Mon June 13: Hanging in Oswego

I am, apparently, a Super Tasty Morsel.  Something chowed down on my left ankle last night like it was the last turkey leg at the Renaissance Festival.  This is the ‘camping’ part of boating. There is always a bug-du-jour, but mosquitoes are pretty constant.

Under the heading of  ‘into each life some rain must fall’, the generator overheated within five minutes of Rick turning it on this morning.  This is the very same generator that was serviced and rebuilt over the winter, mind you.  The VERY ONE responsible for a sizeable portion of the bill that gave Rick a heart attack two days ago. 

I'm not very helpful in a mechanical crisis, so Rick sent me off to see the town.  Of course I started at the castle-like library.  'Cause I have a thing for libraries.

Crossing over to the west side of town I can look back at the calm area between Locks O7 & O8, and see our little group.  The other boats want to get together for drinks tonight, but I think we have other plans.  Like maybe to wash our hair, if the gennie gets fixed.

I'm looking up at roof-lines, at the moment.  Here is the romantic version of this area.

Here is the reality

The 'downtown' is really showing signs of revitalization...

Oh - I feel ya, sistah!

Yes - I, too, think a rock in a cage will be catnip to the tourists....  HUH????

Hell no - I just can't with ONE MORE MARITIME MUSEUM...

I'm not sure a Revenge Tour is really what the country needs right now...

Finally Rick was able to meet up with me, and we walked around several of the historic areas - including YET ANOTHER OLD FORT area!

Late afternoon the Winter Harbor boat mechanic showed up, and he and Rick spent until 8:30pm crawling around in the super-small lazarette and were FINALLY able to fix the hose to the gennie that was leaking the coolant!

Poor little boat.  Poor Rick - he is just not shaped like a small rectangle, and neither was the other guy.

The generator is pretty critical for topping up the battery when we are not moving, warming up water, making it possible to charge things like computers, basically anthing that requires 120vlts.  So - HOORAY!

Sun June 12: Minetto to Oswego

I played the ‘but Sunday is a day of rest card’ and got to sleep in a bit!  Then it was off the dock and through Lock O5 to visit the grumpy lock master. Even my cute radio banter failed to break through his curmudgeonly exterior...

Here Rick is demonstrating the 'line around the cable' method of holding the boat still in the lock.  Just review for those of you who need a refresher. Or who are going to travel with us soon (Mike and Linda!).

Here we are reviewing why we lock - because we don't want to go over this waterfall!!

Here we are reviewing the kindness of boaters - these good ol boys have lassoed a HUGE log and are going to drag it our of the lock so none of us get tangled up in it!

Here Rick is demonstrating the 'breaking the wild bronco' method of tying up the boat - that NO ONE uses EVER.  Because it's a 24,000 lb bronco.  (But the wind was giving me a hard time and I couldn't get the stern into docking position.)

And so we make it to Oswego! 

Rick has us on the free wall just above Lock O8, so we are protected from the vagaries of Lake Ontario.  It's a perfect location from which to explore - so we walk all over the East side of the town. We are STILL dragging from Covid, which makes us frustrated - but we walk anyway.

Random wall art.

Yet another fort - we have decided WTF stands for 'what the fort' is it now?!

Fort Ontario

Passing one of the marinas we were amazed by the deep sea fishing gear.  Rick is going to bore...I mean tell you a bit about that.  Rick here - the Great Lakes are very deep and much of the fishing for Lake Trout takes place at 600 ft or deeper.  The fishermen use electric fishing reels.  They let out line to catch fish and then use an electric motor to reel the line back up.  There were lots of charter boats with multiple deep reels.  Must be lots of good fishing here at some point in the year. 

Our friends Skip and Alison came over from their summer home in Sodus Bay to have dinner with us at Southern Fare. Great evening...

Sat June 11: Brewerton to Minetto

Today was a trying day. Just remember that BOAT stands for But Only Anther Thousand. We got the bill from the marina for the winter work.  Let’s just say that Rick had to double up on his blood pressure medicine.   And then we had to go fill the diesel tanks. Diesel is now more than twice as expensive as last year.  That's just A W E S O M E.....  We charged the fuel to Amex and hope to win the lottery next week.

Rick was all 'clean clean work work organize' etc.  Grump grump...I just want my morning tea....  We hoisted the dinghy into place, got the bikes on the boat and tried to remember how to start the engine.  The plan was for a short trip in order to get our sea legs back and re-familiarize ourselves with all the operating systems and boating routines…

We headed out of Winter Harbor and ... ran smack into Lock E-23 - wait, what?  A lock? I had to quickly remember WTH to do, and took us into the lock where Rick remembered how to pick up the hanging lines.  Just like riding a (24,000 lb) bicycle!  We traveled through Oswego locks 1, 2 and 3 (there is no #4 - don't ask) and in the rain tied up to the free dock in Minetto, NY.  

Rick is happy to be once again handling his balls!

`

More ball humor here

In lock O-3 with an 84ft behemoth!  It kept growling - it was actually the thrusters keeping it in one place so they didn't have to do anything so pedestrian as hang onto lines.  But it sounded like it was growling.

Lock O-1 has a lift bridge

Minetto, NY - a wonderful bridge leading to lock O-5

You know I love a reflection

We finished the day tied to a quiet dock along the waterfront in Minetto, NY. 

A few thunderstorms came through but nothing to cause problems.  We took a walk in evening once the rain stopped and reacquainted ourselves with our favorite convenience store - Stewart Shops where we bought a pint of “Death by Chocolate” ice cream to celebrate our successful day.  A vibrant double rainbow seemed a good omen to start us on our way!

Good night, Moon.

Fri June 10: More prep work in Winter Harbor

We spent the day buying MORE stuff for the boat and cleaning, fixing things.  Ima let Rick tell you about his many projects, because you can see that he is up to something in the pic below, but he's the only one who really knows what.

Rick here - although we had much maintenance and work done on the boat at Winter Harbor over the winter, there were still a few things for me to do on the boat.  Our water tank minder (it let’s us know how much fresh water we have in the tanks on the boat) stopped working last year. I bought a new gauge and now is the time to install.  I also installed a solar panel that is connected to our batteries. The panel provides a trickle charge to the batteries to keep them topped off.   I also did a thorough cleaning of the engine space and bilges. This winter we had major work done on the engine as we had reached 2000 hours and it was time for some “preventative maintenance”…..the mechanics at the Marina did a complete overhaul of the fuel injection system and adjusted the valves and timing.  But they left a mess of oily rags…so I had to scrub to get everything clean.  

Late afternoon we had docktails with Mike and Dana, to say goodbye as we leave tomorrow.  We will see them down the road on the St Lawrence.  Pretty soon along came another couple that we met last year on the wall at St Johnsville, Bob and Clare!  And a random new couple joined us.  So it was a great time to debut our cute Blue Horizon Docktails Cheese Set that loyal readers The Murphy Family gave us.  Now THAT is the way to get a shout-out in the blog!

 

Bob & Clare Perkins

New people - Tina & Tommy Osborne

Dana & Mike

Hunky Rick!!!!

 I shall now devote several pix to product placement-in the hopes that more readers will send us product!

Super cute logo courtesy of Dan Murphy and his high school wood shop!

 

 

The Docktails Cheese Board made its debut to great popular and critical acclaim.

 The spot below is reserved for YOUR PRODUCT - act now, operators standing by!!

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We know it is Friday because Guy Fieri is on Food Network…..Rick never misses a couple of episodes just to keep him grounded in time - otherwise, how do we know what day of the week it is??

And that is it for today - tonight we will look at tomorrow's route, and keep our fingers crossed for 'fair winds and following seas'......

 

Hello, moon - we should get a nice moon-rise pretty soon!

  

This is how we hope the whole of the sailing season goes...

 

Thurs June 9-I swear we are TRYING to leave

Yup - I had Covid, and Rick got it three days later.  I was past contagion by the reunion, but Rick had to take a pass and stay back in Boulder to recoup and sleep.  Honestly, I think we would have both happily traded places!  I'm not a crowd person...

76 cousins, plus many Bradley-adjacent people (Colorado College had a huge bash as Ric was a physics professor/dean there), and four events over three days - you can bet I needed migraine meds by the end.  Then a bunch of the older cousins (my brother and I are the youngest cousins - the oldest is 20 years older -) came back to Boulder to see my dad; and it was emotional overload.  There was lots of singing (it's hard to explain) and weeping, and I was happy to fly back to Syracuse (via Atlanta so we could do yard work and check the mail). Actually we stayed in Atlanta a couple of extra days and just slept.  Covid/emotion had wrecked us.  My 89-year-old mother must have the constitution of a water buffalo - she has not gotten sick, even though we were around her a couple of days before we clued into the Covid-not-head-cold thing and moved out of her apt....

In Atlanta we picked up Canadian money - Rick is so prepared.  Isn't it pretty!  And with the Queen on it.  I mean, I'm not a fan of inherited privilege, but I do love the Royals!  It's like the best reality show ever...

While we were doing nothing in Atlanta, Blue Horizon was busy getting put in the water.  First onto a trailer and out of the warehouse

Then onto the sling and into the water.  I bet she was happy to get back in the water!!!

So many hands gently helping her.  Awwwwwww...

FINALLY we took the red-eye back to the boat.  And thus commenced a frenzy of cleaning and shopping.  This is my least favorite part of the boating experience, especially given the current price of things.  My friend, Dana (wife of Mike) left me a present for the boat, summing up exactly what this time feels like.  With pieces of the boat not working (due to inactivity over the winter) and having to buy tons of stuff (like a toilet brush and trashcan - what happened to the ones from last year????????????)

 We got so tired that we accidentally stopped by a liquor store.  Nowadays we don't drink during the week - but we stocked up for tomorrow! 

 

How about this for the weekend?!  No - we didn't buy it.

 

There are boaters all over the place, getting ready to go.

Who knows what challenges lie in store - right now the water pump won't turn off, diesel costs $6/gallon as opposed to $2.80 last year, and I can't remember anything about boating...

At least this is familiar!  Boat names...comedy gold, people!!!

Fingers crossed we leave tomorrow...

Blue Horizon & Boulder

 We got to the warehouse to find someone had put our Baby in the Corner!  You can't even see Blue Horizon, but she is behind this boat on the left (stage/warehouse right?).

Using Rick for scale - like an iceberg, she's bigger on the bottom then the top. 

Here is the delightful way we have to get up into her.  And carry heavy boxes.  I convinced Rick that, even tho we are spry 23-year-olds, it might make sense to WAIT until the boat is in the water to put things on it.  Hand things down, as opposed to up. Sense prevailed. 

Winter Harbor has been doing some (expensive) work on the boat - and this is how they have left it.  I hope the work gets done sometime in the next week...  Remember - they had ALL WINTER to work on it.

Our friend Mike is working on his own boat - that is one way to make sure it gets done on time.  He is VERY careful about Covid - so, as it turns out, it is a good thing we did NOT go up that ladder.

We had barely gotten a glimpse of the boat when it was time to jet off to Boulder, for the 100th birthday of my Uncle Ric.  For those of you who care (love you, Kim and Dottie, and now, Linda!) my father is the youngest of 7 brothers, and Ric is next oldest from my dad.  76, yes - seventy-six, Bradleys are arriving in Colo Springs for his birthday.  And 4 days of Extreme Peopling (as Kim calls it) will ensue.

In an unfortunate turn of events, I felt a head-cold coming on.  Think how mad/dumb I am going to feel in 2 days when my sister-in-law tells me to go get tested for Covid...