July 6 – Friday
We had a number of thunder storms and some heavy rains in the night. The Friday forecast was for cloudy with chance of showers and 5 to 10 kt. Winds out of the west, in the AM. Then thunderstorms and 10-15 with gusts to 25 in the PM. Oneida Lake is 25 miles long and lays nearly east to west so a strong westerly wind makes it very lumpy. FLIGHT left the wall at 6:00 AM and arrived at Brewerton at the western end of the lake about 8:30. There was a low overcast but good visibility the entire crossing and there were very few fishermen out that required a slow-pass. The ride was comfortable enough that Polly baked a pan of cinnamon rolls and made a second pot of coffee on the way across and we had to throttle back to make time to enjoy the breakfast before we reached the fuel dock. The first bridge we passed under was I-81 roadway which runs through our home area in PA and continues north to Binghamton, Syracuse and on to the Thousand Island area of the St. Lawrence River. I have put a lot of car miles on that road but this was my first time passing beneath it in a boat.
We planned a Fuel and pump-out stop at Ess-Kay Boat Yard which came highly recommended to us by friends who had done this trip in the past. George, the owner met us at the fuel dock and passed the diesel hose then assisted in our pump-out of the holding tank. It turned out that his fuel price ($2.88/gal.) was the lowest we have paid so far but if his price had been the highest we would still go back because of the service and friendly attitude that prevails. Polly and I had our picture taken with him so we can email it to our friends, the O’Bryans, to show them we stopped and that George is doing fine. The slogan on his business card is “The Candle in the Wilderness” – we had such a nice experience spending a couple hundred bucks and pumping out the poop tank that we actually thought about staying for the night even though it was only 9 AM. Another surprise waiting for us at Ess-Kay was that our friends Gayle & John Wix (Safe Return) who pushed across the day before, had stopped there. They were just beginning to stir when we pulled into the dock.
After squaring away at Ess-Kay we locked through E23, our last lock on the Erie and resumed our voyage west for another 10 miles to join the Oswego River, north. Just a couple miles north of the river junction is the very lovely town of Phoenix where we found Henley Park and a super nice free dock where we decided to stay until morning. The sun had broken through and the air was feeling more and more pleasant.
A unique thing about this town dock is the “Bridge House Brats” – an entrepreneurial group of young people who assist boaters with docking, errand running and other boating services for contributions. I don’t know how long this has been going on but it has grown to the point that youngsters have to apply and if accepted are given special T-shirts to wear and there are some older folks around who seem to supervise in an informal manner.
This part of New York state is a wonderful piece of America and the local people are just great. It amazes me that an area like this and these fine folks could find themselves represented in Washington by a person such as Hillary Clinton.