Cady Girl

We left Oswego Sunday morning and easily motored to Sackets Harbor, NY. Doing that, we entered our First Great Lake - Lake Ontario, and it was a smooth, beautiful ride! It was hot, the water was super clear, so we stopped in the middle of our ride and took a swim! Sackets Harbor is a darling little village overlooking Lake Ontario and it is a designated New York Heritage Area with historic sites dating back to the war of 1812.  We walked the village, listened to some music in the battleground park and had some yummy ice cream! On the 7th we motored to Clayton NY.  This was a much rougher ride until we entered the St. Lawrence River.  Clayton is on the northern edge of NY and minutes from the Canadian border. It is a cute little town nestled in the 1000 Islands region and home to the Antique Boat Museum. It boasts great restaurants, a river walk and shopping. We spent more than two hours in the museum and had a tour of La Duchesse, a 106' houseboat built in 1903 for hoteli...

We left Ilion on July 1 and motored to Sylvan Beach - just 4 locks (#19 - 22).  Sylvan Beach is a cute resort community on the shore of Oneida Lake. The lake is a popular location for fishing, boating and swimming. We docked for free which was nice and could walk everywhere.  We spent two days there and even went swimming in the lake and listened to a band one evening! They had a beach resort carnival with rides right out of the 1950s. On the 3rd we made a quick run across Oneida Lake to Brewerton and the Ess-Kay Marina.  Brewerton is considered a suburb of Syracuse. And Ess-Kay Marina is full-service marina where you can get most anything you need for your boat.  Don had ordered 16 gallons of motor oil and a water pump impellor in advance, so he spent one morning doing Engine Room yoga again, while I biked it to a laundromat!  The marina had a barbecue on the 3rd and the city had fireworks and a boat parade.  We met lots more loopers and had a wonderful vi...

What a beautiful day for traveling the Erie Canal!  And since I keep thinking of the song we sang in grade school about the Erie Canal - following is a link to a U Tube video for your viewing and singing pleasure:  https://g.co/kgs/rZGFzhg We left St. Johnsville a little before 10 am, because the first lock #16 did not open until 10.  Managed that one smoothly!  It had a lift of 20 feet. Then came Lock #17!  It has the highest lift of any lock on the Erie Canal at 40.5 feet.  YIKES.  The process went fine but putting that many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water through the lock system takes about 40 minutes. So that means 40 minutes of holding the boat with the lock lines.  Can anyone say sore hands or back? On to Lock #18 - piece of cake at 20 feet lift! Between all of the locks you may only travel at 5 miles per hour, so we went a whopping 21 miles in 5 hours. We did have a guest rider - a beautiful butterfly joined us! Decided to spend t...

We left Mohawk Marina and motored through 4 more locks arriving in Amsterdam in time to walk around the town and eat a fabulous dinner at Lorenzo's! Italian with a terrific antipasto tray that we took home for another dinner! Amsterdam is rejuvenating itself and has a wonderful walking bridge across the Mohawk River. It is called the Mohawk Valley Gateway Overlook and won an award in 2019 for being one of the Great Public Spaces in America. Below you will find a picture of a flag honoring a veteran.  Most small towns in New York, have these!  It is such a wonderful way to honor these heroes, so I just had to share!  God Bless America! On Sunday, we left Amsterdam and motored 35 miles to St. Johnsville Municiple Marina and Campground.  What a small, serene place. The town actually is a village with a population of 1,643 and closed factories! We walked a mile to buy ice cream, but alas, the drive in was closed.  Still searching for my "ice cream." During that trip...

The Maryland party to celebrate our niece Lauren's High School graduation was a Wigglesworth mini reunion.  Crabs, and more crabs and lots of pool time!  With a super graduation party as a plus. We returned to Shady Harbor Marina in New York on Tuesday and departed there on Thursday!  Weather went from 90+ degrees to drizzling rain.  Motored up the Hudson River past Albany to Lock #1.  Piece of cake!  Then continued on past Troy to dock at the City Docks in Waterford. Only $10 for the night. After a morning of Don doing "boat yoga" in the engine room fixing the generator, we left Waterford and traveled through Locks 2 - 7 to Schenectady and the Mohawk Harbor Marina. When opened in 1915 the "Flight of Five Locks" as those locks are named represented the greatest series of high lift locks in the shortest distance of any canal in the US. What a workout, you basically try to hold your 40,000 lb. yacht against the wall, while the filling water is in turmoil. And...