Timeless Yacht

How perfect can a day really be? Hot but not too hot. Sunny. Dry. Quiet waterways. Open lock doors. What’s not to love. I guess it was a tad breezy this afternoon between a few lock. Of the horror.

We departed at 0900 from the wall above lock 6 in Frankford and were on our way for the 21nm trip to Campbellford. A leisurely 5 hours and 6 locks and we had completed another great day. This is all new water for everyone onboard, so each new waterway section, lock and view is novel and exciting. We arrived at our first lock at just after opening at 1000 to the doors creaking open and each successive lock was ready for us with friendly lock tenders to laugh at my silly jokes, like “thanks for ordering summer” and “you’ll make sure the weather is like this the entire way”

While I know we have some exciting locks to come, like THE Peterborough Lift Lock and THE Big Chute, the Ranney Falls flight of locks 11 and 12 didn’t disappoint. As you make the turn to port fighting the current pushing towards the port lock wall the size of the first chambers massive door reveals itself and then looms over you once you’ enter the chamber. You can see the water leaking through the doors a bit disconcertingly from the upper chamber. The large gates close behind you and all 100,000+ lbs of us smoothly rises the first step of about 25ft. The doors open and you slide into the next chamber. While the doors don’t seam as massive, you still rise more than 20 more feet for a total lift of 48 ft in what is a relatively small lock. Campbelllford lies just a few minutes up around the corner. We chose to dock in town to head to dinner ashore and visit some local shops and a bakery.

The Ranny lock was so amazing we had to head back down the trail from town about 1.5 miles to take peak from shore. Butter tarts and amazing pastries from Dooher’s Bakery at great prices was the reward for the leg stretching stroll to see the falls and lock.

Tomorrow will be an even shorter day with a later start. With the locks opening at 1000 and the next lock around the corner we’ll have another relaxed start and maybe a chance for an encore stop at Dooher’s.

We did it! We finally got underway. After 4 extra, all be it wonderful, days of nice but sometimes cool weather at Pirate’s Cove Marina we dropped our lines about 0815 and slid away from the dock into a blustery and cold morning. The current was still running in excess of 1 knot pushing us along at a good clip. We locked through the first three locks on the Oswego Canal all by ourselves as we left late enough to allow the boats held up on the Phoenix Wall to get through, and have the locked turned and ready for us.

A few more largish (mid 50s) power boats caught us at Lock 5, making for quite a party of maneuvering in the wind tunnels the north winds created through locks 5 through 8. Everyone held their positions well.

We made it to Oswego before 1300, pulled up to the fuel dock, topped off our tanks before heading to Canada and pumped out half of one tank before their pump decided to have a mind of its own. After quite a while we gave up on the pump out, to try another day. Off to our slip (wall) for the night. We had other plans to fuel up in the Thousand Islands but the only sure thing about plans is that they change.

Tomorrow we’ll jump to Picton. Au Canada!🇨🇦