Hastings & Peterborough

Sorry-- but we thought this might happen, and probably will again.

We had no coverage for our air card in Hastings, and could not connect with the wifi at the marina across the river. So no blog.

We spent an additional day in Hastings due to a cold front passing through stirring up the weather.

While we were tied to the wall in Hastings, we heard a bunch of yelling on a passing boat. Looking outside we were surprised to see Adirondack, a Monk 36 go by with all four on board waving and yelling.

This is the first Monk 36 we had a chance to look at right at Palafox Marina in Pensacola. We saw it there and asked if we could take a look. Jeff and Sally were the people who put us in touch with Dave, the man from whom we purchased Monarch. Many, many moons later, after visiting the Bahamas, and then continuing north on the Hudson and Lake Champlaign and the canal then later down the Rideau Canal, they have caught up with us on the Trent Severn Waterway. We had a joyful reunion and later enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine with Jeff and Sally and Bob and Elizabeth off Slow Dance. Good fun.

We all left Hastings on Thursday morning and here is a picture of Adirondack leading the way to Peterborough.

Leaving Hastings we left the through hull fitting valve closed which meant no cooling. Bad news. The engine overheated a bit until John tore down to the engine room and opened the through hull. No damage.

We have, however, had problems with the engine not starting at the first push of the start button. Suspecting a weak solenoid, we had both solenoids in the start circuit replaced in Peterborough. The delightful and extremely well informed mechanic also inspected the water pump impeller to see if the short stint without water had damaged it. It was fine.

Here's a picture of the bay in front of the marina here in Peterborough and the fountain which has the light show at night.

We pushed our dock cart, ( a gift from Sheila and company) twice to stock up on groceries, take the laundry into town and load up on fresh veggies from the farmers market. Gail had been longing for some ragatouille for a long time and tonight was the night!

Last night there was a concert in the park right next to the marina, so we had front row seats, right from our sun deck for an evening of Beatles music, a light show at the fountain, concluding with a fireworks display. Cool!

Tomorrow we start off with an ordinary lock, followed by the Peterborough Lift Lock. You can get a good picture and explanation of the lock by clicking on the following url.

http://www.cruising.ca/trent/docs/L-21.html

Then we will probably continue through 6 or 7 more locks, or until we get tired. We would like to spend tomorrow night at anchor if possible.

We found the above url by doing a Google search for Peterborough Lift Lock, but it looks like it might be an on line cruising guide for the Trent Severn Waterway. Might be you could follow our route on that link!

Well anyway, we have to take a good look at the charts for tomorrows adventure. I suspect we will not be able to blog for several days, but our phone seems to be getting pretty good coverage.

Thank you Marco and Virginia, and Gail Thomas for checking on us. It was so good to hear from you!!

Yea! We're back on line.

On Monday July 23 we left Peterborough and arrived at Lakefield, Ontario. The next day, Tuesday, we motored to Lovesick Lock, near no town and sp;ent the night on the island park with the animals. We were warned that the raccoons might invade the boat, but they didn't. We took an island walk through the woods and finally got our feet into the water.

Today we are in Bobcaygeon, Ont. It is a lovely little village, and we stocked up on baked goods at Grandma's Bakery, some groceries, and of course an ice cream. Gail glanced at a few shoes on sale but refused to buy $110.00 shoes, even if they were 10% off! Imagine! Makes you grateful for Bealls!!!! We did visit one art gallery and the artist once resided in Orange Beach! There are a zillion boats here. It looks like all of Canada is on vacation. One of our big surprises is that it is very warm. As we log this, we have the air on because the boat got very, very hot during the afternoon while we were out roaming the town.

And finally, this picture is for you, Sean and Kate. It reminded us of our great time with you at Wakulla springs. We're guessing you would both like to try this one!

Campbellford, Ontario

Here we are in Campbellford, Ontario, tied up in a park next to a 20 foot replica of the Canadian two dollar coin. It turns out that the "toonie" bears an image of a polar bear created by an artist local to Campbellford.

That's the toonie to the right of Slow Dance, the boat belonging to Bob and Elizabeth Robinson, a delightful couple we have met in several marinas along the way. They hail from Gulfport, MS, and we expect to be seeing them often along the way. That's Monarch behind Slow Dance. This is where we are sitting now writing this post.

Yesterday, when we left Trenton in company with Slow Dance, we had a leisurely sail on our first day in "The System," as locals call the Trent Severn Waterway. We transited 6 locks and found both the locks and the lock keepers more friendly to pleasure craft such as Monarch than we did on the Erie.

In between the locks is a quite different story. We passed through several stretches of very narrow passages between vicious looking rock ledges on either side. In addition, many stretches are choked with very heavy weeds. Some trawlers ahead of us on the system have experienced over heating problems in engines from clogged strainers in the engine cooling water intakes. We have tried to follow the path of previous boaters and avoid the worst of the weeds, and check the strainers each morning and have had no problems in this regard.

We stayed at a lovely spot last night in the tiny town of Glen Ross, tied up to the wall just before lock 7. We hoped to be able to get some ice at the convenience store mentioned in the cruise guide, but the lock keeper informed us the store had gone out of business. He then proceeded to hand us a bread bag full of ice from his ice maker.

We joined the Robinsons at a picnic table next to the lock wall for cocktails about 5 pm. Later we were joined by a single-handed boater in a large trawler headed back the way we have come. He was heading in our direction ahead of us when his first mate/girl friend was called home to Maryland due to a serious illness in her family. John was obviously hungry for some company, so he brought a bottle of wine over to join our happy hour. We had a good time until bed time.

As you can see from the picture, which we took at 6:30 this morning when the mist was still on the water, in addition to being a fine gentleman, the lock keeper has a green thumb with the flowers at his lock!

Shortly after this picture was taken we heard a series of loud splashes. It seems a couple of dozen Canada Geese were locking through! They must have landed in the full lock chamber, then when they came to the closed lock gates, they climbed over and leaped into the river below. Some spread their wings and kind of glided, others crash landed like a pile of bricks!

The lock keeper later told us that last spring some of the geese had hatched broods above the lock. When they were out of the nest, he found them in the full lock chamber honking loudly. So he locked them down to the river below. They must have gotten used to this route from their old nesting ground, and still lock down by simply jumping off the high side when there is no lock keeper to lock them through.

We set out at 8:30 this morning and took a slow leisurely cruise through some very beautiful country and some very narrow rocky passages. The river was like glass and we saw a lot of wildwife and many lovely cottages.

We were feeling pretty good about our success so far until Bob talked to a friend of his several days ahead of us. He said, "Well you have enjoyed the easy part, from there on it gets much narrower and rockier."

We expect to take our time, however and be very careful. We will start when the locks open at 8:30 in the morning and stop around 2 pm for our afternoon nap.

Today we hit the high points of Campbellford, the bakery for bread and cookies, and the chocolate factory which makes the chocolate many of you have bought from your children and grandchildren in their annual fund raising activities.

Tomorrow we set out for Hastings, Ontario.

Happy Birthday, John McVay! We have thought about you a lopt today and hope you have had a happy day!!!

It is great to be back "on line", we have missed visiting with all of you and reporting our whereabouts! Don't know when we will be able to be on again so just keep checking!

Internet problems in Trenton

We are currently sitting in the public library in Trenton, Ontario, Canada. We have been here for 30 minutes trying to get access to our own blog from a foreign computer. We finally made it.

We spent two nights in Kinston, Ontario, then set out for Picton, Ontario. Upon further consideration, we decided that we would much prefer to spend a night in solitude from the helter skelter of marinas and such, so we anchored north of Picton in Hay Bay off the Bay of Quint. We had a little trouble getting the anchor to set due to heavy weeds, so we backed off a little off shore and got it set. Not as much protection from the NW winds, but we expected to spend a calm night there anyway.

After dinner, we went to bed soon after sunset only to be accosted by a rambunctious thunder storm complete with thunder, lightening and high winds. Actually, it was quite exciting and beautiful! John took a bearing on a lighted TV tower so we could check during the night to see if we had dragged the anchor. The anchor held and we slept soundly -- after the thunderstorm banged and clattered its way off to the east, knowing full well that the morning would dawn bright and clear and we could be on our way early.

NOT----

We awoke early to another thunderstorm which changed our plans to a mid-morning departure. Even with all the noise and light shows, we really enjoyed our night at anchor. On the way to our next destination, Trenton, Ontario we passed through a heavy rain shower with high winds, but we kind of enjoyed the day even though we spent it heeled over like a sail boat.

Speaking of sail boats, we have used the sail twice crossing Lake Ontario, and had it up over night again, to help steady the boat in the wind while at anchor.

Arriving in Trenton we soon met up with a couple on the boat "Slow Dance" from Gulfport MS. We expect to be seeing a lot of them in the next couple of months.

This morning at breakfast, two birch bark canoes pulled up in the slip next to us with people in period costume. It made all the history we have learned seem very real! We took pictures but will have to post those when our own service returns!

It turns out that there is a cold front expected through here this weekend, and that coupled to the stories we have heard about hordes of rental housboats to be found on the waterway during weekends, peopled with people who have never been on a boat before, we have decided to stay here and enjoy this marina located right downtown in a lovely little city with music in the park next to the marina and an outdoor market we intend to visit as soon as we leave here.

We are in this library because our Verizon air card does not seem to work in this part of Canada, so we may be unable to blog unless we are in a city that provides a service like this one. So if we don't show up at the same time and same station as usual, it's not due to a lack of interest but a lack of connectivity!

Cruising to Canada

We left Cape Vincent and headed across the main channel of the Saint Lawrence River to Point Alexander in Canada. We docked at the ferry terminal dock and went therough customs very quickly. (Perhaps because it was almost time for the ferry to dock where we were!) From there we cut through a channel behind Wolf Island and headed for the Admiralty Islands. Admiralty Islands are numerous small and large islands that occupy the Middle Channel just south of Gananoque. There are a lot of places listed that have dockage that are National Parks but there was absolutely no space to pull in for the night so we continued on to Kingston. It was a beautiful ride, bright sunshine but very little wind.



Kingston was settled in 1784 by loyalists from New York and has been a growing and vibrant city ever since. When the Rideau Canal was finished in 1832 it further increased the improtance of this community. It is a city rich in history offering the cruiser many sights to visit and places to shop, but since we have spent the last two days doing that, we have decided to just enjoy the quiet of the boat.



We are in the Kingston Confederation Basin Marina at the mouth of the Cataraqui River. It is very large and has a protected basin which might be important because there are thunder storms forcast for later tonight.



Much to our surprise, there were two other Monk 36 boats coming into the marina at the same time we were!!



Thought all of you might enjoy this little quote that was on the "River Rat" Cheese advertisement which we picked up when we visited the River Rat Cheese Store in Clayton, NY:

What is - Who Is- A "River Rat"?

"So, this - is - a - river? ventured the lad.
"The River" corrected the River Rat. "It's the mighty St. Lawrence and all of its islands."
"And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!"
"By it and with it and on it an in it," said the River Rat. "It's brother and sister to me, friends and food and drink. It's my world and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing."
A "River Rat" can cleat his boat before he knows how to tie his shoe. River Rat is the essence of the North Country - the spirit of our region.

For now, we are River Rats! It is a "jolly life" indeed!!

The Saint Lawrence is sooooooo beautiful. The water is crystal clear and the color is breathtaking. We have learned that it is actually 99.9% pure and you can actually drink it!










As this was being written, John came rushing into the saloon urging Gail to hurry topside. "Pathfinder", a training wooden brigantine came cruising in. They tried to dock here but found there wasn't enough room for her. She is beautiful and we counted seventeen kids on board having a ball. Gail yelled out, "you're beautiful" to which they responded, "thank you"! What a great sight! We don't know minute to minute what surprises are in store for us!

Cape Vincent, Clayton & Alexandria Bay

We have spent two delightful days with Carol Sue visiting by car the sights in this part of New York. She picked us up at the marina in Cape Vincent and we visited their home under construction on the St. Lawrence River. It is a beauty...

Perhaps we will return for another visit when Carol Sue and Tom are actually staying in the house and watching all those ships Carol Sue loves so much!!

We then visited the Tibbets Point lighthouse. This very famous lighthouse stands at the source of the St. Lawrence River at the east end of Lake Ontario. It's a real beauty!

Gail and Carol Sue wait for John to tour the light house.

Our next stopping point was the antique boat museum in Clayton, NY. This place has more old wooden boats than you can imagine. We didn't even get to the whole building filled with racing boats. These, however we found fascinating. They are St. Lawrence River Skiffs. They are powered by oars, sail, or gasoline engine. We saw a video on sailing these interesting craft. They use a three part center board, sprit sail..... and no rudder. The techniques they use to tack and jibe are fascinating. I would love to see them race!

John's brother Jim, who has an antique boat, would have loved this place!

This one had a "disappearing propellor.

The next day we visited Alexandria Bay and, of all things, took a boat trip. We decided to take this trip to visit Boldt Castle. This is the site of a very sad love story.

Mr. George Boldt came to this country from Prussia in the 1860s, a penniless boy of 13. He ended up managing and profit sharing in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York and the Bellvue-Stratford in Philadelphia, and a very wealthy man. His family vacationed in the thousand islands. He purchased much land there and started farming on Wellsley Island and selling the products to the hotels he managed.

As a testimony of his enduring love for his wife Louise, he built this castle on Heart Island. After four years of construction, and just before it was finished, Louise unexpectedly died. Mr boldt stopped construction, and never visited the island again. It fell into dis-repair and after many years of neglect was restored to it's original opulent condition, and opened to the public. It is really a magnificant architectural masterpiece.

This weather vane high up on the ramparts of the castle are but one small example of the delights to be found on a tour of the castle.

In doing a little research, we have concluded that the "Station Island" that appears prominently in the book "The Pathfinder" by James Fenimore Cooper, is the one pictured above. Station Island is not the name of the present island, and nobody that we asked among the tour guides was even familiar with the book, but we think this "Grenadine" island is the one.

This is a statue of St. Lawrence for whom the river is named. St. Lawrence is known for the fact that he stole from the Catholic Church and gave the money to the poor. His charitable instincts caused him to be burned on a grating, and during the process, he is said to have called out; "I'm done on this side, please turn me over."

One of the more interesting of the homes on the Thousand Islands is this one which reside on two small islands. The international border goes right between them, and this is said to be the shortest international bridge in the world.


We will be taking our leave of Cape Vincent tomorrow, but we haven't decided where we will go. I guess we'll know when we get there, and we'll let you know.

Sackets Harbor, NY

As you enter Sackets Harbor you can see that it is a small quaint place to visit.



The marina is immediately to the right and is the site of the ship building activity in days gone by.


The welcoming committee was out to greet us,




and the locals have posted a sign sayinng "stay off the rocks" which advice that we definitely expect to follow on our trip in the north country. While we have been travelling in waters that have mud and sand bottoms, the Canadian Shield is composed of the "roots" of ancient mountains that have been compressed into the hardest of rocks, gneiss, marble, granite etc. As the mountains themselves have weathered away these roots have been left for the waters draining out of the Great Lakes to reach the Atlantic Ocean.

We visited two museums in Sacket harbor, this is one that uses the very old Union Hotel building.

The other finds it's home in the "Commanding Officer's Quarters" at the old fort.

The Commanding Officer had this view over his back fence of the harbor, which is now filled with pleasure craft, Monarch being one of them.

This harbor was a very strategic location during the war of 1812. The Americans and Canadians had been trading with one another across Lake Ontario. Many of the american businessmen complained about the competition, so Congress passed an act outlawing the trade. There wasn't much less trade, but it was then called "smuggling." American authorities tried to enforce the ban. Meanwhile England was in a protracted war with France and needed the trade, and on top of that they began stopping American merchant vessesl and "impressing" the American sailors into service with the Queens Navy. Soon hostilities broke out and Congress declared war.

It was primarily a naval war on Lakes Erie and Ontario. Since the St. Lawrence River did not allow sea going vessels to pass at that time, and Niagra Falls precluded ship travel between Ontario and Erie, all the vessels to fight the war had to be built on the lakes. It turned out to be a ship building war.

A large ship was built at Oswego by the Americans, only to find out that it drew too much water to enter the Oswego River. It was then realized that Sackets Harbor would easily accomodate ships of that size and a naval shipbuilding industry rapidly grew. Sackets Harbor was also recognizewd by the Army for its strategic importance, and several forts were built. We will leave the details of the "Battle of Sackets Harbor" and the outcome of the War of 1812 to be researched further by our gentle readers.

The Navy Point Marina at Sackets Harbor is the first one we have found with a rock/flower garden.

As we left Oswego, we glanced over the stern at the marina we had just left, and noticed the visibility was not so good. We remembered the sage advice, "Cheer up, things could be worse."

So we cheered up, and sure enough things got worse.











It didn't look bad as we passed the Oswego light house, but soon the visibility was down to about a quarter of a mile. We then noticed that all those early riser fishermen liked to fish in a spot right on our course! Luckily the radar we had installed before starting this journey is a very good one, and we had a perfect picture on our screen of the flotilla hidden in the fog. The radar will even track many targets simultaneously and determine if any are collision risks. Love that technology.




After about an hour the fog began to lift, and a fresh breeze sprang from the west. What a great opportunity to try our our sail. It is not much more than a handkerchief, but it does have a steadying effect in a beam wind.

Our five hour sail to Sackets Harbor was very satisfying, and we felt a new sense of freedom from the constraints of canals and rivers. Here we're out of sight of land for hours and we're able to take any heading and find any port of our choosing.

We are in a very nice marina in Sackets Harbor now, and a very interesting town it is. We took a short bike ride into town and visited an interesting museum, but a thunderstorm cut our tour short. We plan to devote all day tomorrow (Saturday) to touring the town and will send some pictures tomorrow night.

A Day in Oswego

The harbor at Oswego was recognized early on for its strategic importance. It is the western end of the water route comprised of the Hudson River, the Mohawk River, Oneida Lake, the Oswego River and is the entry to both the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.


Our day in Oswego was so very enjoyable. We rode our bikes over to the H. Lee White Marine Museum and found a treasure trove of information and displays. The Museum allows you to explore Oswego harbor during the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and even the part Oswego played as a major terminus in the underground railroad during the Civil War and much later as a refuge for victims of the holocaust during WWII.


There are exhibits on the Oswego Lighthouse, shipbuilding and transportation, shipwrecks, the Underground Railroad, the NYS Barge Canal and more. As part of the tour, we visited the WWII Tug "LT-5" which was built for the invasion of Normandy, a national Historic Landmark, and the "Lance Knapp", a 1925 NYS canal boat. Needless to say, the whole adventure took us the entire afternoon but it was well worth it!

One funny thing happened. When one of the persons who worked at the Museum asked if we had any questions, John asked a very simple question about when the forts were built in Oswego. This person was unable to answer him and went on a wild search. She asked everybody who was working there, searched through the volunteer materials and finally, Gail found three people in the gift shop frantically calling the fort (without giving their names) to find the answer!!!! You can alway count on John to make you think!!!

We managed to end our biking with a yummy ice-cream stop in town.

The Marina where we docked was loaded with fishing boats and they seem to love leaving before the sun is up. It's fun to watch all their preparations and hear their chatter as they set out to bring in the "Big One".

Everyone has been most friendly and more than willing to lend a hand or to chat. We have met several people in our travels who have family in the Navarre area and they are familiar with Pensacola. So many of them have asked why in the world we are up here?????

Celebrating the 4th

While others were at parades and watching fireworks all across America today, we watched this parade on the Oswego Canal. Actually, it is a very appropriate way to celebrate because of the freedom we feel in being able to do this in this beautiful part of our awesome country!!

Happy 4th to all of you! God bless America!!!!

We left Fulton just before Lock 3 after breakfast and, much to our surprise, the wind caught us, turned us sideways, and we had to struggle to get ourselves into position to lock through. Interesting!!!! It seems that each lock presents a new adventure. Since the wind was blowing pretty briskly from the stern, it was a challenge! The good news is that we have now completed Lock 8 and we won't see one again for about a month!

Pathfinder Island which was named after the lead character, Pathfinder, in James Fenimore Cooper's book of the same name. "The Pathfinder" centers on a trip taken down the Oswego River in 1759. John just finished reading the book and enjoyed it. Gail has begun and is struggling with the tedious, flowery Cooper writing. John insists that it tells a thrilling tale of naval adventure, rival love, and wilderness experience that captures the rough-and-tumble life on the shores of Lake Ontario during the French and Indian War.

Battle Island. This site is a place that a historic battle between the British and the French took place on July 3, 1756. Imagine, over 250 years ago amost to the day!!

The remains of the origional Oswego Canal

Tonight we are docked at the Wright's Landing Marina in Oswego, New York. The rain has arrived and we are tucked in our snug little "home" for a couple of days as a warm and a cold front pass before we venture out onto Lake Ontario on Friday the 6th.

Our tentative plan is to spend the 7th at Sackets Harbor and proceed on to Cape Vincent on the 8th.

We're Baaack!

Here we are again aboard Monarch after a two week layoff to take care of Grandchildren and relax in the sunny south. Sean and Kate are delightful and we enjoyed a multitude of fun!!! It was a joy being with them!

One of our highlights, other than being with family, was being with the "Lunch
Bunch" for supper. Thank you, Sandra, for arranging all that!

We flew back into Syracuse on July 1, and went to the nearest motel and collapsed!

The next day Carol Sue picked us up and took us to a Super Wal*Mart for a grocery binge.

That night John spent 45 minutes installing the XM-Radio package he bought in Pensacola, and then an hour and a half getting XM-Radio to activate it. Bummer, but it is working great now and we love it.

Next morning we attacked the dinghy problem. One tube wouldn't hold air and we spent a lot of time looking for a replacement valve, both in Pensacola and Syracuse only to find that the valve wasn't actually defective, but set up for de-flating instead of in-flating. Now it is inflated and so are we!

Last, but maybe most important we have solved the problem with pumping out with a new deck fitting and adapter.

All that accomplished, we left Brewerton at noon, transited our last lock on the Erie Canal and turned right at three rivers, the junction of the Oneida River which we have been travelling since Lake Oneida, and the Oswego River. We are now on the Oswego canal, and are spending the night on the wall at Fulton, NY. We both agree that we like the Oswego Canal better than the Erie.

Since the Oswego Canal IS the Oswego River, we will end with a most appropriate quote from Henry David Thoreau which is about a lake but applies to the river we are experiencing right now!

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next to the shore are the slender eyelashes which fring it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows."