Clayton and the Antique Boat Museum

Clayton, NY
N 44 14.581 W 076 05.300

We left Canadian waters in search of a place to pump out our holding tank. Once gain, navigation was tricky in these waters so riddled with rocks just under water. It was good practice using navigational skills that had atrophied after two years using the GPS chart plotter.

We came in to Clayton, the first town that appeared. At the shipyard, we pumped out, and bought fuel and chatted with the friendly owner, Al. Al recommended that we visit the nearby Antique Boat Museum. We thanked him and moved over to the Clayton Public Dock. There, we were able to check in with US Customs using the video phone.

I was wrong, the video phone does show both faces and documents. Nevertheless, we're still mightily unimpressed with the border security. A terrorist or a smuggler would simply not bother to call in using the video phone. The reality is that the US-Canadian border is impossible to secure without a very very expensive outlay. Given that reality, it seems a true waste of money to harass travelers with documentation and questions about what they bought on the other side. It is about to become hugely more inconvenient for casual travelers when they start requiring passports.

Anyhow, Nick and I went to the Antique Boat Museum while Libby went in search of a grocery store. We were very impressed by the boats in the museum. They have a collection of the most beautiful wooden sail boats, motor boats, cruising boats and racing boats that you can imagine. All of them appear restored to mint condition. The best part though was the houseboat Duchess. Duchess was built for Mr. Bolt, of Bolt Castle fame. It changed my idea of houseboat forever. This houseboat was designed for the tastes of 19th century super rich clients. It had numerous staterooms, all paneled in hand rubbed mahogany. Many of the cabins with a full bathroom including sink and bathtub. It had a dining room with a brass fireplace. A living room with gold leaf ceiling and a thoroughly pleasant sun deck. It did not have an engine. Instead, the houseboat came with a tug boat that towed it to wherever Mr. Bolt wanted. The boat was extensively restored, and even fitted with a steel hull by Mr. McNally of Rand McNally. If any of you are touring the Thousand Islands area, I recommend the Antique Boat Museum.

After returning from the museum we set out to look for a suitable anchorage. We settled on Picton Island and hoped to go ashore, but alas, the island is covered with No Trespassing signs. We miss another thing from Sweden. There, they have something called "The General Right" that says that people are allowed to walk just about anywhere. No Trespassing signs are forbidden.

The Thousand Islands area sure does resemble the Stockholm archipelago. The number of islands, size distribution, rocky shore lines and plant growth on the smaller islands is all like in Sweden. The larger islands though have a fair covering of soil. In Sweden, most of the soil was scraped off during the last ice age. Unfortunately, there is a major difference. Sweden has many fewer people than the USA, and their archipelago has 20,000 islands, not 1,000. Nick wanted to find an unoccupied island to explore and camp on. The unfortunate part is that there appears to be no such thing here. All islands are either private and covered with camps and no trespassing signs, or parks and covered by restrictive usage rules.

Today, Thursday, our friends Steve and Barb are driving up from Oran to go on a day sail with us. It just started raining. I hope it lets up.