summary of our experiences on Canadaigua Lake

[brianb]

Our vacation has ended and we're settling back into our land-bound groove again.  Just wanted to leave my impressions of Canadaigua Lake in case anyone else is considering a vacation there.

Our original plan had been to keep her on a mooring at the cottage we were renting but there was some confusion between the owners and realtors and it turned out there was no mooring at all.  Just a boat lift that was too high in the water for us to get our keel over.  So I switched to plan B.

We wound up keeping our Legacy in a slip at Pelican Point Marina for our entire stay.  We couldn't launch her there since they have no room to rig a sailboat boat on the right side of the many power lines.  Terry (the manager) was a great guy to work with.  He added an extra cleat on the finger dock so that we could have three fenders mounted on the dock (we kept one other fender on the stern using the cleat built into the aft pulpit).  I dropped by to work out the details and then we sailed the boat to the marina and called when we were a few minutes out.  Terry and a helper met us at the dock and showed us which slip to use and how to tie up properly (I am a complete newbie).

There is no break water at the marina and the waves can be pretty lively on the east side of the lake.  When the wind was up and boats were out it made for a couple of interesting departures and returns.  Probably would have been easier with more experience using an outboard for docking though and other than those two times we never had any trouble navigating among the docks.  I was never concerned about the boat's safety.  She was well tied and well fendered.  We never locked the companionway cover and left the bottom part (motor, shaft, and prop) of our torqueedo on the boat at all times and there were never any problems with theft.  It's seems to be a very safe area.

I looked around a bit and decided to launch our boat at German Brothers marina.  For $25 they used their tractor to put our boat in to the water at the beginning of our stay.  They did the reverse at the end of our stay and even let us leave the boat there on her trailer overnight.  Kyle and Pete at German Brothers were friendly, helpful, and great to work with.  The space near their ramp is pretty crowded but they made room for us to do our rigging/unrigging both times.

The lake was a pleasure to sail on.  It's larger than Keuka (another finger lake we have sailed on in the past) and has steadier winds.  When the wind was blowing hard enough to sail at speed it seemed to be coming from the NW or NE.  Obviously in July there were a lot of power boats.  These kicked up a lot of wakes.  We rarely felt crowded though and the Legacy handled the waves nicely.  There was one time where a wind gust came along at the same time a big wave rolled us a bit.  That was a fun surprise!  We were obviously never in any danger but I did stop filming to grab hold.   

The northern end of the lake has German Brothers marina and the Canandaigua Yacht Club so there are generally a lot of sails visible to the north in the evenings.  Our best sail was on a Sunday.  The wind was strong (for us - maybe 11-12 knots) from the north and we spent the day tacking trying to get up to the yacht club.  We didn't make it quite that far but we were among a lot of other sailboats when we turned south.  We saw a large (25 ft?) catboat in the distance but never managed to get close enough for a good look at her.  Wish I knew what type she was.

The Canandaigua area is much more built up than Keuka or Seneca with more national chains.  One night we got stuck in concert traffic that added about 30 minutes to our drive back after eating dinner.

All in all we enjoyed our stay and Canandaigua.  Sailing there is fun and probably best done near the north end of the lake.  The two marinas we dealt with were well run.  The lake is somewhat crowded but after sailing on Deep Creek Lake it seemed empty.

[crazycarl]

nice write up brian, thank you!

carl