Well it’s been a week since we arrived in New York City & State and we’ve come along way.  We have traveled 160 miles along the Hudson, followed by 154 miles on the Eastern Erie Canal.  In the canal we  have gone through 20 locks which gradually elevated us by 420 feet.

We left the Lock 20 wall at 545, and started down the canal.  It was overcast, but there wasn’t much wind.

  Just after 7, we reached the town of Rome, which is the highest point on the Erie canal.   There was a very nice free dock located in Bellamy park.

I saw lovely yellow iris, growing along the waters edge in huge clumps- would love to take some of them home for my fish pond.

A little farther along the canal we saw portions of the original Erie canal, which is used as a dry lock

We reached Lock 21 before 8:00, but no one responded to our calls until  after 8:00.  They got the lock ready and we were through by 8:20.

We went a mile farther to Lock 22 and it was ready and waiting for us.  We got through it by 8:40.   Locks 21 & 22 brought us down a total of 48 feet- it was nice to have a descending lock- they are much easier to manipulate.    I saw a deer swim/walk across the canal just after Lock 22, but didn’t have my camera handy to get a picture.   I did have the camera to capture these little ducklings that weren’t sure what to do when 2 big boats were approaching them from different directions.

    At 9:10 we reached the banks of Lake Oneida, it is about 20 miles long and 3 miles wide.  Here’s a shot of  a portion of Sylvan Beach,

this town has 4 miles of beaches as well as an amusement park with  a roller coaster.

The first 10 miles  of our crossing wasn’t too bad, but as the wind gusts  increased to 30-40 mph, the waves also got larger.

At time the waves hitting the bow  splashed up in the flybridge causing the captain to have to dodge the splash- or get soaked.  We made it across

and were tied up at Winter Harbour Marina in Brewerton  by 11:45.

Very soon after there was a distress call from the Coast guard saying that there were people in the water near Brewerton—we suspect that it may have been the fishing boat we had seen while we were crossing the lake.  They must have been rescued, as the call only came over the radio once.

We met some more boaters and went into town to buy some provisions.