A couple days in Rochester NY

The entrance to Rochester is deep (10-20 ft) and extends 0.5 miles out into the lake. Once inside there are lots of options for slips, incuding 2 yacht clubs and 4 other marinas. The area is full of wonderful people and places. There is a grocery store that delivers to your boat and many local restuarants that provide free transportation as well.

Friends of our reccommended we try an Italian Restuarant named Mr Dominics'. It was excellent ! They even provided us all transportation back to our boats in their delivery van. If you can call ahead to make a reservation. They are always full. The food is fresh and plentiful. The service is wonderful and friendly. This family owned and operated eatery is well worth your time, but come hungry.

Some of the largest shopping malls and in America reside in this town. We did some back to school shopping and snatched up many deals.

Also worthy of a visit is the George Eastman House - International Museum of Photography & Film. Mr. Eastman was the founder of the Kodak Company. The grounds are beautiful to explore and there are lots of hands on displays for both young and old children.





Continuing West down Lake Ontario

From Fairhaven NY we sailed West 46 nm back to the Rochester Yacht Club. We have met friends on other boats sailing in our direction so 4 boats set out together. For 2 days we were"trapped" in the bay with high winds blocking easy and safe access thru the breakwall. But as "luck" would have it now there were no winds. So we fired up the engines and off we went very early in the morning hoping the winds would pick up through the morning.

This is our Catalina 36  with Kyle at the helm. It was not long after this picture was taken that Kyle was down in the engine compartment taking weeds out of the impeller. The few days of high winds had made for quite a bit of weeds floating in the bay. We found these weeds in our impeller :)

These two boats came from Lake Erie for a summer circumnavigation of Lake Ontario. We ran into them many times through out the summer.



A Couple More Days in Fairhaven NY

From Main Duck Island back to Fairhaven NY (Little Sodus Bay) it was a 39 nm trip. The winds and waves were getting higher as we approached. A check of the forecast told us that once we passed thru the breakwall we would be basically "stuck" in the bay for a couple days. The breakwall entrance is narrow, shallow (7-8 ft) and sits in a perfect North-South line. Thus when the strong easterly or westerly takes over the lake the water between these walls is like a washing machine. Once inside the bay however is was extremely calm and smooth sailing.
There happened to be other members of the Royal Hamilton YC vacationing here too. So we tied up next to them and enjoyed a couple days of drinking, swimming, eating and laughing.
FYI - A good way to let the kids go swimming at night is to make them wear a wetsuit so they do not sink and tie some glow sticks around there necks :)