We are staying one more day and crossing Lake Oneida tomorrow. We have a reservation at a marina on the other side.  Mark passed by in Bahia Mar this afternoon. We will let the majority go through ahead of us. We're in no hurry! 

Waiting it out in Brewerton

The repairs to the locks means there are a lot of boats queued up waiting for Oct 4 to 6 for the short opening.  We can't find any marina space beyond our current berth in Brewerton.  We were able to work out a way to stay here for a bit.  So we are waiting here until Friday morning and working towards Locks 12 to 13 then.  We expect to move through those locks Saturday or Sunday.

For now, we are relaxing (sometimes)....

...and working....

I added our boat name to the bottom of the dinghy since the dinghy hides the name on the boat and helped Joe build his dinghy...

Of course, when we had finished, Joe read the instructions!

The marina is really very nice.  Rustic and relaxed:

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If anything significant happens over the next day or so I will post an update.

All marinas are booked forward of here waiting for the locks to open. We'll wait until Tuesday morning to leave Brewerton. We have a reservation at Little Falls for Friday night. Until then we'll anchor or tie up to a wall before approaching the repair locks. 

Another good day. We left Oswego at 1030 after filling up with $870 of diesel. We worked through 8 locks and just settled into a Brewerton marina. We'll stay here two nights to get the best winds to cross Lake Oneida. Beautiful weather and cruising down the Oswego  and Erie canals is serene.

The Big One...

After all the "stuff" we are underway on the real trip of our retirement. We left Rockport this morning at 8am and landed at Oswego, on the New York side of Lake Ontario at 4:15pm.  Last night was amazing with a visit from our great friends from Stittsville at our local tavern, Cornwall's, and a wonderful send-off by their staff.  Here in Oswego we start the trip through the New York canals.  Today, a nice easy trip across Lake Ontario - believe it or not we were underway for this picture:

...tomorrow, a slow start to work towards the locks currently under repair to get through when they open up October 4/5/6.

Long time, no post.

I know!  It has been a very long time since the last entry and it's not like there has been nothing going on either.  But now seems like a good time to post a short update regarding our impending major change in our lifestyle.

Our house is sold, we retire next Friday and move to the boat on July 4th.  After that we prepare for a few years of life aboard cruising.  And, I can feel pretty confident in saying that the blog postings will pick up again.  I will bring you up to date on the changes we have made and what our plans are.

More later. 

Summer - Winter 2011/2012

It has been a long time since I updated this blog and quite a lot has happened since we pulled into Rockport, Ontario last June.  But before I talk about specifics, overall we have had a wonderful summer having folks down to visit and making some new friends in Huck's marina.  Compared to our last boat it is wonderful having the space and amenities to enjoy weekends her on the river.  Having travelled over 2000 miles to get here we have not felt the need to journey except to take visitors on afternoon cruises to show them the area.  Next year may be different.

The first thing I decided to do was have the boat buffed and polished above the gunwales.  A local company did the work and did a great job.  They also replaced all the lettering since their buffers took the old stuff off!

I polished all the stainless rails as well.  After sitting in Florida salt air for years they needed it badly.  I cleaned the hull to the water-line with some pretty powerful stuff to remove the brown Hudson River stains.

When I hauled the boat to get the props tuned to fix a vibration we have had since Florida we had a bit of a surprise.  It turns out we had hit a submerged dead head on the Hudson River which neatly bent the port propeller shaft and a few prop blades.  We remember feeling a few objects but none felt like damage had occurred.  To cut a long story short, I had the spare props tuned to Class S before hauling then, after hauling, installed the spares and had the other props tuned to the same standard as well as had a new shaft made.  This all, together with a new strut, lost us a couple of weekends but gave us a superbly efficient and smooth boat again.  I was blown away by the difference in performance with the Class S props. It was a very worthwhile expense.

One of our visitors was Jon.  I was looking forward to him seeing all the work Jo had done to clean up the inside.  It was a very different boat from the one Jon had helped me take to the Georgia border in April.  He believes he is a hex on the boat but when he arrived the battery charger, newly installed in Charleston in May, had failed and our 12 volt system was very low.  We could not overnight on the boat.  With no 12 volt systems we had no water, light or toilet flush.  The next day we found an identical new charger in Kingston and I installed it the same day.  As always on this boat, to remove and replace the charger required some contortions on my part. The old one has been replaced under warranty and I now have spare.  It taught me how important the 12 volt system was and I am happy to have a back-up now.

The summer here was quite hot this year.  We have enjoyed our air-conditioning and the swimming off our lovely dock. Our slip backs on to the open St Lawrence water and is a perfect location for lazy weekends.

Spooky has taken to the boat well.  If only she took to the journey getting there and back as well!!

So, that's it for now.  When Spring comes I will update again.  I have a couple of through-hull transducers to install before launch and then we can get on with more restoration!