Shitty little Lake, and I'm stupid

We left Brewerton at Sun up, and thought it was better than yesterday, so we continued on. About two miles into the lake we were looking at 4-6 footers on the nose, and at one point the bow got buried up to and past the forward hatch. What the hell! Maybe 10 knots of wind from the East and this horrid little lake wants to kill you, or steal your rig. Magically, the rig did not even budge in all this. As Don would say, "Over-engineering is underrated". I tend to agree. We continued on and as we got half way the waves calmed down , and we  made it through the cut, and past Shackleton shoals.

Once we popped back into the canal, a tugboat was pushing a barge into a cove, and was stationary with full throttle. We waited for a powerboat to go around, and the guy pussyfooted behind the wake of the tugboat and got spun around a bit. After his embarrassing little display we made an attempt, and all the workers came out on deck to watch, but full throttle and pointed right at their stern, we punched right through. We were not providing any entertainment tonight.

We made it through 8 locks today. Down is easy, let me tell you. You basically hang on, unlike being lifted, where the currents slam you into the wall. Quite the workout. We have bruises above our knees from the lifelines. We look battered.

I finally got my balls inflated. You know, the Taylor Made buoys. Seems they have a removable plug, and you pump them up any way you can, and just pop the plug back in. I used the dinghy pump, and that worked pretty good.

Now for the stupid part of the story. I complained Raymarine screwed up with the SD cards. I was about to call them today, and one last look at the card, and the instructions revealed that the SD card was actually a carrier for the Micro SD card. I pulled the little tab at the top of the SD card, and the little bugger I was looking for was inside. It was like I found the damn prize in the old cracker jack boxes ( when they were good prizes). I told Deb, "Hey I think we have something here", and Ta Dah!, we have charts!  Turns out, they show this on the side of the box. Apparently too many old men complained of not getting the right chip, so they put a sticker on the box. If they had put a picture of an old grey haired guy holding the two SD cards, I would have noticed. Deb says, that if I had some patience, and read the instructions, it most likely describes the SD scenario. No comment.

Pictures...

Lots of trees and partially sunken logs

Kind of like the the thruway, boring.

Someone is happy we're cruising

Personal joke.

Ilion. Home of the cake eaters.

Nice spot actually

The only wildlife we saw along the way was a Blue Heron, and two kids skinny dipping.

Cheers!