July 26, 2011 Clayton, NY

Three of us were up quite early, 6:15-ish, while Kerry got up a bit later. We had a great breakfast. Jola made a delicious omelet with bacon and lots of other goodies, along with pita toast and fruit salad. Yum!

Jim and I returned a pump out fitting to the French Creek marina office which is separate from the sail boat docks, which are on the river side of a little bridge. There is a large display of old anchors there. Then we went to the local Ace Hardware store. It was really well stocked with all kinds of goods, except the battery operated refrigerator fans we were looking for. We then found the Clipper Inn which was suggested to us as a great place to have dinner.

At 10:30 we went to the Antique Wooden Boat Museum. This is a great museum. The displays are excellent, they have movies, boat rides and 300 boats to view. They also repair and restore boats there, so you are able to see craftsmen at work. Jim, Jola and I took a ride on a reproduction Hacker Craft speed boat. It was such fun. On the trip we went by two anchorages where we stayed. It was great to be able to point them out to Jim. La Duchess, George Boldt's big houseboat, is there, and the tour was quite interesting. http://www.abm.org/ is the site for the museum. One interesting device is a dagger board that is in several separate foils, that fold into a section only several inches high (pictured).

The weather was threatening all day and really got nasty when we were set to leave. Lightning, hail, high winds, rain etc., for about an hour. Then the sun came out. We went to downtown Clayton for a beer and some shopping. Cocktails were on Windchaser at 5:30. We went to dinner after that at the Clipper Inn. We all enjoyed our dinners. Kerry and I were glad we split a pecan crusted Boston scrod dinner because it was so big. We enjoyed the sunset from Excalibur before we turned in for the night.

We just did one project today. That was to tie a piece of Styrofoam to a piece of the dock that was clanking and driving Jim nuts when he tried to sleep. Tomorrow the Karpinski's head home and we set sail for Sackets Harbor.