Good Morning From America!

On Lake Ontario getting ready for arrival in Cape Vincent, NY

Before we left Gananoque, a fellow boater from our yacht club suggested that go to Cape Vincent to clear US customs and purchase our cruising permit. This small town is a port of entry to the United Stated and not much of a detour so we decided to follow the advice.

The sail from Kingston, ON to Cape Vincent, NY was short and sweet and we could call that route Butterfly Alley because every few minutes for about an hour and a half a Monarch butterfly flew by us – sometimes right through our rigging. They were all on the same path heading South-West. Butterflies are basically flying flowers and it felt like a bouquet of good luck coming our way!

On arrival in Cape Vincent, we tied up at the visitor's dock with our yellow 'Q' flag raised to indicate that we are aliens. With our passports and boat documents in hand, Dave headed to the Border Protection Office to clear customs. We got the boat perfectly tidy for the expected officer's visit but no one came. The check-in procedure took a couple minutes and we got our cruising permit for the USA without any issue. Cape Vincent is a quiet and quaint little town. We went for a walk, picked up some local grapes (this is wine country) and some corn on the cob that we ate on the way to Stony Island – a spot we picked to anchor that night. The weather has been incredible: hot sunny days and nights so calm we can't tell we're at anchor. It's making us feel like we're on summer holidays and due back to work next week. But we're not!

It was another gorgeous and gentle day for our crossing of Lake Ontario to Oswego, NY (good because I don't have my sea legs yet). The best part of the crossing was lowering the sails to stop the boat mid-way – far from everything - and jumping in the water for a swim.

In Oswego, we were first greeted by the old rusted lighthouse that is really cool but is just begging for some TLC. The town has nice some nice old brick buildings and a great path on both sides of the canal. We stayed at a marina on the first night so that we could get our mast unstepped the next day – a service they offer to sailboats transitioning the canal system.

There are two other Canadian sailboats here heading south for the winter as well. Whenever I see an old guy wearing a t-shirt that days 'Old Guys Rule', he turns out to be a boater. I was approached by one of them at the marina - a Torontonian with his manties in a knot over his cruising permit, or rather lack thereof. « Are they giving you this rigmarole too? » he asked me. Nope! We checked in at Cape Vincent and it was a pleasure.  He, on the other hand, was dealing with inconsistent information, faxes to Syracuse, delays and obvious upset. I didn't bother mentioning to him that in Cape Vincent (for no apparent reason) we weren't even charged a fee for our cruising permit.

I've been thinking a lot about my mother since we're here. She knows the name 'Oswego'. She heard it for the first time when she was 9 years old, living in Iles-de-la-Madeleine, for a very sad reason. Early one Monday morning in 1957, the community priest came to her door to announce to the family that their 'papa' would not be coming home. My grandfather worked on a cargo ship between Ontario and New York and one day when his ship was in port at Oswego, he fell into a diabetic coma that he never came out of. He didn't know that he had diabetes; he didn't recognize the warning signs. He was 45 years old and my grandmother became a widow with four young children. Our lives didn't overlap, not by a long shot, but now both of us have looked at the lighthouse and have seen the canal and some of the same buildings as we sailed in to port from Lake Ontario to Oswego.

Dave and I are here because it is our entry point to the New York State Canal System that will lead us to the Atlantic ocean. The Oswego Canal joins the Eastern portion of the Erie Canal, followed by the Hudson River.

We're doing the yellow part right now
and the orange part (the Erie Canal) will be in a day or two.

The canals have a number of fixed bridges along the way and to make the 20 foot maximum clearance limit, sailboats over 20 feet high must unstep their mast. Don't call it «demasting» though! That's a different kind of disaster!

We were lucky with regards to the mast stands; a member of our yacht club who recently returned from this area gave us his stands and they fit on our deck very well (thank you to Eric on S/V Tapestry). It saved us the « rigmarole » of building our own.

I don't know if anyone is at ease with their mast dangling from a rope above their boat but having to do it in a rush certainly can make it stressful. Time pressure is our greatest nemesis, Dave and I. But in Oswego they allot an hour per boat to get it done! It was completely worry-free and with the relaxed schedule we even got to eat lunch beforehand (hunger is our second greatest nemesis). We really mastered it.

So with our new stubby configuration, we had enough time in the day to transit the first lock (they operate from 7am to 5pm). Our Skipper Bob Cruising Guide warns that « the first lock experience can be intimidating » and that « yelling and screaming at each other does not help the situation ». I've always found that screaming at Dave is a great stress-reliever but decided to trust the guidebook. (Kidding!) The lock was very easy to get through; we thought it was fun. The ropes inside the locks used to steady the boat are slick with slime and grime so we finally got to use the lobster fishing gloves which we have onboard that I bought 5 years ago. I knew those gloves would come in handy!

Kianda looks like a total junk pile but, esthetics aside, our boat is now a sweet canal cruising machine! When we tied to the canal wall for the night in Oswego, people walking on the path made comments such as : « you've got a lot of...stuff » or «interesting rig ». Every sailboat over 20 feet high going through this area looks the same or worse so I'm surprised people aren't used to seeing these floating eyesores by now. Our mast guy said about 150 sailboats arrive in Oswego to transition the canal each fall and spring – Snowbirds going South to escape winter.

We just found out that the New York State Canal System is free this year to mark its 200th anniversary (construction of the Champlain Canal began in 1817). Side note : I dropped my wallet on my way to the goodbye party my work pals had for me about a month ago and lost $100 cash that was in it. The season pass for the canals would normally have cost us $100 so, I'm Even-Steven! 

Clearing customs in Cape Vincent.

Oswego Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse (built in 1934).

Folding sails in preparation to unstep the mast.

Mast up...

Mast down!

Oswego, NY.  On the horizon is Lake Ontario, the lighthouse
far right and Kianda just past Lock 1 in the Oswego Canal.

Oswego by night.