Bye Bye Erie Canal

 TRAVEL DAY 72 - Little Falls to Sylvan Beach

July 9, 2023

6.71 Hours/48.9 Miles

    Another long travel day broken up with 5 Locks on the tail end of our Erie Canal portion. The first 3 locks brought us up 57' in elevation, while the last 2 brought us back down 50.3' and to our final destination for the day. As we said goodbye to the Mohawk River in Little Falls, the Erie canal continues on and is narrower and straighter.

A very narrow lock on the Erie Canal

    We ended in Sylvan Beach at a free wall (we love free) with no electricity but we are self sufficient with a generator and enough battery capacity to get us easily through the night. We are now at the edge of Oneida Lake. The lake feeds the Oneida River, a tributary of the Oswego River, which flows into Lake Ontario and the gateway to Canada.

We were too early for the Sylvan Beach Pirate Festival

    We ended the day with our traveling partner Ottyssey, a couple from Louisville. KY. We tied up on the wall and jumped off to explore this neat little lakeside beach town. A small dinner and then back to the boat to plan our trip across the 21 mile long Lake Oneida in the morning.

Free Wall

Little Falls to Sylvan Beach

 TRAVEL DAY 73 - Sylvan Beach to Brewerton

July 10, 2023

3.08 Hours/22.4 Miles

    Oneida Lake runs at it's longest east to west, so strong winds from either of those directions  with a long fetch would make the shallow lake tough to navigate. The wind was forecast to be from the NW and not top 5 -7 mph.  The weather forecast looked good, except that there was a chance of rain basically all day & thunderstorms predicted for 1 pm. We pulled away from the wall at 8:20 am and headed out onto the massive lake.

Leaving Sylvan Beach

    We got about 1/3 of the way into the journey when heavy clouds rolled in over the western part of the lake and Brewerton and moved straight at us. I monitored the clouds on the radar as they approached. We saw a few pops of lightning which was really the only thing I was concerned about. As the storm met us the waves picked up some but nothing that wasn't manageable. The rain increased and we had a steady 1/2 mile of visibility. 

So far so good

  

    We got to Brewerton and the Oneida River in a steady rain. We slowed to idle speed and continued up the river a short distance to Winter Harbor Marina where we had made a reservation. We pulled up to the fuel dock, topped off the tanks and filled 2 spare 5 gallon containers since the fuel in Canada can be as much as $8/gallon. We pumped out the black water tank and pulled up the dock to tie up. 

Dueling Camano Trolls

    With a rainy day ahead, we decided to get the free courtesy car and head to the grocery store to provision.  We waited out the rain and in the evening it cleared and we got a cool clear evening, perfect for sitting around the firepit with the other boaters and Loopers.

DAY 2 - Brewerton

    The following day was a typical laundry, prep day.  It was a beautiful sunny clear upstate NY day and we secretly wished were were traveling but knew we needed the down time. We took a dinghy ride down the river to meet some loopers. We were able to have lunch and get to know the crew of Awelon-y-Mor better. 

Sylvan Beach to Brewerton

TRAVEL DAY 74 - Brewerton to Oswego

July 11, 2023

3.97 Hours/30.1 Miles

    Guess what we did today? You guessed it...more locks. The difference is, we only had 1 lock left on the Erie Canal. With a -7' elevation change, we cleared Lock #23 and traveled a few miles to Three Rivers Junction and made a starboard turn into the Oswego River and out of the Erie Canal. The remaining 13 locks on the Erie would have brought us to Buffalo but we had other plans.

Last Lock for us on the Erie Canal

    We weren't done with locks however. We traveled through #1, #2, #3, #5, #6 & #7. What, no Lock #4?. Correct. The engineers decided that if they dug Lock #3 just 6' deeper, they could avoid building the next lock, #4. As #4 was planned, it was determined it would be too cumbersome to delete #4 and make all the required paperwork changes, they simply left the numbering system in place.

Three Rivers - Decision Time Again

    

Lock #1 - Oswego River

    After Lock #7 but before Lock #8, we tied up at the lock wall for the night. Free dockage is always good. It was a great location as we would be able to get right to Lock #8 a mere 60' ahead in the morning. Also, it was calm water since it was between the 2 locks and allowed us to hop off and explore some of Oswego.

Free wall before Lock #8

    We walked to the edge of Lake Ontario and visited Fort Ontario. Located on the east side of the Oswego River and overlooking Lake Ontario, Fort Ontario was one of several forts built by the British. The original fort was built in 1755 during the French and Indian War and named "Fort of the Six Nations". The fort was destroyed by the French in 1756 and rebuilt by the British in 1759. Destroyed again during the American Revolutionary War in 1778 after the British abandoned it. The British weren't done yet and returned to rebuild it in 1782. In 1796 the US got the fort back, but was destroyed again by the British in the War of 1812. It was rebuilt.....again during the Civil War. During WWI it was a military hospital, later a National Guard anti-aircraft installation and later during WWII home to 981 Jewish refugees. Quite a history indeed.

Lake Ontario and the Oswego Lighthouse from the ramparts of Fort Ontario

Inside Fort Ontario

DAY 2 - Oswego

    The following day it was forecast that the wind would pick up and it was apparent that crossing huge Lake Ontario was a fools errand with waves of 4 - 6 feet and possible 9'. We moved the boat through lock #8, the last lock on the Oswego River a few hundred yards to Oswego Marina to see what Friday would bring. With the building wind it was a difficult task to back Pau Hana into her slip but the crew got it done.

Oswego Marina

    With the better part of a day to kill, we made plans to get out on the town some. We didn't get far as it began to cloud up and rain set in.  While we waited out the downpour, with more than a few Looper Boats stacked up here waiting to cross, we scheduled Docktales & dinner, so our next scheduled activity was to meet up for dinks then on to a local restaurant. We discussed our plans for the following day. Some were headed north to Kingston, some northeast towards Clayton. Whichever way, if the weather held, Oswego would be to our stern on Friday Morning.

 

2nd SeaBatical, Dos Gatos Locos, Oysterland, Pau Hana & Ottyssey

    

Brewerton to Oswego

Want to track us on our adventure? Click the NEBO LINK