Long Day
Brewerton Free Dock
It was a beautiful day to be on the water. Our cruise today
in the Erie Canal was through a manmade cut instead of the Mohawk River. It was
very pretty, rural and peaceful. We only saw a few other boats and we were the
only boat in the locks. We had four locks today...two that raised us up a total
of 37 feet and two that lowered 50 feet to the level of Oneida Lake.
If you look at our travel map you will notice we had two
destinations today. Our original plan was to stay in Sylvan Beach for a few
days...but plans almost always get changed. Forgetting the number one rule of full
time cruising...NEVER travel on the weekend, we tried to find a decent dock
space on the large free wall in Sylvan Beach; it was crazy there today. We did
manage to find room on the south side of the canal and we enjoyed sitting on
the flybridge watching the boats and people moving around. In fact it was quite
a show and we even had a chance to visit with a boater we'd locked through with
yesterday. We rode our bikes across the bridge and spent some time looking
around Sylvan Beach, but when we returned to the boat there was a huge party on
the lawn next to our boat...we didn't want to spend the night listening to loud
rap music, so we decided to cross Oneida Lake to Brewerton. The lake was calm,
but still a little busy. We left Sylvan Beach about six, set Otto (auto pilot)
to help steer, grilled hamburgers for dinner on the way and arrived at the free
dock around 8:30. It was a great sunset cruise and reminded us of cruising at
home in the summer.
The free dock was crowded, but not full. We slipped into a
spot and made ourselves at home. Everyone on the dock was very friendly and we picked
up some more advice on things we shouldn't miss in Canada. I think we may
stay here tomorrow and make plans for the next few weeks.
Lock 19
Typical scenery todayLock 20
Part of the original Erie Canal
Lock 21 - our first lock going down
Leaving Lock 21
Leaving Lock 22 - Luckily the storm stayed east of us.
Sylvan Beach
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