Shady Harbor to Waterford to Amsterdam to Liitle Falls to Sylvan Beach to Brewerton to Oswego

Day #614; Loop Miles to Date = 7,255

OK...we've been busy and with no WiFi...a combination that results in lax blog posting. So, we've got a bunch of catching up to do. This post will be fairly brief, with no pictures yet. Once we get some WiFi (maybe a library near here?) we will let the pictures tell most of the story. Here is a nutshell summary of where we've been:

Since our last post, we have polished off the rest of the Hudson up to Waterford, NY, and then turned left into the Erie Canal. For 5 straight days we have had just glorious weather! We transited 152 miles on the Erie Canal, and just today another 34 on the Oswego Canal. This puts us on Lake Ontario, poised to take on our first Great Lake, and venture towards Canada.

In the course of these 5 days, we transited 28 locks, which raised us 420 feet in elevation, and then dropped us 160 feet in the last 9 locks. We've now been through 50 locks so far on our trip, and have many more to go before we are done. Locks can add a certain excitement to your day if things don't go as planned (just ask Act III someday about lock E8). On Tuesday, we left Sylvan Beach and crossed Lake Oneida. This is a decent sized lake, and we had acceptable weather conditions for the 20 mile crossing.

Right now we are on a free wall between locks O-7 and O-8 on the Oswego Canal. We are a mere 1/2 mile and 1 lock from Lake Ontario, and our current plan is dictated by weather. We don't  have power and water where we are, but still have all of the comforts of home. The wall is quiet, is walking distance to parts of Oswego, has easy dog walking, and is very protected. With the current weather forecast, we think we will just camp our here for a couple of days, with Saturday being the current target for crossing the lake. Tonight we have 5 other boats on the wall with us, and we expect a few of those to depart tomorrow, likely replaced by someone else. There is room for 8-10 boats here depending on size, and we expect a half dozen or so to be here each night.

So...all for now...we have scads of pictures of this leg of our trip to share, which we hope to do soon. Thanks for reading.