In quieter moments – of which there have been few the last couple months – I thought about what it would actually feel like to leave our slip at RCYC, as we’ve done so many times, head out into the harbor, through the eastern gap out onto Lake Ontario. Then, past our Beach neighborhood and all the familiar landmarks east of the city. I’ve wondered what it would feel like to watch the city recede into the distance.

After months of preparation and anticipation, we finally left on Monday morning, July 19. Two days later than planned and with no idea when we’d actually be able to “start” our trip by heading through the Oswego Canal. But as Brian has covered, it was time to leave. So we decided to start with Cobourg, which was originally meant to be our springboard across to the canal.

But to be honest, when the time came to actually leave, I felt little excitement. I was mostly, overwhelmingly, sad. And anxious. Off kilter. Half wondering if maybe we should be spending our time, waiting for the canal to open, sitting in slip 121 snugly tucked away at Snug. On the other hand, we had said our goodbyes, sometimes twice, and I wasn’t sure I could handle the anticipation, while staying in the same place for another week or more. At least we were finally moving.

It was a hard, hot day motoring in calm flat water with biting flies and neither of us on our game when it came to entertaining kids. Brian and I were both emotional and seeing Oliver sad and burying his face in the pillows as we motored away was hard. What are we doing??? Then, seven hours later we got to Cobourg and all I wanted to do was go home. Back to RCYC. I felt overwhelmingly homesick. And rootless and planless.

Every single time we’ve headed out somewhere on this boat, I have been without fail excited by the adventure to come and happy to be on the move. Looking forward, present, aware and happy. I’ll never forget this very first trip, because I was none of those things.

After a night of excellent sleep, I felt better on Tuesday. We spent the day doing some fun things – like taking the kids to the beach – and some necessary chores – hitting up a grocery store and fixing the lack of engine data from our motor the previous day. I felt less homesick and we started to try and map out a plan.

Today, we’re on the move again, eight hours further east to one of our favorite anchorages, Little Bluff near Waupoos (a.k.a. Lake Snake Beach to the Hill family, so called because on our first visit three years ago, it was filled with swimming lake snakes). From there, it’s a fairly direct shot south across the lake to Oswego. The canals – both Oswego and portions of the Erie – are still closed. There was a fair amount of rain yesterday so I’m sure that didn’t help things. The only update we’ve gotten was through a news story yesterday that reported canal officials as saying that they hoped to reopen in the next couple days.

In the meantime, we decided to contact some mechanics in the Waupoos/Kingston/Thousand Islands area to see if we might be able to get our generator fixed. It’s something we’ve been trying to do in Toronto since last summer. We had lined up someone to help us in Connecticut, but at this point not sure when we’re going to get there, and if we’re bumming around Lake Ontario, maybe we can make it a little more productive. We don’t want to spend a ton of money sitting at docks around here, waiting, but being at anchor for more than two days two without a generator isn’t really an option either.

We lined someone up to take a look at the generator on Saturday, so on Friday we will head to the dock in Waupoos and spend at least two nights there. After that, we’re back into a grey zone again. If the mechanic can fix it, we’re guessing it’ll be at least a week before we can leave. If he can’t and the locks are still closed, we’ve talked about going into the Thousand Islands to anchor for a couple of days. Or maybe stay around here? If he can’t and the locks open, it’s into the U.S. we go and we’ll deal with the generator in Connecticut as planned.

It’s definitely not how we expected our trip to start, but maybe it’s a fitting introduction to cruising: learning how to go with the flow.