Mike, Joell and our dog Elwood: 06/20/17

Tuesday

June 20, 2017

Now this may seem very weird, but today we and 10 other loopers took a ferry to Boldt Castle, in the 1000 Islands.

We arrived at Clayton, NY yesterday. Our looper buddies left Oswego at 6:30am. We were waiting for a package to arrive, so we didn't leave until 1:30pm. It was great! We drove on plane all the way to Clayton, NY across Lake Ontario and through the St. Lawrence river. Our engines were loving it. We were going 22 mph and then slowly the speed increased to 25.5mph.

We had drinks and dinner with the gang at an Irish Pub.

This morning, Mike and a few of the other guys went to the Clayton Wood Boat museum. Then twelve loopers headed to the Boldt Castle. The St. Lawrence water level is higher then any year since 1991. Most of the piers are under water and locals haven't even put their boats in the water yet. The Boldt Castle piers were also under water. Over the last few weeks they build new piers over the old, so tourists like us could visit, but only by tour boats. There were so many of us loopers going on the tour today the ferry boat picked us up right here at the marina dock. The ferry then dropped us off at Boldt Castle and quickly left the dock so other tour boats could drop off passengers. It then returned for us at a specified time.

Today we took a lot of pictures so enjoy.

Mike bought a few new egg poachers. They work great!

This Lord Nelson is beautiful. It was docked near us at Oswego Marina. We really considered buying one for the loop. It was just a little short inside for Mike.

This is the lighthouse seen as we left Oswego and headed across Lake Ontario.

Mike and other loopers at the Clayton 1000 Islands Bar.

We ate the nightly special today and last night at O'Brien. Food was great here on both nights.

Clayton, NY sunset last night.

The following group of pictures are from the Clayton Wood Boat Museum.

Now pictures from the ferry ride to Boldt Castle.

The 1000 Islands are just magnificent.

Well, some are magnificent and others are very small.

Some were just rocks, but of course a vacation home had to be built on it.

Then there was Boldt Castle.

Boldt Castle is on Heart Island. George Boldt bought it from the Hart family and changed the spelling of it. The magnificence of the castle was surpassed only by the love George Boldt had for his wife. He constructed this elaborate summer home for her.

If you don't know who Boldt was, know he came from a poor background to the US in 1864. He became a successful hotel magnate in America managing and profit sharing the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

Boldt's wife died unexpectedly, a few months before George was to present her with the finished castle. It is believed that George never went to Heart Island again.