10 ish Days Til Clayton! Let The Countdown Begin?
In just two Fridays the party will be up in Clayton NY this year. in fact its a bit of a 50th celebration at the Antique Boat Museum which is the location of the show. Never been? THIS IS THE YEAR! The mix of boats is over the top, and the Museum.
The national Motor Boat Show exhibit! Amazing! Photo ABM.org
The Museum campus. photo abm.org
Dang! The best Classic boat museum in North America, if not the world. We recommend you find a room for at least Saturday night. Rooms are hard to find, but worth whatever you need to do.
We are staying at a fun group of Cottages about 10 miles form the show. Angle Rock Click Here. 
In Alexandria Bay there are some larger hotels, and of course the Wellesley Inn on Wellesly Island is a throw back for sure. At least worth a visit. When in town, not sure if St Lawrence Restoration will be open, but its a great place that has some real jewels there.
But the real gem is the entire area. Its like a post card. Still. And isnt that what we are all about.
Amazing flea market
The boat show outdoors is amazing
All sorts of cool stuff at the auction
Counting down, but I am still going to miss it.
Are you showing Stinky? I don’t think I am going to make it, but a day trip is possible.
Not sure yet. I failed to sign up for anything because my schedule is so wonky.
If I come up I need to find a boat to be out on the water far away from the auction. With the cracked head on the Penn Yan, I will have an open lift begging to be filled. That plus an open trailer hitch, alcohol, and a boat auction could get expensive fast!
Betty and I will be at the Island Inn all week Purple Haze needs to stretch her legs out on the river.
Look forward to seeing you guys. Your boat is AMAZING! and folks should see the over the top detail you did to make it perfect.
Last year we used Navelonics to get around but cant remember how detailed it showed rock outcroppings, depths got us through a skinny shortcut just before the US / Canada split in the river around alot of rock outcroppings. Anyone wanting to run the river Tuesday through Thursday as a group give us a call while you are there. (434) 942-8076 maybe we can run as a group, always a good idea.
Benn 15 years or more since I was last at the Clayton show. My wife and I are getting there this year—can’t wait!
It’s worth noting that if you scuba dive the St Lawrence is a great place to dive.
Clayton is on our list to visit with the boat. Especially since Matt posted that great youtube clip a few months back. Is their any must see sights from folks that have cruised in the area?
My family and I just got back from spending a week in the area, we make sure to go up every year, but I just wanted to let everyone know who plans on putting their boats in the water that this year the water has been at record height. It started out about 3 feet above normal…3 feet….and really hasn’t receded too much yet. Floating docks aren’t an issue really, but there are some still-submerged stationary docks that aren’t usable right now. The main dock in Alexandria Bay is just above water now but they are in the process of replacing the damaged decking so they installed a temporary dock alongside. Clayton seems to be in pretty good shape, and inside the museum boat house they’ve added vertical dock extensions to allow for the higher water levels so your bumpers actually touch something. One thing that is very important to point out is that there are many shoals and boulders out in the river that were never an issue before since they stuck out of the water a foot or two and were easy to see, but now these same rocks might be sitting just below the surface and since they never needed to be marked before they won’t have any visible markings. BE CAREFUL. There are lots of stories going around about people hitting these and taking out props or lower units on I/Os and outboards. MAKE SURE you’re familiar with your surroundings so you know where these might be. The water level is suppose to stay high pretty much thru the summer, so expect it to still be high when you arrive. It did go down a few inches while we were there so hopefully that will continue. Sorry for the long message but I would hate to hear about someone running into something in the middle of the river. I attached a picture of the docks in front of Thousand Island Park for reference.
Not sure what happened to the picture, so I’ll try again.
The Lake Ontario levels, which include the Thousand Islands up to the Massena damn, have been dropping at about an inch per week since June, except when it is extra rainy in the watershed. There has been a LOT of rain in parts of Western NY and Ontario this week and that will be draining into Lake Ontario and the ST. Lawrence over the next few days, so expect the same levels as Tom experienced or slightly worse.
The current water level is a mere 30″ above last year and despite coming down a bit is still above the prior record high for July set in 1947 when a lot of the boats that will be there were still fairly new!
So! See, even the water level is period correct. PERFECT
I heard from my brother that they had 7 inches of rain down river from Clayton that was taking out driveways and other infrastructure on land so do not expect to see a lower water level. So different from last year.
Large chunks of NY and Ontario got 3+ inches of rain between Sunday and Monday. Parts of the Erie Canal and Seneca Oswego canals are closed in western NY and I hear the Rideau in Eastern Ontario (the Canadian Provence) is flooded and closed at the moment. That will clear up within a few days, but it then makes its way to Ontario (the lake) and the St. Lawrence.
Matt should have his “period correct” flooding, but it will be like the extra 15 layers of period correct varnish as in a bit more than what was original.