A beautiful calm day meandering through the Thousand Islands region
Our first brief stop was to be in Clayton, New York, to stretch our legs a bit. They have a municipal dock there that used to be free for three hours, but is now a mere $7 for four hours. We figured that would be enough time to do some light provisioning and have some lunch before heading out again.
Then I realized we could also use some fuel after a day of two-engine motoring to get through the Welland Canal, so we added that mini-stop as well.
At the Municipal dock, we learned that the office that collects the $7 isn't open yet for the season. Dockage was back to being free, although we were on our own for showers and laundry.
We decided to start with getting the grocery run out of the way. The store was only about five blocks away. At the checkout, I was bagging things furiously when the whole operation came to an abrupt stop. I looked up and realized we were finished. I guess it's been a while since we've been to a supermarket and bought fewer than two trolley loads.
Once we got our mini-haul of provisions back to Begonia, we headed out for a proper walk through the town. Clayton is very tidy and the trees being covered in springtime buds and blossoms made it even more so. Unfortunately, like with the docks, most everything we would have wanted to see, like museums and restaurants, were also not yet open for the season. That made almost our whole exploration just a meandering walk through trim streets of post-war and Victorian houses. Just before we got back to Begonia, we did find the one pub that was open and decided to drop off our lunch money there.
Clayton (in NY State) provided a great place to amble, if we'd had more time we would have also visited its extensive Antique Boat Museum
For our next brief stop, Maryanne convinced me to tie up at the Rock Island lighthouse. Since it was less than a hundred meters off our route, I could hardly say no.
As we arrived, it quickly became clear that Begonia was too big for any of the docks there, apart from the T-head, which was marked with signs saying, "Tour Boats Only".
Three people were boarding a small pontoon boat at one of the other docks. After introductions, we learned they were staff preparing for the next day's season opener. They said no tour boats would be coming around before then, so feel free to use the dock. Just don't stay overnight. They also apologized for all of the buildings being closed but joked that we would at least be saved the $3 fee for entry. Then they bid us a good afternoon and left.
This made me give Maryanne a very wary look, for I knew that if the island were going to have any crime, it was going to have to come from her. Regardless, we enjoyed scampering around Rock Island, taking pictures and helping each other over the, uh...rocks.
We had Rock Island and its lighthouse all to ourselves
Twenty-eight minutes later, we had seen all we could see and were back aboard the boat again. The weather we had missed in the morning now seemed like it was thinking about arriving. The headwinds picked up, the clouds thickened and it was getting colder.
The whole area is littered with properties of all sizes and budgets, and often making use of even the smallest patches of rock above the water to build upon. That windvane is a life size bear!
We motored under the Thousand Islands Bridge and rounded Heart Island to the docks on the other side, where we were repelled by signs saying, "No Mooring 7pm to 10am". No worries, we'll just head about fifteen boat lengths over there and drop anchor.
Heart Island contains Boldt Castle, which probably comprises half its mass. Boldt is also closed for the season, but there was no way we're going to miss it, so Begonia will get to anchor in it's shadow for a couple of nights until it is not. We'll say much more about it later, but it's the kind of place where, if we take less than a thousand photos, it will have to be taken as a sign that we are getting much more discriminating about which ones will eventually be keepers and which will not. Many of the other local residents along the shoreline seem to be trying hard to keep up with the giant, well-manicured dwelling theme, which is at least making for an exceedingly pretty anchorage for us and all of the other boats anchored here. Wait, there are none yet. It's just us.
Eager to beat the throngs, we tied up a Heart Island's visitor dock as soon as the adjacent signage said it was allowed. We then presented ourselves and our printed tickets to the entry kiosk. The nice woman there told us it would be a few minutes. It was Opening Day and the staff weren't quite ready for us yet. I did my best to try to accept the unlikely probability that not one of the employees owned a timepiece. We were told the first tour boat was scheduled to arrive at 10:40. How would they know? Oh, yeah. There will be a boat coming around the corner.
They let us in at 10:35. Since it was not yet raining, we started our exploration with a lap of the grounds, starting at the old gate and the six-story children's play house that looked like something out of one of the Dr. Seuss books that it predates.
At the far end of the island, we found that the impressive and elaborate structure there, complete with an arched stone bridge for access, was the power house, where the generators, water pumps and a very nice keeper's apartment were housed.
We meandered through the gardens to the Castle, named not because it was fortified, like a European one, but rather because it is just very big at about 60,000 square feet (5,500 sq m). For comparison, if I remember correctly, the White House in Washington , D.C. is about 50,000 square feet.
As expected, the Castle is beautiful and grand and a bit more tastefully less over-the-top than, say, Hearst Castle. It certainly looks like it would have been a magical place to spend time for the leisure class.
Boldt Castle (Heart Island)
The Boat House
The story of Boldt Castle is a sad one, though. The island was bought, and construction was commissioned by George Boldt, which took place between 1900 and 1904. George was a self-made man who grew up poor in Prussia. He emigrated to the United States and (with a lot of input and support from his wife) eventually ended up building the original Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, now the site of the Empire State Building, where the room rates must have been 90% profit.
Soon, George was a bo-zillionaire. He bought Heart Island and built Boldt Castle for his wife, Louise, as a gift for summertime getaways. It's basically the same impulse that drives me to make my wife, Maryanne Louise, coffee every morning, except that I'm not a big show off about it.
The Castle was nearly done, like so close that the last of the finishings had already arrived in New York City to be forwarded on, when Louise, aged forty-two, died of what appears to be sudden heart failure. Knowing that he would never see Louise dance in the ballroom or entertain high society guests on the veranda, George was so distraught that he immediately ordered construction to stop and apparently never set foot on the island again. He died twelve years later.
The island was abandoned, left to the mercy of the weather and vandals, until the Thousand Island Bridge Authority took over and started the current restoration program. Their goal is not to finish the build, but get it back to the condition it was in when George ordered construction to halt.
From Heart Island, we then took the short boat ride to the Yacht house, where George's many, many fancy boats were kept. Today, the overflow is in the Clayton Antique Boat Museum. The Yacht house has the ability to house and haul out all of the boats within. Included in the building is a Yacht House Keeper's apartment that is nicer than any place I have ever lived. Plus, it has views of Boldt Castle. George, having risen through the ranks of the hotel industry, was apparently much better in his treatment of his staff than most of the old money dudes he was trying so hard to emulate.
Today, Boldt castle is the most popular tourist attraction in the Thousand Islands region. It is also understandably a popular venue for weddings.
Not being on the same schedule as the tour boat crowds, Maryanne and I had the luxury of time to really explore the castle and the Island's grounds. Then, once we had had our fill, we headed a few miles downriver to another private anchorage where we could enjoy the views from our own "veranda".
[Maryanne]During our stay at Heart Island, it seemed the whole world was witness to an unusually strong Aurora display of KP9. I'd been excited about it from the first hint of the forecasts, but the weather where we were proved to completely block any possible view with heavy clouds. UGH! Here is a picture from near my home in England where the aurora was overhead (an extremely rare event for so far south).
Aurora back in England (night of 10th/11th May) - Credit:Joel Spencer
A couple of nights later we did get to see some (much weaker) Aurora, but the pleasure still felt a little bitter-sweet
Anchorage location >> On google maps
The Thousand Islands area (both in USA and Canada) is a picturesque region of many islands (way more than 1000) dotted with "cottages" from shacks to castles. Popular for boaters and visitors alike.
No comments:
Post a Comment