"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in
its net of wonder forever."—Jacques Cousteau

June 23 - Brewerton, NY

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 today
Lock 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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