Days 298 - 300 - Lake Champlain — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 0, fuel purchased $0, slip fee $36, daily high temperature 82°fWe are at the Pirates Cove Marina in Clay, NY which is near Syracuse. CL will be here until July 28. The blog postings will take a hiatus until we start heading to Canada on June 29 or so.We are the blue dot near the word New York. We are getting very close to the Great Lakes.We have bonded with Patty and Paul the owners of Pirates Cove Marina. They have been the owners for forty years and have great pride in ownership. Their restaurant and swimming pool are excellent. They also set up a mini trailer park for 4 motor homes in their parking lot. They make money every which way they can. True entrepreneurship.There are three sunken barges near the marina. Paul told us that a contractor from NYC brought a load of stones up the Erie Canal for a construction project many years ago. It was too expensive to haul the barges back to NYC empty so they were abandoned in front of the marina. Paul advised that a mysterious man with a chainsaw went aboard the barges and sunk them stategically to privide protection to the marina.I asked Paul how the name Pirates Cove was selected. He said in the 1950's and 1960's the marina was called Holiday Harbor. He didn't know where the name of the marina came from. The former owner is still alive so he said he would ask her.What is the best way to keep ducks off your swim platform? A rubber snake is the answer.Dale and Andy found a Lutheran church nearby for Sunday service. The marina has a courtesy car available. It looks like the best courtesy car we have seen on our trip.Sunday was sunny and the water in the swimming pool was warm. We swam for a few hours and hung around the boat playing the ukulele and packing to visit Dick and Candy Smith on Monday. Enterprise car rental will pick us up at 11:00 am.On Monday the Enterprise rep arrived early and we started our 4.5 hour drive from Syracuse to Plattsburgh. We took the scenic route through the Adirondack Mountains. We had a few rain showers along the way and arrived in Plattsburgh at 5:00 pm. Dick and Candy Smith have a lovely cottage overlooking Treadwell Bay on Lake Champlain. The cottage has been in the Smith family for 60 years.The view from the Smith's cottage. A wide water view.On Tuesday we went sailing on Dick and Candy's Stellar 30 named Odyssey. There was a brisk breeze on the lake. We sailed for several hours and brought along some McDonald's lobster rolls for lunch. They were delicious. It was nice to be sailing again. Moving across the water quietly and not burning a gallon of diesel fuel per mile was a treat. After the completion of the Loop trip we will sell CL and John and Priscilla will once again sail their Pearson 39' sailboat Blue Heaven out of Waukegan Harbor.OdesseyDick and Candy SmithJohn and Priscilla enjoying a day of sailing onboard Odyssey on Lake Champlain.Carl (Chef) Wooden - quote of the day.“The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.” Samuel ButlerSamuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an iconoclastic Victorian-era English author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh. He is also known for examining Christian orthodoxy, substantive studies of evolutionary thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history and criticism. Butler made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, which remain in use to this day.