Off on a muse...

How to describe last night...A squadron of mosquitoes found a hole in our defensive screens and nets, spending the night making attack runs on various portions of our anatomies. Whatever ammunition they were carrying affected me far more than Deb. My left hand and right foot felt like they had been set on fire. Everywhere they struck felt like a cigarette burn. We started a counterattack, but the little buggers overwhelmed my defenses and after taking what felt like a shower of bug spray, getting fully clothed, and applying even more bug spray, I abandoned the forward berth for the salon couch. That helped a little, but some of the enemy were very determined, ignoring the spray defense and managing to bite through the clothing. Deb mounted an offense, dispatching more than a dozen of the attackers before dawn came. I managed a few minutes of troubled sleep in the salon, but I haven't had a night that bad since the last time my wayward ticker landed me in the ER. I was glad to see the first light of dawn.

By 0630 we were leaving the dock and heading out across Lake Oneida. What little wind there was flowed in from the stern, making for a perfectly comfortable crossing. Once off the lake, we rejoined the Erie Canal for a while, motoring along through a boat MECCA unlike any I have ever seen before. Mile after mile of private docks and marinas packed with boats lined both sides of the canal. Eventually we came to a literal fork in the waterway. To port lay the Erie Canal and a path west; to starboard lay the Oswego River, the path to Lake Ontario and the Thousand Island areas of the US and Canada. First Light swung to starboard and said goodbye to the Erie Canal.

A short time later, and we were tied to the wall in a place called Phoenix. A town that is the exact opposite of what the name “Phoenix” usually invokes. We were met at the free wall by a gaggle of young volunteers called The Bridgehouse Brats, eager to help transient boaters. They helped us secure the lines, and then offered to cater our lunches to us for tip money only. My lunch came complete with a cold beer, so I actually had to walk to the establishment with the volunteers as local ordinances make it illegal for the young ones to tote the evil brew. They walked back carrying the food while I carried the beer.

(Ed note: those easily offended should bail out now. I promised I'd warn you of political musings.)

Americans’ irrational sense of propriety is a constant source of amusement to me. I just love it when “righteousness” turns into foolishness. Something, which (having spent the last part of my aviation career working with foreign pilots), much of the rest of the world also seems to find amusing, though they often find it puzzling and a bit worrisome as well. I gave up worrying about the US a long time ago. Whatever our future holds is beyond anything I have any control over. Perhaps we will survive as a first-world, functioning democracy. Perhaps we will go the way that every elitist empire humankind has ever known has gone. Lost to greed, corruption, and hubris.

I can, and will, vote. We all can, and my guess is that most of those who read this blog, do. But I live in a deep red state so my vote will not mean much. Those who live in deep blue states but whose views of what “democracy” actually means are opposite of mine? Well, their votes don't really count much either, one of the puzzling things that comes with living in a Representative Republic that hides behind the label of “Democracy.” We vote. But then an Electoral Collage, a gerrymandered House, a Senate whose structure means the minority generally rules, and a Supreme Court of lifetime appointees for whom nobody voted, decides who takes office, what laws are written, and who is held accountable to those laws. Most of us are accountable; a few are immune. Power and money determine into which category one falls. This is the tiny bit of human history of which we are a part. Riding it out while trying not to add to the carnage, maybe even making things a little better within our own little sphere, is what we can do. If I was of a religious persuasion (I'm not) I would think any post-life judgment we might endure would focus on the harm or the good we did as individuals within whatever sphere of influence we had. We have no control over anything else. If it turns out there is a god who disagrees with me? One who actually endorses lies, genocide, violence, prejudice, oppression, and hate? Nothing I can do about that.

A few days ago, I was pretty happy about the hundreds of miles that lay between First Light and the American coastlines. Far away from hurricanes makes me happy. Yeah—guess I should have kept that thought to myself. The original plan was to spend a more comfortable night here. Then, tomorrow, reposition to Oswego to stage for the trip across the east end of Lake Ontario.  Current weather forecasts for this area include the remnants of hurricane Beryl spinning its way across the US and arriving here on Thursday as a tropical depression packing stiff winds, heavy rain, and thunderstorms. According to the NHC right now, First Light is tied up just at the edge of the Thursday's forecast impact cone. If we move we will be near smack in the center of the zone come Thursday. So we are going to stay right where we are long enough to see just what Beryl has in mind. 

Nothing I can do about that either. 

Leaving the inlet at Lake Oneida

Lake Oneida

Lock 23, the last lock of the Erie Canal. Also the easiest and the prettiest by far.

Hard to tell in the photo, but the center of the photo is the intersection—turn left to continue on to the western half of the Erie Canal, turn right to head up the Oswego Canal