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.

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