Captain's Choice blog: Thousand Islands

Islands, Islands everywhere...how many islands are there in the 1000 Islands? According to Wikipedia there are 1,864. What constitutes an island? The land must have at least one square foot of land above water level year-round, and support at least one living tree (some reports state 2 trees). With only a few months to experience the north country many of the loopers bypass the 1000 Islands and go directly to Trenton and the Trent Severn Waterway from Oswego. You really need about 5 months to see the 1000 Islands, Rideau Canal, Trent-Severn, Georgian Bay and the North Channel. Every location is a little different and the beauty is amazing.

We left our anchorage Friday morning and headed down the Canadian Middle channel (some of the most beautiful cruising grounds of the islands) 15 miles to Gananoque, Canada. We had not been to Gananoque by boat in almost 20 years and we were looking forward to Canadian ice cream, pea meal bacon and butter tarts. Just as Buffalo is known for it's wings and beef on weck, you can't go to Canada and not get their creamy ice cream and butter tarts.
Once settled at the marina we headed over to the 1000 Island Playhouse (one of our favorite small theaters) to see what play was being performed and if tickets were available. We were in luck, Friday night was preview night for a comedy titled Leading Ladies and they had plenty of seats. It definitely was a bit corny but had a lot of adult humor, we laughed and had a smile on our faces as we left. We got plenty of exercise walking the town and had a wonderful dinner Saturday at Riva, an Italian restaurant close by.

Our initial plan was to go to Kingston after Gananoque but we scrapped that idea and headed for an anchorage on Sunday morning. We have done all the touristy things in Kingston already, the anchorage sounded more inviting. There are many Canadian National Parks with mooring balls and we hoped we would have some luck and be able to snag a ball. We headed over to one of our favorite islands, Camelot, but all the mooring balls were full. Instead of moving on, we opted to anchor med style (regular anchor out front, back of the boat tied to shore) between Camelot and Niagara Island in 30' of water, which would give us plenty of protection from the predicted NE winds. It's also a great anchorage as a channel that is "no wake" runs across the front of it allowing us to watch the other boats pass by.
We headed out for a dinghy ride and docked at the island to walk the trails. The camp sites are really nice and there was only one family camping, probably due to the rain forecast for Monday. We took another walk down memory lane as we looked out over the dock where we had brought the kids some 20+ years ago in our 22' Sea Ray. Both of us could picture Dan sitting on the dock fishing, Mark and Allison sitting at the picnic table after just finishing breakfast. We were lucky to get a spot on the dock that year, this year the dock is closed due to the flooding as part of the dock is underwater.
We enjoyed a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon on the boat watching three loons close by. It was like watching synchronized swimming as they put their heads in the water, shook them off, dove into the water, came up in different spots and did a little swirl changing places. The decision to anchor was a good one!

It's Monday, July 24...guess what that date means? We left Buffalo one year ago to start our 2nd part of this Great loop adventure, WOW! I can tell you we wouldn't have left July 24, 2017...it rained cats and dogs overnight and all morning! We have been so fortunate to have a few sunny days strung together, we knew we were in for a change. Cool temperatures too...it felt like a fall day camping with a high of only 70...weather wise this has really been a lousy summer up north.

Wind at the Lake Ontario buoy 19 knots, waves 3' Tuesday had us sitting at the anchorage another day. The forecast had said 5-10 mph and waves less than 2', once again mother nature and the weathermen weren't on the same page. We stayed at the anchorage, took another dinghy ride, watched 4 boats anchor and raft nearby. It was entertaining as they all had different mindsets on how they wanted to be set up. They finally got it right and the kids were quickly in the 67 degree water.
It was a beautiful evening and we sat on the bow taking in the sunset.

What a great forecast for Wednesday morning, sunny, winds around 5 mph, waves 0, Wow, really? We saw a few of my favorite things as we left the anchorage, the 3 loons did their synchronized swimming, "Fred" the blue heron flew by and some more freighters in the St. Lawrence. We have seen blue herons on this entire trip, we have affectionately called any heron we see "Fred". It certainly wasn't sunny and looked like it was going to rain, which it did. Once we got out to the lake it was not calm winds and 0' waves, it was 16 mph winds and 3' waves. Getting a decent weather forecast is probably one of the more challenging aspects of this trip. At least they weren't beam seas as we were taking them on the bow and about halfway across our 72 mile trip to Oswego the winds calmed and the waves decreased.
As soon as we got settled we started working on lowering the radar so that we will fit under the bridges in the western section of the Erie Canal. By 7 pm we were finally finished and we headed over to the Press Box Sports Bar for a bite to eat.

Now we sit and wait...wait for the rain to stop (rain started again Wednesday night) and wait for the Erie Canal to reopen. They closed the section from Baldwinsville to Palmyra due to flooding from the rain on Monday and that's exactly where we need to go. At this point we have no idea how long we will have to wait, they say it is a "short term closure." The saving grace is we have a nice location on the wall and this weekend is Oswego Harborfest...