Phoenix

I’m docked in Phoenix. There are a couple of Canadian boats here heading south. And I guess technically I’ve crossed my wake and competed the great loop, though I’ll save marking that until I get back to Ontario. But wanted to mark it here just in case I get hit by a bus tomorrow. Love that euphemism.

Yesterday was nice. Quiet and uneventful. I stopped in Little Falls for lunch, and stayed at Lock 20 just above Utica last night.

A couple of the locks had vertical gates, like this one.

Today saw a little more adventure. I got underway around 0730, and a front went through shortly after with some heavy rain, and behind that a pretty brisk wind. I didn’t give the weather a lot of thought until I got to Lake Oneida. It was pretty rough with a 20 knot breeze blowing straight down the 25 mile long lake.

Shortly after entering the lake I was on the flybridge. We were bashing into the waves at about ten knots and i noticed we’d slowed down a bit. It didn’t take long to find the problem.

The new line I had installed in Kingston for the davits had failed, and the dinghy had fallen and flipped. Never trust cord from a hardware store! The dinghy was upside down and was being dragged sideways as I had a cable on the motor attached to one corner and the painter attached to the other. One side of the RIB was completely flat, as it has a slow leak and I hadn’t pumped it up since leaving the boat in May.

In any case, I managed to get it upright and tow it the rest of the day. Bit of work to get things sorted while bouncing around in the lake. I got the outboard off this evening and pulled the plugs to drain the water out of the cylinders. Think I’ll throw the boat away. It’s at end of life.

I made a short video of us coming up the lake after getting the dinghy upright. I’d gotten soaked from the spray up top at that point and was taking shelter in the cockpit.