We left Sacket’s Harbor with anxiety as we had the nagging feeling that we still weren’t over our engine issues.   And unfortunately we were right, about an hour into our journey to Clayton, NY, the engine alarm sounded urging us “to immediately return to port” and to have the starboard engine serviced “before using it again.”  Thanks.  We are in the middle of Lake Ontario with no Cummins engine service center for many many miles.  

The area around the starboard pod drive was filled with oil of some sort – never a good sign.  Luckily for us, we have two engines – we shut down starboard engine and used the port engine to motor (albeit at low speed) forward. Salty Dog does not have a rudder and depends on its pod drives to steer the boat – thus we were deprived of a fairly important navigational tool.  

Steering with only one engine and imagining what it will be like to dock with one engine just creates too much thought overload.  So we enjoyed viewing the entrance to the St. Lawrence River marked by Tibbetts Point, NY – the St Lawrence River then will eventually flow by Montreal, Quebec City and out to the North Atlantic.  Fortunately for us at this stage the St Lawrence only has a current of a knot or two – so no real problem for now.

Mouth of the St Lawrence River at Lake Ontario - Tibbetts Point NY on right.

We motored past Cape Vincent and then arrived at Clayton

Tibbetts Point NY Lighthouse; Cape Vincent from the River; Clayton NY on approach.

During our journey, we called nearly a dozen marinas seeking someone that could help us with our engine problem.  Nearly everyone said "no" – they do not service Cummins engines / Zeus pod drives.   Very depressing indeed and we despaired.

We finally arrived at Clayton Municipal Marina to certainly one of the more warm welcomes (despite a rough landing at an relatively unpopulated part of the docks) we had received to date – and found ourselves in the hands a dockmaster that viewed himself as the chief problem-solver for his guests. Things began to fall into place when a local mechanic who said he was familiar with Zeus pod drives agreed to come over and see our boat.  Within 45 minutes he had identified the source of all the hydraulic fluid surrounding our drive, tightened some fittings – looked over a few other problematic areas on the engines and the world looked a lot brighter.

We walked around the waterfront of the small town of Clayton before finding dinner.

Clayton Municipal Marina (Salty is safely at the far end)

John St / Riverside Drive in Clayton

The whole problem with today was that we looking downward at our problems (with some justification) and not looking up and around as much as we should have at the wondrous beauty of the Thousand Islands area.  If there is a hidden secret beauty spot on earth – this is at least one of them.  Thousands of bright emerald islands studding a dark navy water under bright clear blue skies.  The water here is so clear that you can see the bottom at 15 feet.   The skies so bright on this eve of the solstice, we see Venus following the sunset.

Sunset over the St Lawrence River; Venus in the skies over the St Lawrence at 10pm (eight hours before the summer solstice).