Yup, plodding along, working at keeping LB safe in the locks, some 35 or so, holding our breaths when the depth drops to 7.9 feet, passing under bridges that the chart says have 15 foot clearances, but here we are in the Village of Brockport getting ever closer to Buffalo. The villages along the canal have really done a great job providing safe places for cruisers such as us to tie up for the evening. They offer a free docking, charge minimal for water, electricity, laundry and wifi.

We only had to anchor once due to crowding at the place we chose to stop. Anchoring in the canal is'nt like dropping the hook in the islands. Here the depth shoals quickly and there is always a little current to consider. So we turn off the channel and slowly, very slowly work our way toward shore attempting to keep inside a channel marker. We have no anchor light so I have one of those collapsible led lights that I leave on illuminating the cockpit.

The lock are the most stressful part of the trip. Alice and I are getting pretty good at selecting a set of ropes and slowly angling LB toward the lock wall to reach and secure us to the ropes. Alice is on the bow and grabs the first rope as I try and maneuver LB to time it so we stop just in time that she can pass me the rope and then go forward and try and snag the second one.

Somehow we lost the boat hook in one of the locks so my imaginative Admiral wife started using her umbrella to snag the ropes. She is really cool. That's since been replaced with a really neat boat hook that extends to almost 10 feet. No more worries about catching the lines. But we now check for the boat hook before we leave each lock, LOL!!

There is very little traffic on the canal which is good for us. We've seen only a couple of boats going west and one or two going east. Maybe it's the time of the year, maybe we're early but we're thankful.

A couple of more days before we arrive at the marina where we will re-step LB's mast and then.... we are once again a sail boat, hurray!! Hopefully weather will permit several overnight sails to help us keep to our target schedule of being in Kenosha in early September. We'll see