Crustacean Travels

 We’ve got Crustacean clean and stowed away for the winter. Taking in all the cushions, flags and stowing fenders, as well as defrosting the refrigerator, cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and emptying the water tanks and polishing the stainless.  Been busy. Took time to go to lunch and poked around the small town of Brewerton.  Found a replica blockhouse that originally built in 1742 and stood not far from the marina on the canal.   Walked in a park and discovered this church made of river stones. We picked up the rental car and loaded it with all that needs to be carted back to Florida. Had to work around a few raindrops while loading.  Also had some last minute chores to do.   We met a couple who came in the marina that live on Georgian Bay (a bay off Lake Huron in Ontario Province, Canada) and invited them over to our boat to share their knowledge.  In return, we shared all the places we stopped on our voyage,  as they are doing the loop and heading to Florida and the Bahamas this

 We woke early to 46 degrees and bundled up for our trip across Oneida Lake.  This twenty mile lake runs from Sylvan Beach in the east to Brewerton, NY on the west.  Since it was cold we kept all the vinyl panels on the fly bridge enclosure closed.  That plus the sun and gloves, watch caps, jackets and sweat shirts kept us warm.  By mid lake we could take off the gloves and caps, but as we were going into the wind, we still needed the sweatshirt and jacket. We pulled into Winter Harbor Marina where we will tie up for the next few days and prepare the boat to be stored for the winter. This is our last travel day and we feel a bit nostalgic and a bit excited about what we have accomplished.  We traveled 2778 miles over our nations and Canada’s oldest waterways and trade routes.  Met lots and lots of wonderful people that shared a passion for boating. Saw cities, towns, forts and lighthouses that line the waterway.  Was awesome to travel by water and visit where most of this country began

 We woke to a cloudy morning leaving Little Falls.  We decided to go ahead and travel today knowing we may get rained on.   Traversing Lock 17 we were lifted 40.5 feet and four miles later in Lock 18 we were lifted another 20 feet. The video below show the water in the lock as the flood gates open. Photos of leaving Little Falls. Lock 18 photos Then the cloudy turned to a drizzly light rain, but thankfully it quit well before we got to the next lock twelve miles further on.  This section of the Erie is mostly man made canal so we have mostly straight channels.  Once we got to Lock 19 we rose 21feet.  Following the lock we encountered several dredging operations by the canal work boats.  The sun actually peeked out as we approached the city of Utica.  Traveling further we shared Lock 20 with a good sized tugboat- J Arnold Witte, and rose another 16 feet.  So far we have risen a total of  424 feet on the Erie Canal.   In our last leg of our trip today it began to rain.  As we are covered