Maps of trip july 11-30

this is a diagram of our near miss on the erie canal when after swimming at point#1 the motor would not start, the wind and current dragged the boat [and anchor] towards the rocks at #2, then 3 as sandy jumped in and tied to a rock while amy and debbie got out the dinghy and tilted up outdrive. then sandy took 300 ft of rope and 2nd anchor to point #4, then 5 on wall toward lock and pulled boat over, whew!!!

below is map of trip stops from 7-11 to 7-26. Niagara falls side trip was by rental car while boat sat at brewerton

this is map of next few days. we caught up with the loopers group after the rendezvous in penetanguishene was over, but caught the 22 boats on a week long flotilla at lunch at famous henrys [an official sea airport] on sunday the 29th

tobermory and the 5 fathom marine park of Canada was great. most pics will have to wait as we used a water proof disposable film camera. there are 22 wrecks of 50-200 foot boats from 1800's and 5-8 are within 10 feet of the surface. i dove on 5 in the harbor about 1/4 mile from the transient dock. maybe some more today...

Big Chute Marine Railway July 27 and new pic site

i am moving from blogging to just loading pics with captions, check this out:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sandeb2/LoopTripJuly2529RiceLakeTo30000IslandsInGeorgianBay

Thousand Islands, Heart Castle 7/17

need to upload more of carols' picktures.

We spent one night in Clayton on the St. Lawrence and headed over to Boldt Caslte on Heart Island for a tour. You can boat right up to the island or take a tour boat. It was a pretty amazing place to walk through.

All four of us on the steps of the Power House on Heart Island. The castle is in the middle. The power house is to the north and the Play House (for the kids) to the south. It all looked like Disneyland. Too bad it was never lived in.

the 1000 Islands is just that, a thousand islands many with a house or houses on them. This owner has 2 islands. His house is in Canada and when he crosses his bridge he is in the US. He has both flags on his bridge.

Rice Lake 5 days 7/20-25

We limped into Harris Boat Works on Rice Lake Friday, 7/20. Sandy got to work lining up getting the outdrive taken care of (a mechanic at Harris new a mechanic in Toronto who worked on Volvo Pentas). Jim lined up renting a car. Mary (c0-owner of Harris) was heading into town (Coburg) and gave Jim and Carol a lift to National Car Rental to pick up the car. Sandy took off the outdrive (lower and upper).

The mechanic in Toronto said he could work on it Monday, have it done Monday PM or Tues AM. SO, the plan was to drive into Toronto Sat AM, drop off the outdrive at Eastern Marine, meet Jim's friend and girlfriend and hang out seeing Toronto for the day. We would say goodbye to Jim and Carol there and hang out at Rice Lake and Coburg until the outdrive was done and we could move on......

(see other blog for time in Toronto and Peterborough)

Sunday we found a church fairly close and made the 10:30 service. The sermon was about storms and Jesus calming the storm.

Remington Gun Museum 7-10

Amy and I walked up to the Remington Gun Museum on a hot afternoon in Ilion NY on the Erie Canal. We missed the tour of the factory but did go through the museum and learned a little about the start of Remington rifles/guns.

Antique Boat Museum, Clayton NY 7-16

We spent a little time at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton NY. There was a whole room just for race boats and their engines from the Gold Cup (I think). That was pretty cool.

Prop damage on the Erie 7-10

We hit some wood in the Erie and pretty much wiped out the props. Sandy had a spare set (actually he had 3 props, a set of 2 and an extra) so he changed the props in the water. Amy hopped in to help

Picture of what was left of the props. I repost this now because we have had a 4-5 day layover on Rice Lake for a rebuild of upper AND lower outdrives. They made it 10 days after we hit something and then finally gave out in the middle of Rice Lake. (see Toronto posting)

More pics from Erie with Amy 7/7-9

Sandy and Amy went swimming in the Hudson, just to say they did. it wasn't that warm out for Debbie to get in. We all went swimming in the Erie (warmer weather and anchored the boat just above a lock).

Amy and Debbie working the ropes at a dock

Sandy trying to get pictures of the bow of the boat slicing through the water. The waterway is pretty much what most of the Erie Canal looks like until you get to a town. You can be pretty isolated if there isn't a lot of boat traffic.

Sacket Harbor 7-16, Lake Ontario to Clayton on the St. LawrenceSeaway

We are really glad we stayed in Sacket Harbor an extra day because the Coast Guard was really busy due to the wind and waves. There were 3-4 rescues in the east end of Lake Ontario on Sunday including 1 presumed fatality. The wind generally blows west to east and the waves have the whole length of the lake to build and can get pretty big by the time they get to the St. Lawrence.
So we were glad to be safe in the marina and watch the waves go by and the lightening over the peninsula. The locals promised that by morning the lake would "lay down nice for you".
Early Monday morning we headed out and around the bend to Cape Vincent. Not much wind and an easy trip. She did "lay down nice". We got gas at Cape Vincent and headed on up the US side to Clayton .
Clayton is a bigger town and has the Antique Boat Museum, which many had told us was a must. It was very interesting.
Carol and Debbie checked out the shops in town and a museum or 2. Sandy and Jim checked out more of the Boat Museum and plotted our course for the afternoon.
However, we were heading out for Alexandria around 3 PM and the motor started acting up, soooo back to French Bay Marina we went to stay the night and have a mechanic replace a hose.
It's been beautiful weather today and we have enjoyed dinner on the boat and maybe later a stroll downtown to the local ice cream shoppe...... leaving Sackett harbor 5 am to beat any winds and waves on the big lake

stopping in Cape Vincent to brew coffee and get/give [pump out] a little gas.

Jim and Sandy studying charts, GPS ad the waves and shore and buoy markers to make sure we were on course. The St. Lawrence seaway in the 1000 island area is know for going from very deep to very shallow rocks in no time.

Jim is such a great driver of anything and loves to do it so he drove a lot. here we were crossing paths with a large freighter in a rather small channel.

Some sights at Sacket's Harbor 7-15

They have a very nice marine park area along with a couple of museums we visited. We also got to watch a beautiful sunset from the marina on Sunday night.

Erie Canal to Sacket Harbor 7-14

We picked up Jim and Carol in Syracuse and ran some errands before heading out from Ess-Kay Marina on Sat late morning for Lake Ontario. Unfortunately Carol woke up not feeling well so we took our time before heading off, hoping she would start feeling better. We headed on down the Erie Canal through another lock and then turned right into the Oswego Canal towards Lake Ontario. This is the Goodbye/Welcome to the Erie Canal sign.

Oswego Canal has 7 locks. This is the area at Oswego before you head out onto the lake.

Lake Ontario is huge. Fortunately it was a nice day, light to no wind and small seas. We head across the southeast corner for Sacket's Harbor and arrived a little after 5 PM. It was a good thing we did the run then because the wind was picking up and it was starting to rain a little.

We made it to harbor and a very nice marina. Since then it has been pretty windy and we ended up not heading out Sunday for the 1000 Island area but will wait until Monday morning when the wind and waves are supposed to be a lot less. Carol is feeling better and it has been great weather in the harbor. We checked out the 1812 Battlefield near the marina. Sandy and Jim have checked out all the other boats in the harbor and Debbie and Carol have had time to browse through different shops along Main St.

Canadian side of Niagara Falls

The next day we drove over to the Canadian side to see the Falls from there. We were glad we did. It really is spectacular to see.

I hate to say it, but the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is much bigger and the falls drop further as the American side has a huge pile of rocks at the bottom, filling about half the height of the falls.

Looking over the edge.....

p.s. The falls have retreated during those last 63 years 4.2 feet per year. see:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0147(189410)28%3A334%3C859%3ATDONF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

A very interesting story happened in about 1960. A father had two kids in a 14 foot boat and did not realize he was getting close t0 the Falls until it was too late. His prop hit a rock and became useless. He was rowing but not fast enough. People were watching as he yelled "We are all going to die." They fell out of the boat and a bystander caught the little girl while holding on to the railing by his foot while another bystander helped them both back to the railing. The father was lost and his body recovered later. Amazingly the 7-year old boy survived the drop over the falls, being picked up by a Maid of the Mist boat after seeing his life jacket.