Day 1 – Sept 6, 2017

Depart KYC 7:03 am – arrive in Oswego NY 3:30 pm

The grand trek south started right on time, Bob told anyone who’d listen that we’d leave the dock at 7:03 am, and we did. Peter, Tom, Jacinthe and Bambi came to wave us off. Jacinthe also got a great picture of us just outside the club as we headed out.

The wavers
Sailing away – thanks Jacinthe

Based on the wind forecast we abandoned the plan to stop for a night at Main Duck island before continuing on to Oswego NY. It was supposed to be light winds and small swells on Wednesday  but a lot more wind on Thursday so going all the way to Oswego was the new plan. Once we got on the open lake it turned out the wind prediction was pretty accurate but the swells right on our nose were bigger than we expected. The first three hours on the lake were not fun. I had been thinking I’d start organizing the chaos below since it looked like we’d motor all the way but that was a non-starter. With the pounding into the swells, using the head was as much as I could do below. Bob decided to veer a little off course to reduce the pounding and it sure helped. The swells also started to reduce in size, so the last three hours of the 8.5 hour trek were not bad at all.

The check in process at US customs was interesting. There was a US Customs & Immigration officer sitting in his squad car while we used the “video phone” to call US Customs to request a Cruising Permit for the US. We were then questioned by the officer in the squad car, then had to Fax, yes Fax, a copy of our passports and boat ownership papers to some number, wait again until the officer heard from the fax people and told us we were good to go. It’s common for the officers to do an on board inspection but we suspect it was close to quitting time for this guy so he didn’t inspect our boat. He had inspected a boat from Belleville that got here about an hour before us. Bob got the stuff ready for the mast to come down tomorrow morning. We had dinner at a local sports bar and then an early night to bed, it seemed like a long day but we were glad we’d done the trip in one day, there is supposed to be a lot more wind tomorrow.

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