#9: Paging Christopher Columbus

Luxury is time. Translated for boaters, this means, "Making a schedule is useless. Go with the flow 'mon' and enjoy life as it unfolds along the way."

This post can be TMI (not an acronym for Three Mile Island!). But for those regular readers, here's the latest. We arrived back at the boat on Thursday afternoon in blistering temperatures. (For those of you in New England, the cooler air is on the way.) The temperature inside the boat was 95. Allan tried to wake up the aft AC to no avail. We have one of those intermittent water pump problems. Evening temperatures and breeze cooled us off and we enjoyed the benefits of the forward AC in our sleeping cabin.

We planned to get underway this morning. Around 5 AM, the fishing boat next door left the dock and returned twenty minutes later. The lake was too rough. The captain said his autopilot wouldn't hold a course for slow trolling. The radar showed showers approaching, so we postponed departure plans. 


Hmmm. Nothing much happening; read the guidebooks and study the charts for the Thousand Islands. The "Crazy Bitch II" fishing boat came in and docked next to "Best Damn Hyde Aweigh", near "Lateron" "Bloodvessel" "The Other Woman" and "Dixie Dandy". Somehow these names don't "ring" for a classic boater.

 Our attention turned to a tug pushing a barge into the Oswego Canal. Allan is partial to a blog by Will Van Dorp, called "Tugster" ... www.tugster.wordpress.com 

Will welcomes photos from readers, so Allan sent him some shots of tugs on the canals. Will asked if we'd seen a tug named "Margot." Yes indeed. And here she was again today, pushing a load of corn to Fulton, where it will be sent to a plant which used to brew Budweiser beer and now brews ethanol for thirsty cars.

 As the tug passed, we noticed two mysterious black ships which had slipped into the marina last night. A crane was stepping the seemingly myriad of masts. The name on the stern of one was "Nina"; and the other, "Pinta". Santa Maria! These ships are museums.

 As we watched, we wondered how Columbus stepped his masts. The crew wasn't very talkative; NMI - not much information. Perhaps they're tired of telling their story to interested onlookers. It looks like they're heading for the Great lakes. Beyond that ... maybe we should try Google if we had more time.

As you can see, the weather has cleared, so we're up the east coast of Lake Ontario for Sacket's Harbor.