Leaving New York

We are under way westbound along the south shore of Lake Erie, bound for Erie, Pennsylvania. We had a nice two-night stay in Barcelona (really now part of Westfield), but it's more of a one-night stop. Westing on Lake Erie is a two-steps-forward, one-step-back process, where we grab what little window we can, race along to the next harbor, and then get pinned down.


Vector on the breakwall at sunset last night. This was our private patio.

After my last post, we made our way ashore for dinner. The tender was already in the water from my earlier recon mission; we came into the harbor with it hip-tied to the starboard side. We landed at one of the half dozen or so finger piers on the west side of the public pier. No sooner had we tied up than a local came by to ask if we were from the big boat in the harbor. When we said yes, he allowed as he had never seen anyone tie up there in his 20 years in the area.


Barcelona Harbor with Vector on the breakwall. Tender is at one of the docks center-frame. The sailboat mid-harbor is on a mooring, we assume private, and the only one in the harbor.

We strolled up the hill, around past the historic stone lighthouse, and stopped into the convenience store before heading back down to 1st Street. We ate at the relatively new When Pigs Fly BBQ joint, which had a full bar including draft beer, and a nice lakefront patio. The place was flying a Texas flag and sporting a five-point star on the front, but we nevertheless ordered the St. Louis style ribs, which were excellent. We split a single meal between us and still took some ribs home.


A longer view of our breakwall. "Weeds" in the foreground are Concord grape vines.

Yesterday morning the wind whipped up to 20 knots and we watched the waves crashing over the west jetty in the morning. We were nice and comfortable on the inside of the east breakwall. While the lake was miserable all day, in the afternoon the rain let up, and I took the e-Bike ashore for the two mile ride up the hill to the main part of Westfield.


Nothing about this motel near the Thruway exit says "holiday" except the sign.

We are in Concord grape country, and the central fixture of Westfield is the enormous Welch's plant. Down the road a bit is Mogen David. The industry here is enough to support a vibrant downtown, a couple of blocks of historic buildings now home to a half dozen trendy restaurants and some shops. I explored the downtown and central square, peered over the bridge at historic Chautauqua Creek, and stopped in the Chautauqua County museum.


The older C.E. Welch building downtown, now home to the Grape Growers Co-op. Here on the back side the old Welch logo (lower left) is prominent, along with a faded painted sign.

I ended my excursion at the Tops grocery store for some much needed provisions. I really need to get a rack for the e-Bike; as it stands I had to load everything in a single backpack, which was just large enough for our relatively short shopping list. With fresh milk and some other cold items, I made the two mile trip back to the dock without further stops. I did stop on the overpass to snap a photo of the abandoned railroad station.


If we had gone west instead of east on the Lakeshore Limited, we would have passed this well preserved station.

I managed to come and go from the docks relatively unnoticed, but when we returned ashore at dinner time, the harbormaster was outside his office chatting with some locals, and one asked, again, if we were on the big boat in the harbor. We chatted for a few minutes; the harbormaster wanted to know why we had not tied up to the end of the pier. We explained about the fendering, omitting the second reason, which would be the high looky-loo factor there.


Quaint downtown Westfield, looking west toward Chautauqua Creek.

We walked over to Jack's Drive-In, across the street from the BBQ joint, for dinner, it being the only other choice in town. It was a more casual menu but quite good, and we both enjoyed beers from the nearby Five & 20 brewery just up the road. They were out of the brown so I had the stout, and Louise had a lager with a hint of (you guessed it) grape in it.

On our way back we stopped in the park to admire the small stand of Concord grape vines planted as a visitor exhibit. A large sign explains the history of Barcelona Harbor. Later, on an evening stroll on the breakwall, we discovered the grapes had taken root there, too, in some crevices where sediment had accumulated. Later in the season we could have had some grapes to ourselves.


Lots of history here, due, in part, to the Chautauqua Portage.

Speaking of the breakwall and having it to ourselves, it ranks among our top five weirdest mooring experiences to date. Some of the others include tying to a rusty bulkhead outside a casino in Harvey, Louisiana, stringing between a widely spaced pair of dolphins on the Okeechobee, tying the whole boat to a single bollard on the Erie Canal, and tying off to recessed bollards on the wall in Troy, New York (twice).

We should have the anchor down in Presque Isle Bay right around cocktail hour this evening.

Thruster Chautauqua

I am beginning this post underway westbound in Lake Erie. Our original plan wast to make Erie, Pennsylvania this afternoon, but we have steep waves and lots of pitching, and we are diverting to Barcelona, New York instead. It's a tiny small craft harbor, so we have our fingers crossed that we can either make it alongside the city pier, or drop the hook inside the breakwaters. We won't make it out of New York, or even Chautauqua County.

We had a nice stay in Dunkirk, and it was productive, but the weeds in the harbor proved to be a challenge. It took us two hours or so to free ourselves; first by dragging as many weeds away from the chain as possible using the tender, and then by hacking away at the giant ball that came up with the anchor as we were tied alongside the Yacht Club to pump out.


Dunkirk harbor at sunset. That's Vector's silhouette; next to the sun are some bushes on the breakwater.

We splashed the tender just before dinner time Saturday evening, and went ashore at the city pier, which is in the middle of renovations. We strolled the town a bit before landing at Demetri's for dinner. We had the prime rib special, which was fine, but apparently the place is not highly thought of around town. After dinner we walked over to the Sav-a-Lot to reprovision, since we had pared down before crossing the border. They had the least expensive groceries we've seen in a long time.

Yesterday was devoted to repairing the bow thruster. Louise cleared a path through her quilt studio, AKA the forward stateroom, and we flipped the mattress off the berth and out of the way. I prepped as many tools as I could think of, and descended into the carbon-infused thruster bay. As I removed the relay pack from the motor terminals, I could feel one of the terminals was physically loose inside the motor housing.


Louise snapped this photo mid-project. That's the bad motor on the drop cloth.

Fortunately, nothing was seized or corroded, and the motor came out without issue. Squat-lifting the 82-pound motor while standing precariously on a graphite-covered cylinder was a bit nerve-wracking, as was doing a standing shoulder-press from the same perch to get it up on the berth, at chest height.

The thing I had been most worried about came next, to wit: removing the drive spline from the motor shaft. The mating spline on the drive leg once seized on so badly that we had to drill out the set-screw and then tap it for a larger one. This time we got lucky; the set-screw came out easily and the spline slid off after application of some WD-40 and coaxing from my thin pry bar.


Gratuitous shot of the relay pack.

Inspection of the Gates coupler revealed no abnormal wear, and the new motor slid right into place. The spline on the drive leg was a bit loose, so I cinched down the set-screw as much as I could in the restricted space. Once the relay pack was back in place the motor fired right up and the thruster again emits the normal cavitation noise and is moving the bow around.

The new motor is 16 horsepower and rated for 350 pounds of thrust. The original motor is 20 horse and rated for 430 pounds. We bagged it up and I strapped it down in the engine room; whenever we stop in a large city for a week or so I will take it to a motor shop to see if it can be refurbished. In the meantime, this one will get us by, and turns out to be producing more thrust than the old one had in quite some time.

We had both girded ourselves for things to go sideways, as they so often do in such projects. This one went by the book, with the lone exception of me dropping one of the brass terminal nuts into the very deep, very pointy bilge. I was able to fish it out with the grabber we keep just for this type of problem.


Nut on the end of a gripper. I think Louise really just wanted to capture the carbon dust on my head.

In the afternoon I tendered ashore to ask the yacht club, another on our reciprocal list, about using their pumpout. A very friendly bunch. Later we returned ashore for some very good pizza and a pitcher of Labatts at Pizza Village.

This morning, after getting as many weeds off the chain as we could, we hip-tied the tender and weighed anchor, which came up with a couple hundred pounds of weeds still attached. We plowed our way through yet more weeds to the pumpout dock, and after pumping out we brought the tender around to the anchor to dislodge the rest of the weeds. One of the members came over to take a photo of the impressive vegetation; I forgot to snap one myself in the heat of battle.

We dock port-side-to for pumping out, which meant we could not hoist the tender until back out in the harbor. Once the tender was on deck we motored out into the lake. We did not encounter the full force of the lake conditions until we rounded Dunkirk Light; once out in them, we decided to press ahead to Barcelona.


Closer view of Vector and the sunset.

Update: we are on a "lunch hook" east of the Barcelona breakwaters (map). The harbor quickly became too shallow after we entered, and we came back here to anchor. The bottom here is rock, unsuitable for anchoring overnight, so we splashed the tender and I sounded out the harbor, the pier, and the breakwater itself, which has some cleats. We're still noodling through our options, but in the meantime, Louise is taking a rest after a poor night of sleep and an exhausting day.

Update 2: OK, while I was still organizing photos, we made the decision to come around inside the mouth of the harbor, and tie up to the inside of the east breakwater (map - select satellite view to see the breakwater). We're using one of the cleats and a couple of "pins" consisting of 2" pipe with caps. We'll likely tender in to the pier later and walk to one of the two joints in town for dinner.

A very long day in Canada to climb 325'

I am typing under way across Lake Erie, bound for Dunkirk, New York, with Port Colborne, Ontario receding behind us. I started this post yesterday morning in Port Weller, thinking it would be no problem to wrap it up after arriving at Port Colborne, but it was not to be: we arrived, exhausted, at 10:30pm.


A glassy stretch of the Welland Canal near Port Robinson, just before sunset.

Monday afternoon we arrived at Point Breeze inlet a little after 4pm. There's no place for us to anchor in Oak Orchard Creek, so our options were to try to find a marina that was far enough above water to take us, or else anchor in the lake. Point Breeze is really a small-boat harbor; only a couple of spots in the whole harbor could even fit us. Fortunately, the swell was minor, with no chop, so we tucked in around the leeward jetty and dropped the hook in Lake Ontario (map).


Vector anchored near the Point Breeze jetties, as seen from the park.

We splashed the tender at dinner time and headed in the inlet and a short ways up the creek to the nice dock at the county park (plenty big for Vector, but no overnight docking) next to the boat ramp. At the end of the park near the east jetty is a replica of the historic lighthouse, not open for tours during our visit. We walked just a few feet to the Black North Inn for dinner.

I ordered a sandwich that looked good, listed as "roast beef, warmed in au jus, on a Kimmelweck roll," but I had to ask just exactly what kind of roll that was. (It turns out to be a kaiser roll with salt and caraway seeds on top.) Only later did I learn that this combination is a regional "thing" in western New York, locally known as "beef on weck." It was very good, as was Louise's locally caught perch.


Coming back down Oak Orchard Creek through the yacht clubs. Parkway overpass is ahead.

After dinner we took a dinghy ride up Oak Orchard Creek, past the Lake Ontario Parkway bridge. The river is lined with "yacht clubs" like the Oak Orchard Yacht Club and the Point Breeze Yacht Club, which are basically marinas for seasonal tenants with limited facilities. Many docks are underwater. The creek itself was quite scenic.

We decked the tender as soon as we got home, for an early start on the next leg, to Youngstown. I'm glad we did, because the wind shifted overnight, and what had been the leeward side of the jetties was now getting some swell off the lake. We weighed anchor after our first cup of coffee. The stabilizers made life much better, and by the time we were approaching the Niagara River, the lake had settled quite a bit as well.


Fort Niagara on the US side of the Niagara River. USCG station at right.

As we approached the mouth of the Niagara we had the historic Fort Niagara to port, and in the distance to starboard we could see the Toronto skyline. We turned toward the river and weaved and dodged our way through -- you guessed it -- sailing school. The Youngstown Yacht Club had one mooring left that could accommodate us, a 2,200-lb concrete block. The river is 50' deep here, so anchoring would not be our first choice. Our mooring was directly across the river from the historic Fort George, and we heard drumming every morning and canon fire in the afternoon.

The yacht club has a launch, but we splashed the tender anyway, because we wanted to visit the much larger and more interesting town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, across the river in Canada. No moorings on that side, nor any docks open for Vector. The CBSA web site said the clearance port of entry was at the Sailing Club there, and that's where we headed.


The yacht club uses these halved railroad axles as mushroom moorings. We had something a bit heavier.

We could see dozens of boats docked at the club's docks, and a few on moorings; nevertheless as we approached we spotted large, hand-written signs saying the facility was closed, no docking, and no dinghy tie-up. We motored over to an occupied boat that turned out to be one of the proprietors and they allowed as there was too much liability attached to having non-members walk across the property after so much flooding. They suggested the Smuggler's Cove Boat Club, two klicks upriver.

That was not listed as a PoE, but we motored up there to see if we could do it anyway. It took me a while to find someone for permission to tie up; club member Jeff was very pleasant and accommodating and not only gave us permission, but also let me use the land line to call CBSA, as neither of us had a working cell signal. (Our AT&T hot spot had likewise stopped working as we approached the border.) CBSA had no problem clearing us here, and immediately recognized the name of the marina.


The Youngstown anchorage as seen from the park. Niagara-on-the-lake and its shuttered Sailing Club in the background.

After clearing in we called an Uber to get to town. It would have been an easy walk from the closed Sailing Club, and by myself I could have picked up one of the community rental bikes from a rack at the park next to  Smuggler's Cove for a relatively short bike ride. Our Uber driver was very informative, told us a bit about the town, and dropped us in the center of everything.

It was a very pretty town, reminding us a lot of many waterfront tourist towns on the east coast, such as Greenport, NY. A well-kept main street, Queen Street, is lined with shops and restaurants, and we had a pleasant dinner at Bistro 61. We strolled a bit after dinner, stopping in at the nicely restored Prince of Wales Hotel before calling another Uber to take us back to the park, uphill from the marina.


Memorial Clock Tower with the old courthouse in the background, near where our Uber dropped us.

Clearing back in to the US was painless using CBP's ROAM app on my phone, which has all the details of both boats as well as our passport information and "known traveler" numbers. It was a very nice evening, and we're glad we made the trip across the river.

Wednesday was something of a project day around the boat. We had to get everything in order for clearing the boat into Canada, including having Angel's records available, and making an extensive list of all the alcohol on board, something I've never done before. You might be amused, or appalled, to know we have 17 liters of wine, three liters of spirits (across six open bottles), and 10 liters (and dwindling) of beer.


Vector on her mooring at the Youngstown Yacht Club.

The other arrangement I needed to make was for a third crewman for the transit of the Welland Canal to Lake Erie. The Seaway requires a minimum of three crew -- skipper and two line handlers -- for upbound transits, while two suffices for downbound. While I had teed up a possible volunteer in Buffalo and also had offers from some friends and family, we were recommended to hire Roger St. Amand at Port Weller. Roger retired from Seaway canal operations, so knows all the ins and outs.

Roger was not available Friday but had an assistant who was. The fee was US$225, and we certainly could not have transported any friends or family here for that amount. Even the more local volunteer would have been close to that by the time we figured Uber rides in both directions and two or three days of meals. Hiring Roger paid immediate dividends, as he was able to assure us we could spend the night at the waiting docks at either end of the canal, notwithstanding printed guidance from Seaway and our cruising guides to the contrary.


Wading fountain and playground in Youngstown.

I did take a break in the middle of the day to go into Youngstown and walk the town, tying up at the public dock in a little park. It was a short walk, as the town is really just just four blocks long. An interesting bar in town inhabits a historic stone building, and it's known locally as The Stone Jug. There's a diner, a nice park with a wading fountain, a Rite-Aid, and a couple of small shops. I did stop in to the Sunoco station to pick up a gallon of gas for the tender.


The Stone Jug, actually named "Ontario House."

The late afternoon was a somewhat less pleasant project. The bow thruster has been getting weaker and weaker and not sounding right. In the past, that's been a sign of impending failure of the drive leg, but we've been in so many tall weeds lately that we thought, just maybe, the thruster had ingested some and become occluded or jammed with them. With the water in the Niagra being very clear and the temperature finally moving into the upper 70s, I donned wet suit and mask and went down to have a look. The tunnel was completely clear and I was able to turn the propeller by hand without any play or grinding; not good news.

We went ashore for dinner at the Yacht Club, which had a nice bar and restaurant. This is yet another club where we have reciprocity courtesy of our membership in MTOA, which has been very valuable. They gave us the mooring for free (but insisted we had to be off by Friday morning due to a scheduled influx for a sailing race) and we were happy to spend some money with them.


Sunset over the mouth of the Niagara.

Thursday we cast off the mooring and proceeded just ten miles to Port Weller, where we tied up at the canal waiting dock (map).  That cut two hours off yesterday's cruise and gave us the chance to clear in with Border Services without rushing.

I docked without using the thruster, both because it was mostly ineffective now but also to minimize any further damage to the drive leg, coupler, or motor. We cleared in by phone on arrival, then used the special phone on the dock to report in with Seaway Control. Shortly after we tied up, Roger, who had been  watching us on AIS, arrived to chat. He told us his associate, Bob, would be here at 7 the next morning.


The sum total of facilities at the pleasure craft waiting dock. The "phone booth" has a flashing blue light on top, a la K-Mart. Or maybe Dr. Who's tardis.

I walked a mile or so to the nearby marina store and picked up a Canadian courtesy flag, which somehow we did not have on board, while Louise squared away her quilting studio so I could get under the berth and look at the thruster. That's a fussy proposition, because the thruster bay is covered in fine graphite dust. Not only is it very slippery, it also gets in all my clothes, hair, etc. and I have to strip out of my clothes before coming out in order not to get it all over the house. Louise hands me tools as needed, like a scrub nurse in an OR.


Not as roomy as a tardis. Yellow phone to call Seaway Traffic, and a ticket dispenser, which charges 20% more than the online (via PayPal) price.

Given that circumstance, it's not surprising that when I removed the motor housing I found the brush area packed with carbon. There was lots of arcing when the motor was test-run. We got out the HEPA vacuum and I got as much dust out as I could, then followed up with a soft brush and finally some canned air. That improved things a bit, but still not up to snuff. In the meantime, I ended up with a snout full of carbon dust; thankfully, humans are mostly made of it.


Vector at the waiting dock, while two enormous ships cross paths behind us, one exiting and one entering Lock 1. The ship coming out also has the pilot boat alongside, to take off the canal pilot.

Other than the aforementioned marina store, there is nothing really in walking distance of the waiting dock. We enjoyed a nice dinner on board, then took a pleasant walk around the neighborhood. While many of the houses we've seen near the lake in New York are seasonal, in Canada this is one of the garden spots and all the homes are year-round. A short while later, around 8:30 or so, five downbound pleasure craft, whom we'd been hearing about on the radio all day, arrived. A couple tied up with us for the night, and gave us a bit of insight about their transit. They were headed to Youngstown for the race.

We turned in early for the 7am start. We were up at 6:30 and Bob showed up right on time; I picked up the Seaway phone and called the control center right after the 7am shift change to get a start time. They did not have good news: likely after 10am. Bob went back home after a short chat, agreeing to return when Seaway gave us a start time.


Hired crewman Bob, tending the forward line in Lock 3. This gives you an idea of what's involved in trying to keep position using lines secured some 50' above the water. Louise was doing the same thing at the stern, where I can't see her from the bridge.

That turned out to actually be 11:30. In the meantime, CBSA police showed up to conduct an inspection. They spent about ten minutes aboard, sending us to the dock. Video playback reveals they spent more time going through my toolbag than anything else on the boat, and they also petted the cat, who came to investigate. We were glad to have taken the time to get our ducks in a row before departing the US. They also boarded the Azimut up the dock from us; he was also waiting for upbound transit, but lacking crew, would need to wait until Sunday.


Visitor gallery, only at Lock 3. Bob let me know I had to be perfect here. You can see Vector's reflection in the visitor center windows. Taken after we finished the lift.

A little before 11, Seaway called to say we would be locking up with the "tall ship" Pathfinder, behind the freighter Tecumseh. We would be the only pleasure craft. I was expecting Pathfinder to be large and well-kept, however, it turned out to be just 72' long and in rather dilapidated condition (says the guy with rust stains everywhere), with a green crew.

Pathfinder behind us in Lock 4, with her yardarms askew to clear the walls. They did not have nearly enough fenders, nor the right type, for the task, and here the whole crew is trying to fend off the wall by hand. There is a lot of turbulence in the locks.

We were very happy to have Bob aboard, because he knew all the procedures for the canal and exactly where we needed to position ourselves in each lock. It was smooth going for the first two locks, but as we approached Lock 3, they held Tecumseh in the lock and directed us and Pathfinder to tie up to the downstream approach dock. We waited here (map) for a little more than an hour for downbound traffic to clear around Tecumseh and the upbound vessel ahead of her. We'd been noticing some clunking in reverse, so while stopped I went down and tightened up the shaft coupler nuts, which had been working their way loose.

Approaching Lock 3. Tecumseh is already lifted to the top. We tied to the wall at right; Bob had to jump off and run lines to big pins.

It was after 3pm by the time we got back under way, and we'd only come five miles through two locks. Only a short distance after Lock 3 is the "flight" of three twin locks, 4, 5, and 6. The upstream gate of Lock 4 is the downstream gate of Lock 5, and the same between 5 and 6. They are imposing, and there is a virtual waterfall over the lower sills.

Leakage cascading over the sills as Bob grabs the forward lock line.

It was a little after 7pm by the time we cleared Lock 7, the last of the main lifts. We dropped Bob off just 1,000' from the lock. We were glad to have him, but unfamiliar crew aboard in the boatswain's department means Louise has to both feed and manage them. At Lock 7 we also said goodbye to the canal line-handling crew, consisting of coeds from a nearby college on summer break. The ships require no line-handlers (it's automated using giant suction cups), so this crew followed us up the whole canal from Lock 1 to Lock 7 in a truck. We had to wait for them to arrive at Lock 4.

The upstream Lock 4 gates which are also the downstream lock 5 gates. More than half its height is submerged.

We arrived at Lock 8, 14 miles later, a good 20 minutes ahead of the slower Pathfinder, and we tied up at the approach dock. I'd done all the locks without the thruster, using it sparingly only when we tied up at the two approaches. But here it finally failed altogether. I'm sure the fuse is blown. Next chance I get, I will swap in the (less powerful) spare motor, and this one will have to go to a motor shop for service.

Lock 8 is an "equalizing" lock, keeping the upper stretch of canal from being affected by wind-driven lake level changes on Lake Erie. It's only a short lift, done without lines by "hovering" in the lock. But here is also where they collect your registration form and CDN$200 toll receipt, which they do by extending a basket on a pole, reminiscent of taking up the collection in certain churches. It was too dark, and we were too tired, for me to get a photo of the process.

Some Seaway maintenance guy with a sense of humor. Lock 4 west upper gate.

We exited the lock, cleared under the final lift bridge, and immediately tied up at the wall in Port Colborne (map), in the dark and with no thruster. Engines were stopped at 10:17, the latest we've ever done so on a day trip. We ended the day at 573' above sea level, 325' above where we started. Louise fell right into bed, and I took an 11pm stroll around town, where, had we gotten an earlier start time, we might have had dinner. The bar near the canal that was packed and had live music as we passed at 10pm was closed down by 11, along with most businesses other than the brew pub.

Vector tied up in Port Colborne. A Canadian Steamer Lines (CSL) ship is docked across the canal.

This morning, well rested and fortified with coffee, we could finally concentrate on the logistics of cruising Lake Erie. Our original plan had been to make Buffalo after entering the lake. We could spend perhaps two interesting days there, and even cruise a bit into the other end of the Niagara River (it's navigable to just shy of the falls). But Lake Erie weather is a formidable challenge; windows for westing are short, few, and far between. Today's window, for example, slams shut tonight, and we'll be able to move again, for just one day, maybe two days hence.

All of that might make two days in Buffalo cost us a week or more in westerly progress, and we opted to skip it and head due south instead. We should be in Dunkirk harbor this afternoon, and will likely be pinned down there tomorrow as well, which will give me a chance to work on the thruster. There's an easily accessible grocery store there, giving us an opportunity to restock after our pre-Canada purge (we literally ate all our remaining eggs the morning we crossed over). In a couple of days we we be headed west toward Cleveland, via Erie and Geneva.

This morning we were passed by another CSL, with an enormous painting on its superstructure in honor of the sesquicentential. Pathfinder is docked ahead of us, squaring up her yardarms.

Update: We are anchored in Dunkirk harbor, in ten feet of weeds (map), and have cleared back into the US via ROAM. It's busy here on a summer weekend, and we are being buzzed by jet skis. I finished typing still in the lake, but it took a while to prep the photos. DropBox, in its infinite wisdom, would not upload them while I was roaming in Canada, with no way to override this. My T-Mobile phone was the only Internet access we had in Canada.

Shortly after leaving the dock this morning, we passed another milestone: 25,000 nautical miles cruised since we started on Vector six years ago. And this morning I had an email from Marine Traffic; apparently someone snapped and uploaded several photos of us between locks 2 and 3. I need to get permission to re-post them here.

An ordinary seaman

We are under way westbound in Lake Ontario, headed for the Point Breeze Harbor inlet. We decked the scooters this morning in light rain and dropped lines in Rochester just before noon. We have calm seas with a moderate swell from the north.

Last evening we opened the mail, which was waiting for us in the office when we returned from our trip. I was pleased to find in there an envelope from the Department of Homeland Security containing the culmination of a process I started nearly four months ago; to wit, my Merchant Mariner Credential.



Back when we were in Fort Lauderdale for the winter I enrolled in the 100-Ton Masters License course at Maritime Professional Training (MPT). I omitted the description of my time spent there from my massive Fort Lauderdale update because, perhaps superstitiously, I did not want to mention it until it was in the bag.

In fact, it was a significant part of our stay there. The class was two full six-day weeks, and on the first day they were clear with us that we'd have no time for anything else. They were right; after each long day in the classroom I went home with a metric ton of homework, and I basically just took a break for dinner. I selected my course dates to overlap with one of Louise's trips to California, since I'd be poor company anyway.

The class culminated in a set of four proctored USCG examinations, and along the way there were three more exams relating to the required FCC radio license, First Aid and CPR, and the optional but included module for Commercial Assistance Towing. I also had to go to a USCG-approved doctor for a physical and a drug test, and apply for a biometrically secured Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC).

After that was all in hand, MPT helped me put together my application package. The specific license one qualifies for depends on the amount of sea time accrued and the size of vessel in which it was accrued. It took me a full five years of cruising Vector to accrue enough sea time for even the most basic license.

In the 6+ years we've been cruising, I managed to accrue enough time both inland and offshore to qualify for what is colloquially known as a "3-in-1," which is an Officer qualification as a Captain in waters inshore of the "boundary line," a Mate in "coastal" waters offshore of the boundary line, and an Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels (OUPV), which is a limited Captain license both inshore and coastal for uninspected vessels carrying six or fewer passengers. The CG no longer prints the OUPV qualification on the credential, but it is implied by the combination of the other two ratings.



One of the things that MPT did for me that I would not have thought to do myself was to suggest adding to the credential application all the entry-level Unlimited Tonnage ratings that require no sea time, and so I now also hold ratings as an Ordinary Seaman, a Wiper (unlicensed rate in the Engine department) and a Steward. I guess if I ever needed a job on a US-flagged cruise ship, I can make your bed.

In part due to the USCG backlog stemming from the last government shutdown, and in part due to my TWIC being mis-coded when it was issued, it took the CG a full three months to process the application, and my license was issued just ten days ago. I'm glad that, unlike some of my classmates, my employment has not been held up waiting on this.

Now that I have the credential in hand, I will be forwarding copies to our insurance carrier, who rate our policy in part on the amount of documented training we have. It should also come in handy if we ever want to charter a boat in some other part of the world where we can't (or would rather not) take Vector. And if I'm down on my luck I can get a job driving the ferry, or the dolphin tour. Or possibly making beds.

Wrapping up in Rochester

We are docked at the Port of Rochester Marina, on the Genesee River in what was once called Charlotte but is now part of Rochester, New York (map). We arrived here shortly after my last post here, eleven days ago.


30-packs of Genesee stacked at the local grocery.

You might think that a week and a half seems like a pretty long stop in a place like Rochester, and you'd be right. The reason is simple: Vector has mostly been here without us, while we took a whirlwind trip back through New York, stopping in Saratoga Springs to see family, New York City for a night in town, and Long Beach, on Long Island, to visit friends.

While the marinas here are a little pricey for spending time away from the boat, they are secure and protected, and Rochester is a very convenient place to catch a train or plane to almost anywhere. In fact, we used both modes, taking Amtrak to Saratoga Springs and thence New York, the LIRR to Long Beach, and JetBlue back to Rochester this morning.


NYPD's cars are shrinking. We saw dozens of these.

We had a very calm and pleasant cruise last Wednesday from Sodus Bay, arriving at the Genesee River jetties by 1:30 or so, just in time to have to thread our way through a dozen sailing school Optis on our way upriver. We squeezed our way through the very narrow marina entrance into the basin, passed a few loopers on the transient face dock, and were fully secured in a slip before 2pm.

We opted to defer offloading the scooters until the morning, and so in the afternoon I took a nice walk around the port complex and the nearby Ontario Beach Park. There is a lovely antique carousel there, and while I was strolling through the park I noticed the band shell being set up for an orchestra -- the Rochester Philharmonic was to give a free concert at 7:30.


The Stinson Band Organ at the Dentzel Menagerie Carousel.

The marina basin, and everything in it, is brand new, having been excavated recently from what used to be the parking and staging area for the failed high-speed ferry to Toronto. The marina office and boaters' lounge facilities are in the three-story building constructed to load and unload passengers from the very high ferry deck. The old terminal building, whose shell pre-dates the ferry service, now houses a handful of restaurants, but still sports terrazzo floors and signage to direct ferry passengers.

We wandered over to one of those restaurants, Bill Gray's Tap Room, for a casual dinner, and then strolled over to the park where the concert was just getting started. We watched the orchestra for a couple of minutes and then retreated to Vector, where we could still hear the concert clearly on the aft deck, albeit without the view. They played an eclectic mix, starting with a patriotic medley and proceeding through such diverse items as Strauss' Die Fledermaus overture, Tchaiovsky's Symphony No. 4 finale, and Williams' Imperial March from Star Wars and even a Harry Potter piece, finishing with Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever. I quite enjoyed it, cocktail in hand.


Vector in the Port of Rochester Marina. Old terminal building is at left, complete with "Welcome to the United States" signage, and ferry boarding structure is at right. In between is the baggage carousel, unused for a decade.

Thursday we offloaded the scooters and I spent some time getting them fired back up after a few weeks of sitting. Then I made a pilgrimage across town to the Petsmart to pick up more prescription food for Angel. We were almost out and did not have enough to leave with the kennel. That involved riding along the Genesee right through downtown, passing the falls, the historic Kodak plant, and RIT. It was a long ride but a necessary one. Including stops at Goodwill to drop off three large bags, and Walmart to restock some provisions, I was gone over three hours. We managed to dodge a rain shower and rode over to the Whiskey River Pub for a casual meal.


Lots of hotels in NYC sport this logo, including ours, shown here.

Friday was given over to packing and schlepping Angel to "Caring for Cats," a local cat-only veterinarian and boarding service. She's never quiet in the car on the way to such things; fortunately our Lyft driver was a cat owner herself. We were very pleased with the facility, but are also very much looking forward to having Angel back tomorrow when they open. We ended the day at Mr. Dominics, a short walk from the boat.

Saturday we had a quick Lyft downtown to the Amtrak station where, after about an hour delay, we boarded the Lake Shore Limited for the ride to Albany. Even though we had just a few hours on the train, all in daytime, we took a sleeper compartment for a more pleasant experience. Our assigned roomette was on the "wrong" (less scenic) side of the car, but our porter offered us one on the better side when we boarded.


The Flatiron Building in NYC on my stroll.

The train route more or less follows the Erie Canal all the way to Schenectady before turning toward Albany. We traveled along a section of canal that we can't traverse in Vector due to bridge clearance, before the canal and tracks diverged near Syracuse. But in Utica we came back to the canal and retraced our path to Schenectady, amusing ourselves by identifying all the spots where we had stopped for the night, places we had dinner, and other landmarks.

As a side note, the Lake Shore Limited, a storied train with a long history, is one of the first overnight trains I ever took, in the very early days of Amtrak. I was perhaps 14 or 15, and myself and a number of schoolmates in the Railroad Club had made a three-night circle trip to Chicago and back on two different overnight trains (the other being the Broadway Limited). Our faculty adviser, organizer, and lone chaperone was Karl Zimmerman, who had literally written books about rail travel and was a regular contributor on the subject to the New York Times. Back then, of course, I knew nothing of the present-day Erie Canal, and "The Great Loop" as it is typically cruised today did not exist, this being nearly a decade before completion of the Tenn-Tom Waterway.


A rare moment "alone" at the rooftop pool of the Allegria in Long Beach. It overlooks the Ambrose ship anchorage.

I've been riding overnight trains, mostly Amtrak, on and off ever since. Each successive year the system teeters on the brink of closure, and the service level ratchets down another notch. On this journey I was disappointed to find the dining car a pale shadow of its former self. The enormous kitchen, taking up more than half the length of the car, is now cold and dark, with the lone attendant using just the fridge, microwave, and one locker to serve up pre-packaged boxed meals, which you then eat with plastic utensils at bare tables that formerly sported tablecloths. Gone are the staff of cooks who prepared hot meals and waiters who served them on actual dishes.


The spectacular view from Mount McGregor, where Grant spent his last hours.

We finished the trip by crossing the Hudson on the same railroad bridge where we had to wait in Vector for an opening, and disembarking in Rensselaer. My cousin who lives nearby picked us up and whisked us to Gansevoort, near Saratoga Springs, where my aunt and uncle moved a little over a year ago. We had a very nice visit over three days with my aunt, uncle and cousins. We spent a little time in downtown Saratoga Springs, and had a nice tour of the cottage where Ulysses S. Grant spent his final days, where my uncle volunteers his time as a docent.

On Tuesday we boarded the Ethan Allen Express in Saratoga Springs, and retraced our steps back down the Hudson all the way to New York City. Again we amused ourselves by spotting all the places where we had docked or anchored, running over the Spuyten Duyvil on the swing bridge that gave me so much anxiety back when we were green, and then running through the series of tunnels under Riverside Park as we passed the anchorage off the Boat Basin.


Our view of the WTC and financial district from our hotel window.

We spent just a single night in NYC, and I booked the Doubletree in Chelsea using my Hilton points because it was a short walk from Penn Station. Consequently I spent my afternoon walking around Chelsea and the Flatiron district and down to Madison Square, and we had dinner near the Flatiron. From our 23rd floor window we could see the rooftop Greek restaurant in the boutique hotel on the next block, and behind it a sea of water towers leading to the financial district and the World Trade Center tower, which is nicely illuminated at night. Had we been off by one room in either direction we would not have had the view.


Somewhat less impressive in context. Restaurant patio at right is some 20 stories up, and across a courtyard from us.

In the morning, after the complimentary breakfast, we walked around the block. The hotel is on 29th, so that put us on 28th, which happens to be the flower market. Somehow I missed this treat in all the years I lived here; it is today a mere shadow of its former self, yet still spectacular to behold. My cell phone could not capture it. We're glad we stumbled into it.

We checked out of the hotel mid-day, made our way back to Penn Station, and took the LIRR out to Long Beach to spend time with friends. I booked a pre-paid room at the only hotel on the boardwalk which, despite its lofty price (complete with tacked-on "resort fee") turned out to be a classless operation just one notch above Motel 6. I won't bore you with the details here; I'm saving that for my reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor.


Long Beach beach and boardwalk as seen from our hotel's rooftop deck.

We had a lovely three-day visit with our friends and their families. We mostly spent the time indoors, since the mercury had climbed into the 90s with heat indices in the high 100s. Passes for the beach were included with our room, but we did not use them. I did, however, make it to the rooftop pool a couple of times.

This morning we checked out and our friend drove us out to JFK. The trip from there back here to Rochester, which had taken us some three weeks by boat, and eight hours by train, took just 40 minutes at 450 knots. We were back aboard in the early afternoon, and spent a couple of hours getting the boat aired out and everything up and running again. We rode the scooters over to Hose 22, in an old firehouse, for dinner.


We departed behind this A380.

Our time here in Rochester has been spent mainly in the port area, which is quite vibrant. My only excursions into downtown, which is quite a ways from here, were on my way to Petsmart and when we boarded the train. But we'd spent a bit of time downtown during a scooter rally here several years ago, when we lived in the bus. We were disappointed to learn the scooter shop closed and the local club is much less active now. In any case, we feel like we've seen downtown Rochester, and we're ready to move on.

Tomorrow morning we will pick up Angel, and give her a couple of hours to settle back in while we finish some errands and deck the scooters. By mid-day we expect to be dropping lines and continuing westward through Lake Ontario. We'll need to find a spot to hunker down for a bit while the lake becomes less hospitable.


Our terminal was right across from the old TWA terminal, designed by Eero Saarinen and now repurposed into a TWA-themed hotel. This was as close as we got; I wished we had time to stop in to this memory from my childhood.