Bazar’s Second Wave

We can now take a break from the Locks for a while.  We arrived in Oswego, NY to wait for the perfect weather day to cross Lake Ontario....NO west wind!  Three days turned into 5 but there are worse places to wait so we explored the town and as always did boat chores. Fort Ontario was one place we walked to.  The fort was erected in 1839 and is part of the US National Register of Historic Places. It now operates as a museum known as Fort Ontario State Historic Site. In the photo below a meteorology team is preparing a weather buoy just down from our slip to be installed just outside of the Port of Oswego marina in Lake Ontario. As early as 4:30 AM each morning these fishing boats would have many willing participants to go out and find some fish.  Do you think they have enough rods?? The picture below illustrates what happens when the captain finally gets tired of crawling around inside an engine room. And find fish...

Finishing Lock #22 puts us one lock away from completing the Erie Canal.  After Lock #22 we crossed Oneida Lake before arriving in Brewerton.  Since we cross the length of the lake it is important to pick a calm day and not have winds out of the West since the waves would have about 20 miles to build. The crossing was a non event, which is what we always hope for. Ess Kay was the marina that we chose to stay at for the next several days since a weather system was due in over the weekend with rain, wind and cooler temperatures.  It is a working marina which means repairs can be made, if needed, and they sell a huge range of boat parts. Cute wooden swing in their yard. A short walk into town and, shocking, another ice cream stand was found.  Every little town seems to have an ice cream shop, a bakery, and several pubs. Next to the ice cream stand was a two man local band that played from 6-8 on Sunday and they actually were pretty good and...

So we were off for our fourth day to tackle the Erie Canal locks, only 4 today.  As you can see the day was a perfect day to travel with no wind. The Erie is a very scenic waterway.  With my fluorescent yellow t-shirt on you weren't going to lose me today.  I was ready for the upcoming lock in the distance. Utica was our stopping point with a population of about 60,000. This was another unique stop since we tied to a wall just outside the Aqua Vino Restaurant for the night.  As people dined we were right there for either them to look at us or us to look at them or both! We decided to eat dinner there and to our surprise we needed a reservation, they were that busy. Beautiful early morning pictures of us tied to the dock.

Another 5 locks down in the Erie Canal took us to St. Johnsville, NY and about another 35 miles. Although it was a very small marina it had a lot of charm.  It was quiet with  peaceful scenery.  Second Wave and Misty Pearl tied up along the long dock in the picture below with two other Looper boats. Believe it or not, the most expensive diesel fuel we've purchased so far on our Loop was in Seabrook, Texas at Seabrook Shipyard a couple of days before we started our trip (3.45/gallon). Looks like fuel is going to start getting more expensive as we keep heading north! Since these towns are very small, if you want to eat out there aren't too many choices.  Cosmo's was recommended to us by Dan and Jean (Time Out) and they said they had the best burgers.  They were right!! This is Brent's burger with an egg on top! Quite unique (kinda French) but he said it was the best he's ever had. No, that's not his Miller Lite in the background. ...

Today we continued on the Erie Canal and thank God we only had 3 locks with about 5-6 miles in between each one.  We rose a total of 44 feet.  As you can see the scenery was spectacular. We finished our day in Amsterdam, NY.  What a cool little town of about 18,000 people.  Even though we had to have a reservation we basically were tied up on a wall. The city spent over $15,000,000 to create this concrete pathway from where we were staying across the bridge in the distance.  It was just completed recently. After getting a bite to eat we came across the Amsterdam Castle up on this very steep hill that was converted into a hotel.   This was the lobby. The Castle was built in 1877 and was recently converted into a hotel. Just a block or so from the marina we ran into this guy in the photo above. We thought the Sweet Canal Store might be a candy shop or an ice cream parlor. No, basically it was h...