11 Jun 15

We locked through the final lock on the Oswego Canal - Lock 8 - at about 08:45, and after re-fueling and pumping out, were in our slip by 10:00. The mast and boom and here and in good shape. I spent the rest of the morning and half the afternoon reinstalling the spreaders, the wind indicator and the windex; although I found a few machine screws missing from the top of the jib furling unit. The rest of the afternoon was spent running all around town looking for two St.St. 6mm x 30mm long machine screws (finally found them at Lowes) and a coax male connector to replace the one I had to cut off when the mast was un-stepped. Nobody in Oswego had a connector, but West Marine in Watertown, 47 miles away, had one, so we rented a car and ran over to Watertown.

43-27.681’N, 076-30.585’W

12 Jun 15

We got a knock from the marina at 07:30 advising us to move to the mast-stepping dock immediately, so over we went. Because of the size of our mast, they had to rent a crane, but other than that, it was all routine; we were a sail boat again and back at our slip by 10:00. If I ever find the guy who designed the guide/interface between the port back-stay and the radar mast, I’m going to kick him in the shins; what an absolute bastard of a job to reinstate. We spent the rest of the day installing the boom, re-instating all of the running rigging and bending on the jib, although we did manage a few minutes to get a few groceries to tide us over until we reach Kingston. The big worry was the VHF radio/AIS antenna wire splice, but after re-learning how to solder, we fired up the instruments and VHF and everything is working as it should. Just before turning in, we reviewed the weather forecasts for the next couple of days and considered heading for Kingston tomorrow; we’ll decide in the morning. Collapsed into bed at 22:00 totally exhausted, but we are a sailboat again.

13 Jun 15

We woke up at 07:30 and the forecast for Sunday was still good, so we decided not to go to Kingston until tomorrow. We gave the boat a good cleaning and got the laundry done, which seemed to take pretty much all day; the boat was filthy. Dave and Deb, “Significant Other” walked over from where they are docked between Locks 7 and 8 and said hello. They are headed across tomorrow as well but are planning to head for the Bay of Quinte. Dinner aboard again, to cook up the last of our fresh chicken and fish. Then, early to bed.

I am going to publish the blog a bit early, as we are not sure how or when we will be able to send out the next update.

The following link is to the video of our entire canal experience condensed into 38 minutes (note this supersedes (or includes the video posted last week (Catskill to Ilion)):

http://youtu.be/ZeS5teD9j6M