Change of Plans - Ver 6

As the title suggests, we've changed our plans.  Long time cruising friends and our children are not surprised since they know our plans are chiseled in sand.  I won't spoil the suspense and tell you the change.  Read on.  

On July 2, we left Oswego, NY, and headed across the east side of Lake Ontario towards the Thousand Islands.  The light house at the end of the break wall in Oswego doesn't look this good up close; it's in serious need of a coat of paint.

It was a fairly smooth crossing and we got to Henderson Harbor quickly and anchored.  Henderson Harbor (pop. ~ 1,400) is well protected from almost all directions and we liked it so much we stayed several days.  For such a small town, they had a surprisingly good July 4th fireworks show that lasted over an hour.  Our anchorage is shown below.

From there we continued up the Lake Ontario coast into the St Lawrence river.  Pictured below is the Horne's Ferry Terminal on Wolfe Island, Ontario.  Wolfe is located at the mouth of the St Lawrence and is the largest of the Thousand Islands (pop: ~1,400).

We tied up at the seawall in Cape Vincent, NY, across the river about 1/2 mile from the ferry.  The sunset shot over Wolfe Island also shows, if you look closely, many stick-like structures above the tree line.  These are giant windmills, 86 in total, which constitute the 2nd largest wind farm in Canada.

Right after we tied up at Cape Vincent, a tug and barge pulled up to the other side of the seawall.  Boating readers know that we boaters always help each other out docking and departing the dock.  Keeping with the tradition, the captain went out to help.

Boating readers also know that the "help" mentioned above rarely extends to boats that weigh more than 50,000 lbs.  The combo above likely weighs in north of a quarter million lbs.  Undaunted, I caught their line and started pulling them up the dock...really.

I'm thinking "...strong like bull.." and Susan is thinking "...dumb like bull...".  Despite my expert assistance, they still managed to smash the barge into the seawall.

We spent 2 nights at Cape Vincent, a much larger town than Henderson at ~ 2,800 residents.  The pic below shows a fellow boater apparently from a local boating club.

From Cape Vincent, we headed northeast, which is downriver, on the St. Lawrence River through the Thousand Islands.  BTW: Thousand Islands is an approximation.  There are 1,834 islands but that number does not roll trippingly off the tongue.  Also, the French called them Mille-Isles.

At this point some of you may be wondering why we're headed northeast instead of northwest as described in our trip summary.  Re this post's title, Susan & I had been discussing the trip thus far with the medical delays, weather delays, etc and decided we didn't want to see Chicago and St Louis that badly.  So we came up with a new plan to see the Thousand Islands and maybe some parts of Canada and then back track our route thus far to Chesapeake Bay.  We would still bring Temptation to St Petersburg, FL, but would do so along the familiar, east coast route this fall.   Hence the deviation down the St Lawrence.

Continuing our tale, as we headed down river we were reminded several times that the St. Lawrence Seaway handles about 50 million tons of cargo each year.

The islands are very beautiful and many have only one house.  This is island 873...trust me.

One of the visual highlights of the Thousand Islands is Boldt Castle in Alexandria Bay.  Some rich guy named Boldt started building it over 100 years ago for his wife and, when she died suddenly, he had the 300 workers lay down their tools and walk away.  It has since been partially restored.

Near Alexandria Bay, we stayed for 2 days in Clayton, NY, and I visited the Antique Boat Museum which was an amazing display of wooden boats from canoes through hydroplanes.  Heading back up river, we stopped again at Cape Vincent before setting out south across Lake Ontario.  As we exited the St Lawrence, we cruised briefly into Canadian waters.

On the south shore of the lake, we stopped at Little Sodus Bay, NY - the place where we missed the family reunion last month.  We've been into the town, Fair Haven (pop: 741), twice.  Fair Haven has several good restaurants.  One (O'Connor's) featured Irish folk dancing (surprise!).  The star of the show is shown both performing and as the rose among-st the thorns - my brother Mark (right) and his friend Robby. 

Walking back to the boat we passed a service station and, because of the business I was in for 25 years, I couldn't help but take a picture of the sign on a gas pump.

From Fair Haven we head for Oswego and the NY Canal System again.  Stay tuned.  We promise we won't change plans again...and the check is in the mail and I'll respect...