It's been an interesting couple of days since our last posting. After departing Phoenix, NY in the Oswego Canal we sailed south to the "Three Rivers Junction" where we joined the Erie Canal travelling east. It continued to remain cold and late morning it began raining "cats and dogs" and the wind began picking up considerably. It didn't look to be an ideal day for crossing Oneida Lake (which they say not to under estimate) and so we decided to make it a relatively short day and stopped in Brewerton, NY. This is the last town before crossing Lake Oneida, and the weather was getting a little "iffy" to cross the charted 30 miles or so of the lake. Brewerton is a lovely little town with everything within walking distance. We had an incredible lunch at a little Italian restaurant - $3.99 for a platter full of spaghetti. You don't get that at home for that kind of price! We were able to pick up a US cell phone that our friends Darius and Cathy had told us about, so we'll be able to call anywhere in the US for .10 cents a minute or to home for .15 cents a minute. That's a lot better than Ma Bell!

On Wednesday we left in brilliant sunlight (see the picture above) with cool but clear skies and our crossing of Lake Oneida was uneventful. We left the wall in Brewerton about 8:00 and were across the lake by 11:00. Wayne had always wanted to see Sylvan Beach, so we tied up on the wall and had a bite of lunch (well, actually a very late breakfast). Sylvian Beach is the quintessential summer beach resort complete with an amusement park likely built in the 1920s. We wandered into the town, but there wasn't much open. Like many summer resort town once labour day passes, everything pretty much closes up and it seemed that they were getting ready to take in the sidewalks for the winter. We did spend some time chatting to a "local" who had sailed on a friend's Alberg 37 for years and was delighted to see one again.

We pressed on from Sylvan Beach and thought we'd make a few more miles. We traversed two more locks (we're now about 175 feet above Lake Ontario) and figured that we would spend the night in Rome, NY. As we approached the dock, we ran aground. There was supposed to be enough depth, but there is a little falls off to the north side and we think it's just silted in. We were able to get ourselves off after about ½ hour after Wayne got into the dinghy to push our bow out into deeper water. It was interesting trying to put the dinghy back in the towing harness as the boat moved down the canal at 3 knots (an interesting move to say the least). We managed fine, but you always hate running aground. At least it was just mud. We then pushed on to Lock 20 and tied up on the wall for the night which made for a rather longer day than we planned. Lock 20 is the first lock where we start the descent down to the Hudson River. Only about 20 locks to go until we can be a sailboat again and put our masts back up!

The middle section of the canal from Rome past Utica is not nearly as picturesque as the Oswego Canal or its earlier parts because this stretch is mostly man made and tends to be narrow and somewhat boring. All we've seen for the last two days since we left the Oswego Canal is trees on either side and there are few little towns to see. It is still a new adventure though and we're always up for adventure (maybe not like the one we had yesterday at Rome though!).

On Thursday we traversed our first "down" lock without incident and started our descent towards the Hudson River. It is actually much smoother than going up. We had intended to stop in Herkimer, NY but when we saw what it looked like, we decided to push on. The depth at the wall was questionable and it looked like it was in the middle of no where and with two interstate highways and a railroad track within 200 feet of the dock. That would have been noisy! Pushed on to Lock 18 and figured we stay here for the night. Just as we tied up the boat, it started to rain. Good thing we stopped!