Phase two...

First Light is moored to the wall in Oswego, NY. When we arrived, there were only two boats on the wall, one of which was leaving. Now, a couple of hours later, there is a small gaggle of boats sharing the wall with us. As I sit here writing, a parade of boats is passing by on their way to various marinas. A good many of them are boats we have crossed wakes with already. A few left us far behind in Delaware City so it feels like a small accomplishment to have caught up with some of the pack. So the plan to arrive here after the collection of boats that was here departed, while getting here before the next collection arrived, actually worked out just as intended. No deviation required.

There was a slight hitch when two bone-headed cruising boats running fast and in line while heading south to our north, each smacked us with a pretty good wake. We had just enough room to take each of them bow on so, I guess, no harm, no foul. But it was a bone-headed move in any case. A couple of the boats that have pulled in mentioned having been rocked pretty good as well. Some people's kids...

This is a unique (strange?) wall. It runs between two locks that are roughly a half mile apart. All of the marinas are located on the other side of the last lock. Off to our  port side, on the other side of another wall and roughly 10 feet lower than we are, the Oswego river rushes by. The light breeze makes the water we are floating in look like it is flowing the opposite way, which made for a very strange visual from the flybridge as we picked a spot to  land.

There are no support facilities on this wall nor does it look like a good place to leave a boat unattended. (Unless it is surrounded by friends who are keeping an eye out.) Which, I guess, is why so many are headed to a dock. 

Since it seems a good idea to head out onto the lake with a full tank of fuel and an empty holding tank, we will be going though the last lock as soon as possible in the morning, then stopping at one of the marinas ourselves. Filled up and emptied out, it will be off to play in lake Ontario with what looks like a lot of company. Understandable, since all the weather forecasts are for the lake to be in an excellent mood tomorrow. Usually I am a bit of a loner, not particularly interested in or swayed by what other people are doing or thinking. But, given that this is the first time I've ever been on one of the Great Lakes in any kind of boat (flown over them more times than I can remember)? I don't think I'll mind the company.

Lock O-1 has a lift bridge right at the end of the lock so even after they open the doors you have to stay put until they lift the bridge.

Our view from the wall in Phoenix, NY

We passed this today - the little shack says "Uncle Joe's Trading Post". We were wondering if Uncle Joe lives in the giant house behind it...

And in the other weirdness that locks are...This one has a steel beam right across the middle of the lock. If you're going downstream, you have to pull in past it so that when they fill the lock you can get out. It only has a 5' clearance when the lock is full. Wonder whose engineering feat that was???

My granddaughter loves Slime, you know the kind you squeeze in your hands. I wonder if she'd consider this slime to be as fun?

Home

We decided to spend another day in Phoenix, NY. The weather forecast for the day isn't bad, just rain showers and wind five to ten. But rumor has it that Oswego is pretty well packed with boats waiting for a weather window to take on Lake Ontario. Tomorrow's forecast is good. Hopefully some of the Oswego boats will head out on the lake. If we wait until tomorrow to move, there is a good chance that there will be room for one more 42' boat when we get there. It is a plan from which to deviate.

I am looking forward to being in Oswego. For me it will mark a turning point on this trip. This first phase has felt like an uphill battle, getting the boat ready to go in the water followed by the seemingly relentless list of mechanical problems made for a real grind. It helped that the crew at the Delaware City Marina and fellow loopers were among the most helpful and friendly folks we have run across in all of our years on a boat. But there were still days where we just fought our way through because we didn't really have any other choice.

I'm hoping the next phase, from Oswego and into the US and Canadian parts of the Thousand Island area will feel like an even keel cruise. Once we cross the border back into the US I will feel like we are on the downhill run to home.

Home.

“Home” is a fuzzy concept for me, a wanderer. I left home at 19, newly married and with a job nearly half way across the continent. It was further west than I had ever been. After that were homes in Washington, PA, Kingman AZ, and St. Louis MO. But even with those “homes” family lore has it that any time I was in the same time zone for more than a couple of days I would get a nosebleed. Sometimes Deb would ask me when my next trip was leaving after having me wandering around the house for too many days, trying to stay busy. Somehow she knew it wasn't that I wanted to get away from anything. I just needed to be on the move. On days when there were no trips pending she would suggest I get on the motorcycle and put in a few hundred miles. “Home”, regardless of what kind of wandering I was doing, was where she and the girls would be waiting for my return.

The girls grew up and headed out on their own adventures. Deb and I moved onto Kintala. Everything we owned was on the boat. Where ever it was, was “home”. It didn't matter the country, open water, on anchor or tied to a dock. Of course we visited the girls, usually returning for a visit during some holiday or the other, and certainly to greet each of the new grandkids as they arrived. But we were visiting their “homes” and were away from ours.

The years of Kintala being “home” passed. We needed to refill the cruising kitty and had a good job offer back in St. Louis. We ended up staying for nearly 6 years. Kintala went up for sale while funds got stashed away. We settled into a two-room apartment above the garage with family, including six of our grandkids, living about 25 feet away. We decided not to buy motorcycles again; we were getting too old and the St. Louis drivers had gotten too crazy. But the wanderer wasn't quite finished. We bought First Light and got it ready for this trip. But this boat has never been “home” in the same sense that Kintala was. No matter where we venture in First Light, the final destination will always be St. Louis. And that is true in more ways than one.

Deb and I recently made arrangements for our after life resting place. It is a huge and beautiful garden with our selected spot (really) directly under the departure and arrival paths for airplanes flying into and out of the St. Louis International airport.

There is a poem written by Robert Louis Stevenson that best describes my feelings about “home”. It is in the public domain now, so I can share it with you.

Under the wide and starry sky,
    Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
    And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
    Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
    And the hunter home from the hill.