Oswego New York (2013-09-25)

N 43° 27.333', W 076° 30.475'

Well, our first crossing of Lake Ontario is now in the books.  While the water was a little lumpy, with a bit of an uncomfortable swell swinging through, it was actually pretty benign by Lake Ontario standards.

A nice morning on the Murray Canal

We headed out a little before 0800 from the Brighton Road Bridge, and once we were past the narrow parts in Presquile Bay, I opened it up to a roaring 9 knots (yeah, I know, real speed demon).  While it doesn't sound like much, it actually cut more than an hour off of our crossing time, and the additional fuel burn was an acceptable cost.  Because of the route we were taking (vice travelling from one of the Amherst Island gaps near Kingston) we had a longer distance to travel on the Lake, so we wanted to do what we could to shorten it up a bit.

Weather wise we couldn't have asked for a much better day.  There was a little bit of wind from the northeast, throwing up some small, but manageable waves, but other than that it was nice and sunny, and by late morning actually fairly warm.

Nice, but tough to spot some of the markers in Prequile Bay

As we cleared the last of the shoals and started to get out into the lake proper, I noticed that we weren't alone...

Queue the "Jaws" theme music... :-)

The AIS target in the picture above is the cargo carrier Captain Henry Jackman.  It is 732 feet long, with a 76 foot beam, and has a draft of 26 feet!  Not surprisingly we could see this guy coming a long way off.  I kept a pretty close eye on him, but he was going to pass in front of me, so I didn't have to worry about getting too close to him.

The cargo carrier "Captain Henry Jackman"

I took a picture of him as he passed in front of me.  Believe it or not, that boat is 1.7 nautical miles away from us in that picture!

After our little encounter at sea we didn't have much else to do but settle back and let James (our autopilot :-)) do the driving for us.  I think James was into the sauce last night though as I had to keep correcting his course every 15 minutes or so.  Okay, perhaps it was the weird swells that were hitting us on the stern.  Maybe I'm not giving James enough credit. :-)

Lighthhouse on the Oswego breakwater

After almost six hours on the lake, the Oswego harbour breakwater was a very welcome sight indeed. 
 

We're here

We proceeded in to the Oswego marina to check in on the US Customs videophone.  Now, let me explain what happened here.  We have our Nexus cards, which meant we should have been able to check in to the US while still en-route.  This I did when we were about an hour out of Oswego.  The nice Customs gentleman on the line told me that I'd need to use the videophone in Oswego to check in because I needed a cruising license (yes I know Rob, you told me to call them ahead of time... *sigh* :-)).  Okay, fair enough says I, I should have covered this before hand.  So in to the marina we go, tie up at their fuel dock and go up to the US Customs videophone.  The nice Customs gentleman (a different one) that gets on the line listens to my story, and upon hearing that we have Nexus cards asks why I'm checking in on the videophone (*sigh again* :-)).  I'm guessing I could have given the info for the cruising license during my initial call, but I didn't bother to confirm that.  At least I had already obtained the user fee decal.

So, to recap, for other Canadian cruisers that may be following.  Get your Nexus cards.  If your boat is over 30 feet long, get the user fee decal.  Finally, call the Customs number for the region you'll be checking in to ahead of time and get your cruising license.  Hey, I got two thirds of it right...
 

Officially checked in to the US

Oh, and something else that comes up a lot.  Yes, I was told that I have to call in to Customs to report my location after *every* day's travel.  There's a lot of conflicting information about this.  Some people are told they don't have to call in at all, others are told they only have to report as they transit from one Customs region to another, and then some are directed as I was.  The most frustrating thing is that some people are told different things by different Customs agents.  We'll see what my experiences end up...


After clearing in we had just enough time to get to the first lock (lock 8) and lock through so we could get our Erie Canal permit and tie up on the free lock wall for the night (yes, free *is* that important :-)).

M/V September Dream tucked in for the night

Tomorrow we're going to continue up the canal, although after the long day we've had today I don't think we're going to make a very long day of it tomorrow.  We're going to try to take advantage of the lock E-13 opening next weekend, but we've plenty of time to get there.