Safe Arrival to Toronto, Home port of PCYC.

Just completed close to a 1,000 kilometer trek back to Toronto. Continuing up the Hudson River to the now familiar Hop-o-nose Marina in Catskills, New York. Very friendly, professional staff and ownership. The only place I would recommend on the Hudson for stepping your mast and storing your wooden mast supports, or even building them right on site. We had left ours here for safe keeping in the barn. I found them just as we left them. I was on my own now for a couple of days, and it took me about 1 day to set up my mast supports, take down my sails and boom, disconnect all the mast wiring and electronics. Then the very capable and always willing to help staff stepped the mast down for me in no time. I was ready to leave the next morning.

My next stop was Albany, NY. This is where the new crew would be meeting me to assist in navigating the Erie and Oswego Canals back to Lake Ontario. The crew this time around was my mother in-law, Mary Hook and her sister Judy Horvath. I had pretty much tapped out all willing and able crew personnel from the Black Diamond crew bank. So these ladies were nice enough to volunteer their services. We had successfully made it through 33 locks, escalating a total of 460 feet above the Hudson river, and then back down about another 100 feet to Lake Ontario.

At first I wondered if these ladies could handle this, but Judy was one of the best fore deck hands for going through the locks you could ask for. And my mother in-law, well you could not have a better cook in the galley stirring up your favorite meals one demand. All in all, I think we enjoyed the trip, the weather was perfect for the whole trip through the canals. We made a few stops in a couple of towns. But mostly kept a steady pace back to Toronto.

We arrived in record time of 5 days from Albany to Toronto. On day 4 we started at about 10am, and went straight through for about 8 hours to Oswego, and just kept on going without stopping from Oswego at about 6PM straight across the lake to Toronto in 19 hours for a total of 27 hours non-stop motoring. It took us 22 hours last summer to cross the lake, this time in 19 hours. This record time was due to a 20 to 25 knot wind on our back, 6 to 8 foot seas pushing us along from behind, hitting speeds of 8 knots under power. I felt like I was back in the Ocean, it all looked to familiar. However the seas were 4 degrees celsius, almost freezing, and it was a cold windy ride home right through the night and most of the next day. 

The next couple of days I plan to step the mast back up, unload some cruising toys, clean her up, and on Friday night we are entered into the Susan Hood Race. This race is from PCYC Mississauga, to Burlington to Niagara and Back to PCYC. This is a 75 knotical mile non-stop, over night race, starting at 8PM and finishing sometime the next morning.

Cruising the Caribbean and then without missing a beat, arriving just in time to hit the Toronto Racing scene. I love this sport!

New York City to Toronto here we go…

I arrived Saturday May 16th, in the evening, just enough time to have a nice dinner in Nyack, I love this town. Maybe its just because I have been here so many times now, it feels almost like home. The restaurants are great, and the people are friendly. It has the old US homey town feeling. The boat was waiting for me in the water at the dock. Peterson’s Boat yard, hauled the boat, painted the bottom, and tuned up the motor amoung other service items.

Vintage Replica to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Hudson River. (c) 2009.

The next morning, I completely cleaned the boat inside and out and was on my way to Haverstraw. I had a wonderful sail tacking up the river on jib alone. Nice tunes on the XM radio, cold drink in hand, 20 knot breeze, sailing 6.7 knots topped out at 7.5 on jib only. That’s speed over the ground, I may have been with the tidal current. But I did’nt care, I was going to be on time for Dinner with friends in Haverstraw.

Mary & Julie in the cock pit on a beautiful afternoon just arriving in Catskills, NY

The next morning a couple of friends joined me, Mary Zuidema and her friend Julie Brandt from a Church I attended down here in New Jersey. They will accompany me to Catskills, NY, where we will take the mast down.

Safely tied up to the docks in Catskills, NY.

We landed at the town dock in Highburgh, NY. it’s still off season, so no charge. We went for a little stroll on the board walk, had dinner at a beautiful restaurant in view of the boat on the patio. Went back to the boat, and watched a nice movie, then we turned into bed early. Don’t worry we all had separate cabins, no kinky stuff going on here.

Day 1 – PCYC, Toronto to the Oswego Canal

August 21st, 2008 – Port Credit Yacht Club to Oswego across Lake Ontario.

Dear Friends and Family,

Our friends and family have expressed an interest in our trip and asked that we keep some sort of a blog to keep in touch. We thought that we would send periodical e-mails about our whereabouts, and the whereabouts of Black Diamond, because the two won’t always be the same.

I spent the last week and a half putting the final details on Black Diamond for the trip, while Roxane on the other hand, was trying to figure out what to pack. Normally we would pack for a week or so, to a certain location. With this trip we had to think ahead and stock the boat for our future trip to Bahamas as well.

 

Taking care of a few things up the mast!

 

Black Diamond was at the Angus dealership’s port during this time, I must say they have treated her well, and have taken care of all the details. She had the last few warranty items and installs taken care of, plus an oil change and all systems checked. We can not sail all the way to New York City due the many low bridges, therefore, we had Angus take the mast down with a crane. It was then mounted on a cradle that was designed and built by Angus.  Once we clear the last low bridge, around Catskill New York on the Hudson river, we are scheduled to meet Uncle Paul Thornton. He will help us raise the mast, and ensure all the electronics are re-connected properly. Uncle Paul just happens to be in Catskill working on his own boat, which is enroute from the Bahamas to Lake Ontario. His final destination is Port Credit Yacht Club, where he is now a new member.

Lord willing our trip will go something like this….

August 20th Port Credit Yacht Club to New York City by Sept 1st.
October 27th to November 8th (Ed and crew) New York to Florida (off-shore)
December 1st to January 15th Cruising the Bahamas Islands with the family.
March Break working our way home north along the US east coast.
April to NYC
May to Lake Ontario and home.

Yesterday, we started our first leg of the trip from the Port Credit Yacht Club at 10PM in the evening. After a nice dinner and a swim in the pool with the kids, we packed the final items in the boat. The boat is loaded down, the water tanks are full 400 liters, the fuel is topped up 130 liters, and the head is pumped out! The storage room is loaded with Sails, a new Dinghy and Electric Motor, Scuba Diving gear, Tools and Safety gear. The Bilge is loaded with 100 bottles of water and drinks, and all the other storage compartments are loaded with clothes and linens. Amazingly, the boat does not feel crowded at all, there is a spot for everything! Not the same as a week-end on the MacGregor, a lil’ R&R.

Ready to set off across Lake Ontario.

 

Last night the lake was calm. 4-5 knots of wind on the nose, but no worries since we are motoring. We averaged 6 knots at 2100 RPM. The trip to the Oswego Canal will take a total of 22 hours non-stop. By 9 AM this morning we covered 1/2 the distance with out complications. We only used an 1/8 of a tank of fuel. We encountered no containerships or traffic until about 7AM, at which time Roxane spotted three. The auto pilot did an amazing job, while we watched David Letterman in the salon, mind you, we did poked our heads out to have a look around every 10 minutes. Roxane went to bed at about 1AM, while I stood watch in the cockpit until 5AM. Then we switched positions, while I got some shut eye until about 8:30AM.

Enjoying Lunch in the middle of the lake.

 

The remainder of the day we did not see a single boat until we were about 1 hour from Oswego. There we encountered 40 recreational fishing boats, dodging trolling boats into the harbour. At exactly 8PM and 22 hours later, we radioed the Oswego Yacht Club, and we were guided to the visitors dock. We met the friendliest husband and wife, they invited us into the clubhouse to sign in, very informal. With our PCYC membership we are allowed free docking at the Oswego Yacht Club for the night. After some refreshments, they offered to drive us to the Customs Check-in. We never would have found it otherwise. After the video phone check-in with customs, we were dropped off at the local ice cream shop, then walked along the main street along the river back to the club. Oswego is a really cute and happening town.

 

The rig sailing away from the sunset.

22 hours, 136 knotical miles which is about 250 kms, the boat is getting about the same gas economy as my car. Actually it would have cost us more to drive around the lake, and not as much fun.

Day 2 – Oswego Canal to Lake Onieda

August 22nd, Oswego to Lake Onieda NY

After our morning coffee Roxane cooked us a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs, we set out to the town dock. There we hooked up to shore power and charged our batteries for an hour or so, because the Oswego’s Yacht club does not provide power or water for visitors. We walked to the local bakery and stocked up fresh bread, while I took advantage of the free Wi-Fi to send out the last e-mail. A short stroll down the waterfront back to the boat and we were off to the first lock by noon.

We hoisted the US courtesy flag once we cleared customs.

 

Today we motored through the locks until about 9:30PM. We completed a total of 9 locks, and made it to the mouth of Lake Oneida. We never really got off the boat today, we had lunch on the boat, and even fired up the BBQ for dinner, while underway. We sat in the cockpit, eating dinner, while the boat motored along at 6 knots up river, in auto pilot mode. I was able to make subtle adjustments to the course with the wireless remote control while still enjoying my pork chop, rice and salad.

 

Enjoying a BBQ, while under auto pilot and wireless remote.

 
The kids noticed an ice cream shop on shore in Phoenix, NY. This quaint little town is on the water right by lock number 1. If you ever come this way you must stop here and visit the “Bridge House Brats”. This is a little group on entrepreneurial kids ages 8 to 13, they have a little clubhouse at the base of an old light house, called the “Brat Shack”. Essentially, they run errands, and service the boaters that stop here. They took the trash from the boat, and would even clean the boat if requested. If you need anything from town, such as groceries, or if you want to order food from local restaurants, they will take care of it for you. They call in the orders for you, they then race over on their bikes to pick it up. They even have picnic tables on a patio, on the water, to eat at. It’s really cute to see these little ones placing orders to the restaurants and serving all their customers. We had them fetch us some ice cream and ice for the boat, while we enjoyed the boating museum in the upper levels of the lighthouse. For more info on the “Brats” Check this site out. Www.bridgehousebrats.us

 

Alex is Loving that Cone!!!

Thomas now wrote his own business plan for how he might be the PCYC Brat, club members could call him on the VHF radio, and he would fetch them a cart, take their garbage to the bins, or pick up their orders in the chartroom and deliver it right to their slips. He can’t wait to ask Commodore Robin Ball if this sort of thing will be cool with him! I said, maybe if you give the Commodore a piece of the action, then there should be no problems.

 

Bridge House Brats stop in Phoenix, NY.

The Bridge House Brat

We are spending the night at the last lock before Oneida lake. The lake is 23 miles long and will take us about 3.5 hours to navigate to the other side. There we hope to spend a few hours at the amusement park and at the beach before continuing on. We are on a tight schedule until Catskills NY, once we get the mast up with Uncle Paul, we can slow the pace down a little. I was also told that the Hudson river is a lot more interesting, although, we are enjoying the beautiful scenery so far. The Oswego/Oneida river reminds us of the cottage country of the Trent-Severn Waterway in Ontario.

Day 3 – Lake Oneida to Utica, NY

Saturday August 23rd, Lake Oneida to Utica NY

Pudge loves the beach!

Departing at 7AM this morning, we made it across Lake Oneida by 10AM. We tied up at the Sylvana Beach Town Docks, and headed down to the beach. Thomas and Alexander enjoyed going for a swim and building sand castles. Thomas was fascinated by a man with a metal detector strolling the beach, he could not leave him alone, asking all sorts of questions, and obsessed with the possibilities of buried lost treasures. After a few hours relaxing on the beach we headed to a nice restaurant on the docks edge. After lunch we spent an hour at the amusement park. We enjoyed a few rides, including a roller coaster and the bumper cars. Sylvana Beach is very similar to Wasaga beach.

 

 

Their favorite ride!

 

 

Can

We left the dock at about 4PM, very heavy traffic in the channel made it difficult to leave the town dock. So I remember from my CPS courses, 3 loud blasts of the air horn would notify traffic of a boat entering a channel. I blasted the air horn, and just about gave half a dozen people a heart attack. But it work, just about all the channel traffic stopped dead in their tracks, and we successfully left the dock!

 

 

Navigating in the evening on Mohawk River.

Five hours later we arrived at lock 20, which is about the 12th or 13th lock that we completed, 20 more to go to the Hudson River. However, this evening did not go without complication. Nothing serious, but at about 8:30PM, it got very dark in the channel, and it made it difficult to navigate. Roxane noticed a log in the middle of the channel, so I veered hard to port. Unfortunately I choose the wrong side, the log was actually a large sunken tree blocking half of the channel, and the boat came to slow stop. The tree blocked the keel from moving forward. I then put the boat into reverse, and we were not moving at all. We were stuck in the middle of the channel, and it was getting pretty dark. Oh well, I guess we would spend the night here, and in the morning find someone to tow us out. We thought we would try to rev in high speed in reverse, still nothing, then Roxane and I shifted our weight together backwards and forwards, and within 1 minute of doing so, with the boat in hard reverse, Black Diamond was free from the tree.

We made it to the next lock within 15 minutes. Roxane stood on the bow and lit the way with our 3 million candle spotlight. Once we arrived we notified the lock master about the tree at buoy marker 595. We thought it would be a good idea to spend the night at this lock and not try to go any further this evening.

Day 4 – Erie Canal past Little Falls.

Sunday August 24th, Erie Canal past Little Falls.

 

Bridge at Little Falls.

Again this morning we got up at about 7am and left the lock by 7:45am. We motored all morning and stopped in Little Falls, NY for lunch. A very cute town, many antique shops and little restaurants.

 

Under railway bridge to Main Street.

 

 

The canal is blocked from most of the town by the railroad, but they built an underground tunnel, that you can walk through to get to the main part of town. Our stroll down main street, quickly showed that this town was in some kind of economic recession possibly due to the real estate crash . Many closed stores, one was for rent for only $375 per month. However, we found an amazing steakhouse.

 

 

Steak House at Little Falls.

 

Our meals came with all-you-can-eat soup and salad bar, Roxane ordered the lasagna, I had a baked stuffed haddock, the kids also got their own kids meals, the total bill with taxes came to $36! We had enough left-overs (with these American large portions!) for another meal back on the boat. We then walked to the local bakery, and ordered a dozen buns, 4 cinnamon donuts, 2 cup cakes, 4 large cookies, and a special strawberry coconut pastry. Believe it or not, the bill came to $5.50. I thought the lady had made a mistake, but she assured me that it was the correct price. I asked her how she makes any money? She just shrugged her shoulders.

 

We continued on our journey in the heat of the afternoon sun. We decided to try out the anchor on the boat for the first time, while in the Mohawk river. Our whole family enjoyed a refreshing swim off the boat; Thomas and Alexander had a great time jumping off the swim platform. We successfully dropped and retrieved the anchor using the electric windlass with no problems.

 

 

 

Swimming in the canal at anchor.

Further down the river, motoring along, carefully following the buoys, the boat came to a quick stop. Our 6 1/2 foot bulb keel had become stuck into mud at 5 foot depth. We were stuck and stuck good. We radioed for help, but we were in the middle of nowhere so we had no response. We called the emergency canal phone number, and the interstate police officer answered, and he knew nothing about the canals.

In the meantime a large trawler was approaching, I hailed the trawler and asked for assistance and he agreed to tow us out of the mud. He used his sonar to measure the depth of the shallow area as he approached. We realized that we had almost made it right through. After Thomas tied a few trusty bowlines (that he learned in sailing school), the trawler was able to tow us backwards out of the mud. We were free, but we had to be on the other side of the mud in order to make it to NY city. So we backed up the boat, and brought her up to about 8 knots, following the path that the trawler had taken. We had no choice, we had to get through. The nose started to go down, but with in a couple of seconds it popped up and we were through.

We lost a couple of hours with this incident, and it started getting dark, there was nowhere to dock for another hour down the river. We continued in almost complete darkness. The radar would have been handy in this situation, but it was disconnected since the mast was down and we could not rely on the accuracy of the GPS chart plotter in these narrow canals. Therefore, we followed the light of our 3 million candle flashlight,  Ed used the wireless remote control on the bow, we made our way down the canal. Up on the bow you get the best view at night. We drained the batteries in one of our flashlights, and we were now onto the second flashlight. It’s a good thing I stocked up on all the safety gear for the 300!  After an hour of this we made it to a dock that we spent the night on.
P.S. Thomas spent the day writing an employee manual for his new “Brats” business. He wrote about 3 pages, when I told him that Daddy’s business had a 60 page employee manual, he thought he should add some more details. When he got to page 10 of his manual, I explained to him, that it took Radonic Rodgers 11 years to get to 60 pages. This new information made him satisfied with his 10 page manual.

Navigating the canal in the evening.

Day 5 – 33 Locks through the Canals!

August 25th 2008, 33 Locks through the Canals before we reached the Hudson River.

We left the dock this morning just after 7AM, and headed down the Erie canal towards Waterford NY. We got off to a very good start and arrived at Amsterdam NY by about 11AM. We tied up at the town docks, and strolled into town looking for breakfast. Yes, we found it, Ed enjoyed 3 eggs over easy, sausages, and home fries with a side of two enormous pancakes (once again, too much for one meal but we enjoy eating the leftovers on the boat) A short stroll around town and we were back on the boat headed to our next destination.

 

Smacked the bow in the lock.

 At lock 9 we ran into a major problem. This lock is between a range of mountains. We now know that the wind seems to funnel through this area. The lockmasters gave us no warnings. We were not too worried about wind since we were in a river. The wind was actually not blowing that strong as we entered the lock, but just as we were trying to tie up, the wind suddenly gusted up to 20 knots. Roxane was at the bow and I could not get to the stern line quickly enough from the helm, so the stern was blown away from the side of the lock. The boat slowly found its way sideways in the lock. The lock door was closed, but the lock master began to panic and decided to re-open the lock door, this only allowed more wind on the starboard side of the boat. Roxane’s was quick thinking and brave as she jumped off the bow, with line in hand, and pulled the bow in. The stern swung around, just missing the other side of the lock, by 3 feet. The boat is 39 feet long, and the lock is about 42 feet wide. Now we were facing the wrong way in the lock, and resting on only 2 fenders that I had placed on the port side. Unfortunately, the boat suffered some cosmetic damage to the bow. We left the lock reversing out when some tourist asked us, why we entered the lock backwards, I just answered this is the way professionals do it for an added sense of adventure.

 

 

Thomas tending the lines in the locks.

 Just before this incident, I sent Thomas up to the bow, with a VHF radio, just for fun. He would watch out for logs, and markers and report to us on the radio as we would listen to him in the cockpit. During the whole situation above, Thomas was providing a running commentary about the whole situation over the VHF radio just adding to the stress level. He thought it was very amusing and did not seem to understand our concern.

 

Pudge in charge of the bow lines.

 

 

Today we covered about a dozen locks. During one stretch we dropped 5 locks within 1 mile (about 150 feet), this is the largest lock drop in the world. We arrived in a great little town called Waterford NY, just before the Hudson River.  The town of Waterford has a beautiful waterfront and has a nice set-up for boaters. They provide free docking for transients, along with free pump-out, water, electricity, Wi-Fi, showers and bathroom facilities. We walked through the town, and found an amazing gourmet restaurant, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. We especially needed to relax after such an adventure, a trip that makes the LO300 look like a walk in the park.

 

 

Passing through a swing bridge.

 In total we’ve traveled through 33 locks to get to the Hudson River. Amazingly, we navigated from PCYC in Toronto to the Hudson River just north of New York City, without refilling our water or gas tank, we didn’t pump-out, and we did not connect to shore-power for 6 days.  During this trip through the Erie Canal, we experienced beautiful changes in scenery from rolling farmland to mountains and cute little towns with church steeples and bells that chime on the hour. We feel like we have been through half of Europe with town names like Amsterdam, Rome, Verona and Frankfurt.

 

A typical Dam at a lock.

Day 6 – Hudson River, Waterford to Castleton

August 26th, On the Hudson, Waterford to Castleton.

After an overnight stop in Waterford, we left with full water tanks, and fully charged batteries. We were unable to get diesel fuel in Waterford so after a few miles down the Hudson River we stopped in Troy for fuel. We continued on, through our last lock, the Troy Federal Lock.

From here on we had to start keeping track of the tides. We quickly learned that it is not worth trying to go against the tides. Fortunately, it worked out well for us this afternoon, we were traveling south, out with the tide which helped us reach 8 knots. Our normal cruising speed is about 6 knots, so if we were to go against the tide we would only travel at about 4 knots.

 

Approaching Castleton Marina, April Sun can be seen on the wall.

We made it to Castleton Marina where we met uncle Paul, on his boat, in time for lunch. We did not stay for long because we still wanted to make it to Catskill while the tide was in our favour. Catskill is a charming little town approximately one mile up a little creek off the Hudson. We found a marina called Hop O Nose which has a good reputation for (lifting) stepping masts.  We chose to make this marina home for the next few days while Ed and uncle Paul reconnected the rigging, set up the sails and all of the electrical equipment. Hop O Nose was a great stop because there was a swimming pool for the kids to enjoy while Ed rigs the boat.

 

Thomas loves cheese bread in the salon.

P.S. For our friends at the yacht club, Uncle Paul is the boat electrician and technical guy for Spirit of Canada, he also flew down to South America when Derek ran into some trouble last time, to re-wire his whole boat. He has recently joined PCYC as a senior member with his boat April Sun.

 

West Point Military College

Albany, NY.

Check out the light house’ on the Hudson

West Point Military College

Day 7-8 – Hop-O-Nose Marina in Catskill, NY

August 27th-28th,  The mast is up! Still more work to do!

 

Black Diamond the Black Boat at Hop-O-Nose.

 

We are very thankful for beautiful weather (actually it’s been sunny since we left Toronto, over a week ago) The kid’s are enjoying the pool and walking around Catskill while I continue to work on the boat. Roxane made it to the laundry mat and the grocery store, so Black Diamond is fully stocked and ready for the rest of our journey. The kids really enjoyed walking through the main street of Catskill because the sidewalks of town are lined with 62 different cat statues, each decorated by a local artist. For example, in front of the police station is a cat dressed like an officer called ‘Copurr’. Another favourite is a pirate cat called ‘Cat ‘n Hook’. One of the cats dressed like Santa is called ‘Santa Claws’. The main street of `Catskill is a tourist attraction with the cute little shops and cafés. It is also the home town of “Uncle Sam” Samuel Wilson one of the older Presidents of the US and the tale of Rip Van Winkle.

 

Uncle Sam

 

 

Thomas with the Kit Cat of Catskills.

Aerocat with the boys.

Black Diamond the Black Boat at Hop-O-Nose.

Uncle Sam’s House

 

We have enjoyed our stay but we must move on! Tomorrow we plan to head south on the Hudson, out with the tide!

Day 9 – Swimming at the Hop-O-Nose Marina

August 29th, 2008

Enjoying a day at the pool at the Hop-O-Nose Marina.

 

Diving for Dollars!

 

This morning was a bit more relaxed for us. We were able to wake up slowly, enjoy our coffee and a swim in the pool, while we waited for high tide. At 1:00 pm, we left the dock, in Catskill, while Roxanne prepared some sandwiches for lunch. We motored south on the Hudson with very little boat traffic (which seems to be the norm for this trip). One large barge  being pushed by a tug, passed us, going upstream. Thomas and Alexander waved to the captain, so he let out a friendly blast of his horn to say hello. This was exciting for the kids.