June 15-16 Oswego to Lake Ontario

Before we left Phoenix, we heard the water levels were high and that the Oswego Canal might be closed.  We had a decision to make - do we stay where we know we have good dockage and a town with amenities?  Do we go on and take our chances that we can make it to the end of the canal at Oswego, on the shores of Lake Ontario?  The current was strong.  If the canal closed, it could mean we were stuck between locks, where we might not even have a tie-up, let alone any kind of town.  If the canal closed, we had no idea when it would open again - one day?  Two days?  Longer? 

Intrada decided to tie up after the next lock.  We took our chances and pressed on.  The lockmasters kept us informed about conditions: some said we’d make it through to Oswego, others weren’t so sure.  We heard the Western portion of the Erie Canal closed.  Some canoers had gotten too close to a dam and gone over.  Not long after we heard this, we observed two kayakers happily paddling in front of a dam, into the strong current.  Neither of them were wearing life jackets.   

We did make it to Oswego by noon.  We made an afternoon of it walking their rails-to-trails pathway, and shopping for groceries and other things.  It’s a pretty town, with unique architecture and pride in its long maritime history of naval battles in 1812 and being a shipping port.  Their lakeside maritime museum has an Army tug that was part of the Normandy invasion in WWII, the last survivor of its kind.

Monday we awoke to thick, thick fog.  Today was to be our crossing of the Eastern portion of Lake Ontario to Henderson, NY, where my mother’s cousin Thelma and her husband Jack live.  We’d need the radar.  And the fog horn.  And a better radio than the little hand-held we’d been using.  We needed to put up the mast.

So we went through the last lock and tied up on the other side, in the current rushing into the lake, and spent the next couple of hours stepping the mast.  Again, Dan had a system in place, and all went very smoothly.  By noon we were on the great lake, with fully functioning electronics, and sails up to catch what little wind there was.

The fog lifted about four pm.  We arrived in Henderson Harbor around an hour later, and tied up at the yacht club, courtesy of my Schneider cousins, both of whom were commodores at the club.  They came to collect us for a visit at their home and took us out for a fabulous dinner in nearby Sackett’s Harbor.  They gave us a quick tour of the historical buildings and battlefield of that town, which was a prominent site of the war of 1812.  It was great to see them and catch up with them and their daughter Jan who just happened to be in town.  We have been very blessed to spend such time with friends and family on this trip!