A Cornucopia of Fun

Sylvan Beach, NY
N 43 11.750 W 075 43.671

Well, it has been quite a whirlwind for the past few days. We've been so busy that I neglected keeping up with the blog.

The big event was on the fourth of July. However, it wasn't the normal Forth celebration with hot dogs and fireworks that occupied us but rather a surprise birthday party for an old family friend. Marylyn Cook's 75th birthday was on the fourth and her friends and neighbors arranged for a surprise party for her. We plotted to go but it didn't work out entirely as planned. Our only transportation was my son John's 2 passenger pickup truck. John wanted to go also so we reluctantly left Libby behind to baby sit the kids.

The party was to be held at the Cook's camp at Cazenovia Lake, near Oran which is near Manlius which is near Syracuse, NY. All together there were about 50 people attending. I'm happy to say that the surprise was a complete success. When everyone popped out, Marlyn was completely surprised and overwhelmed with emotion.


The event was most fortunate for me and John because we got to see in one place very many people important to our lives in younger years. You see, I grew up in Manlius and John lived there for a short time. At the party were the Cook, Randalls, Fosters, Gaulins and Carncross families and many others. All of them were near and dear neighbors and many of them remember me as "little Dicky Mills" from my teen years. These people were also the closest friends of my parents, Helen and Jerry Mills, when they were alive in the area. We partied until dark. It was a grand day. Too bad only that Libby wasn't there. There is a chance though that some of them might be able to join us for a day sail in the Thousand Islands area.


Yesterday, we were joined on Tarwathie by our granddaughters, Katelyn and Victoria, aged 8 and 6 respectively. These little darlings had only seen Tarwathie once before and they never stayed overnight on a boat before. They came on board in Rome and we took them 8 miles down the canal to lock 20. Lock 20 has an idyllic rural setting. We tied up on the lock wall, and explored the nearby region, and the lock and the large flock of geese that live there. The girls were enchanted.

As I and the two girls chatted with the lock master, another sailboat appeared in the distance. As it neared us, I kept saying, "That looks like my boat." The others kept saying, "No. It's bigger," or "it's different." As it got very close, the boat stopped beside Tarwathie and the captain could be seen talking with Libby. Soon we heard on the lock master's radio, "We're going to stop here for a while, we found another Westsail."

Sure enough, the mystery boat was the Westasil 32 Golden Eagle (not to be confused with the power vessel Golden Eagle that I complained about last week.) Golden Eagle, and her Captain Alex were returning to Ohio after a four year voyage to Scotland and Portugal. Alex had never come across another Westsail before while sailing, so we spent an hour or so making mutual inspections of each other's vessels. Every Westsail is like every other in important respects, but they are also amazingly different in finishing details. According to Alex, Golden Eagle was in poor shape and sparsely equipped when he bought it, so he put a lot of work in to fitting her out and finishing her before the big voyage. He did an excellent job.


Today, we continued on down the canal and the girls got to experience a lock traversal twice. We passed locks 21 and 22. Both of them were 25 foot descents (not ascents) and the girls were very excited by the experience. An hour after locking, we arrived at Sylvan Beach. The girls were again amazed because there is a permanent amusement park here, one of the few small scale permanent amusement parks remaining in America. When we tied up at the wall we were also surprised to see Summer Salt, with our friends Dave and Karen on the wall right in front of us.

Now it is afternoon and the girls are back home again. Libby and I will continue to the Oswego Canal and leave the boat for a few days next week while we go on a baby sitting mission with the grandkids Monday-Thursday next week.

I did decide to continue on our way across Oneida Lake today and spend the night at Brewerton on the other side. As we cast off, our friend Dave said, "It's windy out there." I ignored that and we set out anyhow. Well, Dave was right. As soon as we cleared the jetty, the wind and waves slowed us down to 2 knots. It would have taken 8 hours to cross the 16 nautical mile long lake. We turned back immediately and we'll spend the night here. If only we could have the mast up so that we could sail!!! A sailboat with the mast down is indeed a crippled beast.