Week 18 & 19: July 11-25
We’re in Canada now, eh? I s’pose yous know we’re loading up on butter tarts and poutine. We’ll also be buying up the cheese curds, don’cha know!
It’s been a busy 2 weeks since the last blog. I’ll just hit the highlights since all the villages and towns are starting to run together and I can’t remember what we did where.
In Oswego, NY we said goodbye to the US and traversed Lake Ontario. The locals said it was a good day to cross since the lake looked ‘flat’. Either they have a different definition of flat, or they get their kicks sending tourists out for an extremely bumpy ride. Derek and I now know why the ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ sank. By the way, I was singing that song the whole way! Good news is that I no longer get sea sick. Bad news is that the 2 cats traveling on our friend’s boat, Tango Papa, puked and peed all over their bed in protest to the waves. We were glad to be done with that day. NOT looking forward to Lake Michigan which tends to be even more unforgiving. When we finally crossed into Canada, the Marina had us set to dock right next to shore and Derek hit a stump or something and we decided to stay on a mooring ball instead. We now have a slight vibration so that is added to the “hope it don’t break” list.
The biggest difference on this part of the trip, besides the freakin cold temperatures, are the locks and tie-up walls. We’ve already passed through about 25 locks as the elevation increases. There is always a dam with huge amounts of released water flowing over and causing a wide and very strong current against us. We pull into the lock and grab the ropes hanging down from the walls and hang on. The massive door closes behind us and the lock fills with water. There’s lots of slime on the walls and little attached clams that spit water at us as the water rises! All the Canadian lock attendants are super nice, and apparently this is a coveted job for college students during the summer. Surprisingly, almost all of them have never been on a boat! The locks in the US were machine operated. In Canada, the attendants have to push a big wheel, like a playground merry-go-round, to open and close the doors. The town locals often come and sit by the locks to watch the boats and wave to the Loopers. You know you’re in the boonies when the boaters are the best show in town!
The second difference are the tie-up walls. Instead of marinas with docks, each town has a long concrete wall alongside of the waterway to pull over and tie the boat to. The city provides water and electrical hookups for a minimal fee. Usually there is a city park or downtown area to enjoy. In one village we went to an old fashioned amusement park. We laughed so hard on the Tilt-a-Wheel I almost peed my pants! In the village of Scotia,, NY we watched Pirates of the Caribbean in a theatre that only had one showing room. The towns are very quaint and the people very friendly. Each place we stop it’s like traveling back to the 50’s with privately owned grocers, restaurants and stores. It’s like Mayberry every day! Plus we are enthralled with the different kinds of food. Our fave so far is peameal bacon. It’s extremely hard to describe, so you’ll have to look it up!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peameal_bacon
The Trent-Severn Waterway is supposed to be the most beautiful part of our journey. We just started, so we are excited to see the sites along the way. We will go through 47 locks before we get to the end. The waterway is narrow and winding, like the canals in Holland, and goes through the center of each town. The pace is slow, and the number of boaters are few. Derek has reverted back to his Minnesota accent now that he is back in the nort’ and surrounded by people who say yous, dem, and yah.
Unfortunately, Canadian beer sucks! And they charge $42 per case!!!! Packs of cigarettes are $15. It’s almost enough to make me change my evil ways. Almost. US customs doesn’t have to worry that we will be bringing back too much of either.
Biggest news is a new addition to our family. I have missed our kids and pets so much lately since my ‘nurturing-mama mode’ had no outlet. I love Derek with all my heart, but needed something small and/or furry to cuddle and dote on. Derek is neither small nor furry! Sooo….we did what we said we would never do. We got a pet for the boat. We got a 7-week-old teeny fur ball kitten. Her name is Gypsea. We tried adopting from several SPCA centers in New York, but the myriad of rules and regulations literally made it impossible. You would think we were trying to adopt a child. Just when we were resigned to the fact that a kitty was not to be had, we met a waitress who had a litter ready for new homes. She brought her onboard the following morning, and it’s been true love ever since. She’s adapting well to life on the water, but still is less than happy with the engine noises. Our boat now looks like a pet store with all her little toys. She’s a wiz at the ‘catching fish’ kitty app on the laptop! I am a happy mama once again. Derek is actually smitten as well!
Our final note. In Canada you have to turn off your boat engines at each lock. On the last leg of the trip we went through 13 locks in one day. All that on and off combined with high usage of the bow thruster caused something electrical to fail in the thruster. This means that Derek has lost the ability to finesse the boat to the left or right as we enter the locks or dock at Marinas or walls. He is confident that he can handle everything without the bow thruster, but it will be missed until repaired at some point in the future.
Until the next update, Pass me a Molson or I’ll turf you out of here, hoser!


Peameal bacon - Wikipedia
Peameal bacon (also known as cornmeal bacon) is a type of back bacon made from lean boneless pork loin, trimmed fine, wet cured, and rolled in cornmeal. Development is credited to a Toronto, Ontario, ham and bacon curer, William…
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
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Hey Friends & Fam! July 3rd found us in Point Pleasant, NJ next to the Manasquan Inlet. We docked in the shrimp boat marina to save a little money. This was very different because it was literally where the shrimpers docked. There were only pilings to tie up to….no cleats or finger piers that give easy access to going ashore. We only had a rickety ledge that looked like it couldn’t hold our weight that was primarily used as a scallop shelf (see pic). But we met some great locals and one shrimping crew is now following our blog! Still in NJ, so the pleasure boaters still have no concept of how to navigate the waterways!

The biting flies along the New Jersey ICW are FIERCE! Slathered with Deet spray, I had bug detail on the flybridge while Derek drove. Swarms of flies would descend on us and I would wack away with the fly swatter barely making a dent in their number. The floor looked like the killing fields. Our fellow looper friend, Paula, traveling right in front of us, was armed with a hand-held vacuum sucking them up as they flew in the air. She also had one of those electric fly swatters, so she had the satisfaction of hearing the ‘pop’ of their electrocution. The little bastards bit the only part of my body not covered in poison….the bottom of my feet. There just wasn’t enough cortisone cream in the world for the next couple of days!

July 4th we went out to sea again in order to come into NYC bay. We had awesome views of the skyline and Miss Liberty. The marina for the night was in Staton Island…just a little too far away to see the NYC fireworks on the East River :(  But Staton Island had 3 shows of its own that we saw from our dock. The tanks and barges are huge around here so we definitely were the small fish in a big pond.

The next couple of days would be spent headed north on the Hudson River. Just a few miles past metropolitan NYC the scenery became absolutely lovely. Granite-faced mountains covered with trees loomed up on either side, and every turn on the waterway opened up another spectacular view.  The bottoms of the clouds would obscure some of the mountain tops and tall bridges. The river was smooth and wide.

We stayed at Half Moon Bay for 2 nights in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. We are still traveling with Tom and Paula who are on a 36’ Monk named ‘Tango Papa’. We found a few gems in this little town. Our first night in we ate at an Indian food restaurant called Raga. Excellent! I know man cannot live on bread alone, but I am convinced that I could live on nothing else but their onion/garlic na’an. Then we found a REAL Italian deli and food market. They made their own cheeses and aged them in house for years and sliced the sopressata and other meats so thin you could see through them. They were hiring and I toyed with the idea of working there a week and get paid on deli goods alone.

I also was able to have an eye exam there. I’ve been having blurred vision and seeing giant floaters in my right eye for weeks. Apparently I have a detached vitreous (not retina, thank goodness). There is no treatment for it and it may gradually improve. It's just another sign of aging. I’ll just add it to the list consisting of hot flashes, memory loss, aching joints, facial hair (except eyebrows which have disappeared), weak bladder, age spots and sagging body parts!

But the best time in Croton-on-Hudson was a trip to the nail salon. Derek and Tom agreed to join me and Paula for a pedicure. It was the first time for both men. The girl took one look at Derek’s parrot feet and exclaimed he definitely needed the $80 treatment!!! She worked her ass off with the cheese grater and exfoliants for a full hour. To her credit she smiled the whole time and didn’t mumble to the other girls in her foreign language. Now my husband has sexy feet again. So sexy that he was propositioned by a 20-something gay guy in the CVS afterwards! I can’t leave that man alone for a minute. As for Tom….he decided to go all out and paint his toenails black and have his girl paint an anchor on one big toe and a jolly roger (skull and cross bones) on the other. The jolly roger ended up looking like a tick!  He quickly decided to remove the polish.

We continued up the Hudson and had some great overnight anchoring spots. There are tons of pics since this area is so beautiful. We nestled between islands and the fish were jumping all around us. Unfortunately, Derek’s lures don’t work here either. Thank goodness we are not dependent on his catching ability for our food. We’re very happy to be out of the salt water for another 2500 miles. We love upstate NY, but everything here is too expensive to make our ‘we could live here’ list.

We are now in Waterford, NY and docked for free on the city docks. We’ve made it through our first 2 locks without incident on the Erie Canal. Paula and I provisioned today at the grocery store a mile away. However, when we asked the locals where the store was they said ‘just over the bridge’. Next time I will ask ‘which bridge’. We headed over the nearest bridge and found ourselves on a secluded island. By the time we back-tracked and found the right bridge we were miles into our hike. We talked the grocery store into unlocking the cart’s wheels so we could push them back to the boat. We felt like homeless bag ladies walking back over the bridge. I guess in a way we are! After fighting potholes and crumbling sidewalks for several blocks, we found some shade, I popped a beer, and we called our husbands to come rescue us and push their own future meals home.

Knock on wood, our boat is running great. However, our washer/dryer is possessed by the devil and it no longer gets the job done. It fills with water but does not drain. I will not miss laundromats when this journey is done. ​

Love to all!
The captain and the admiral.