we had winds shifting from dead astern with many jibes to being closehauled as we entered Brockville area. 

We saw currents up to 2.5 knots today.  We had a cargo ship pass us while in the American Narrows.  That is the closest we have ever been to one of them.  We had SOG (speed over ground) of up to 7.5 knots through there.  Roy's AIS app had the ship doing 10 Knots, so it took a while for it to catch up and pass.  We were thankful for no ships going through the Brockville Narrows.

We ended our day around 3:30 with a slip at the Tunnel Bay Moorings Marina.  It used to be Excel Marine.  They have nice deep docks, but small washrooms that are a long walk away.  They said their independence day is the 1st, so tonight is like their Friday and so far we only have a dock for 1 night.  We plan to stay 2, but if a dock does not become available, we will sail to Prescott tomorrow.  It is only 10 miles away.  We should only need 3 changes of clothes for that trip (inside joke).  We hope to be able to stay as INXS is setting up for a concert and fireworks for tomorrow night.  We'll let you know how it goes.  Enjoy the pictures.       


Approaching the 1000 Island Bridge


  

Yumsuch as she goes under the bridge!

 


 



Here comes the ship!










She passes us!








Boldt Castle

 





Singer Castle







Our First Ship on the Seaway!



  If you look closely Captain Roy is on the wrong side of the green buoy too make sure he had plenty of room for the ship!





Ship on our port side.





Ship passes YUMSUCH!



We left Cape Vincent, Monday morning, to sail to Clayton, NY.  Another wonderful sail.  The current was helping us along so we arrived much earlier than expected!  The current averaged 1.5 Knots.  Locals say it is running faster with the excessive rain.  Should be quite a sleigh ride when we hit the narrow sections of river.

We where anchored out for 7 days, only had to use the generator twice!  Once last Wednesday when it rained all day at Cherry Island.  We were 70 amp hrs down, then Friday morning at Cape Vincent 50 amps down starting the day off with cloudy skies but the sun came out shortly after firing up the generator so we shut it down.  Being on the hook, we had enough wind to keep our overnight usage to around 25 amps.  Normal would be 40 amps.  The wind averaged around 8 knots which gives us anywhere from 1-3 amps.  With the reduced overnight usage, and a sunny day, the solar panels are able to recoup everything by the end of the day. 

We are at French Creek Marina, the depth of the water coming was between  7ft - 9ft, our boat drafts 5 1/2 ft.
After docking on Monday, Enterprise Car Rental picked us up and drove us to Watertown to rent a car. Roy needs to see a customer in Vermont today (Tuesday).  Since we had a car we ran some errands, then ate at Riley's in Alexander Bay.  Duane is joining us Wednesday night and we plan to leave Thursday morning for Brockville. 

Ending the weekend with a gorgeous sunset!

Blue Heron on the dock at Cape Vincent, NY

Yambo (our dinghy) takes us for a ride to Wolfe Island, Canada to watch the sunset.

 The weekend has come to a end with sunny skies!  We had a wonderful time here at Cape Vincent, I got to meet Randy (Roy's step brother) and his wife Dawn.  Randy and Dawn hailing port is Cape Vincent for their Formula 37PC, Sol y Luna II
Sol y Luna II toured us through some of The 1000 Islands on Saturday-  We saw Aubrey, Mermaid, Lindsay, Carleton
Earlier Roy and I jogged out to Tibbetts Lighthouse which was @ 3 miles one way, instead of jogging back we walked back enjoying the view of the lake.  
Sunday morning Roy and I decided to walk back to Tibbetts Lighthouse to buy some postcards for Jacob and Nate (my 2 wonderful grandkids), later on we kayaked along the shoreline.  While at Tibbetts Lighthouse we found out that Canada has over 400 lighthouses for sell. We were told that Charity Shoal Lighthouse was sold for $25,000.00 dollars to a woman who wants to open a bar out there.  That would be quite a challenge.  I would call it the Fair Weather Bar. 
Tomorrow we are off to Clayton, NY.

Where Lake & River Meet!

We are in Cape Vincent, NY.  If you look at map of Lake Ontario where it flows into the St. Lawerence River and the seaway, Cape Vincent is right where the two meet. The village in nothern New York State has a strong French Heritage.



As we sailed up to Cape Vincent we saw Tibbetts Point Lighthouse on starboard and Wolfe Island, Canada on port.  A ferry connects Cape Vincent and Wolfe Island. We had another great day of sailing. The weather was perfect.  Looking at the radar it looked like we had rain all around us until later on in the evening.



Tibbetts Point Lighthouse




Wolfe Island, Canada



Alone at last!!!!

We sailed to Chaumont Bay yesterday.  Had another great sail!  The winds were northwest 8-10k.  We are anchored at a little cove on the southeast corner of Cherry Island.

Quiet, quiet and quiet! I highly recommend this anchorage.  The deer even came down to the waters edge while we were eating our dinner tonight.

The days activities included a jog at Long Point State Park.  We ran into Stan and Laura from the Laurel D (the big blue tug).  We had just seen them at Sackett's.  They took us for a tour of their boat!  The cherry wood work is amazing!  They did an excellant job refurbishing/rebuilding.

Sackets Harbour

Mayaday, me & Laurie

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Me & Mayada

Laurie and Mayada drove up from Syracuse to spend the afternoon with us touring Sackets Harbour.  We had a lovely lunch at 1812 Brewery overlooking the lake. 

Yesterday within 10 minutes of blogging we were about 1 1/2-2 miles from Sackets, a fishing boat hails the coast guard.   They found a steel box on the box stated to call the military if found asap.  The fisherman stated it had a deadantor also.  The coast guard advises them not to touch! They were on there way.  The fisherman tells the coast guard, it's in the  fishing net attached to the boat.  The coast guard asked how many people were aboard. The fisherman states 4 souls.
Roy looks at me and asks if we should continue.  We decide to swing wide from where they stated there location was until the situation was resolved. Next thing we see is the coast guard boat speeding full throttle off our bow. It stops at the boat in front of us.  I watched as they transfered the box.  The bomb squad was called in, apperantly is was a Canadian flares box.  They get the boxes about 3-5 a year in Sackets.  It is fired from their C130's during training exercises.  The answer of 4 souls is what bothered us the most.  It must have looked like a real bomb.

Ending the week with leisure day of sailing

Thursday we June 15th we had a short sail to Oswego Marina. We spent the afternoon in Syracuse.  Roy had a enjoyable dinner with his mom, brother Bill and his girlfriend Nancy.  I spent the evening with my dad, step-mother Mayada, my sister Laurie, my two brothers Andy, Ron, and my two nephews Zak and Nate.

Friday,  we spent the day running errands, then meeting up with my family for a lovely dinner at Lemongrass.

This morning Captain Roy was up at the crack of dawn to head to Sackets Harbor.  The Captain let the first mate sleep in!

We are cruising along at 3.5-4 knots with winds 8-10 knots.

Leaving homeport for the last time...

Monday June 13, 2011

First of all I would like to thank everyone at Katlynn Marina for a wonderful farewell party!

Happy Birthday to our sweet daughter Tara and our dear friend Dick Darrow!

Yumsuch set sail @2:00 pm for Fair Haven,  NY.   We had sunny skies with 10-12 knots of wind. Anchored @5pm had a nice dinner with our good friend Duane Winks.  Duane will be helping us through the locks in the up coming weeks.