GANANOQUE TO AUBREY ISLAND

June 28/30- We left Gananoque Marina at about 9:00 am when we got a call from Sid saying he was out at Aubrey Island and it was wide open. It took us about 10 minutes to get there and the other docks were open. We got settled in and went for a walk around the island with Sid and Evelyn. Unfortunately there is a sign saying we can not run our generators but as we have been here by ourselves we have been running them periodically. We need a new cell phone because our minutes are now finished on our old phone so we have decided to take the dingys into Kingston as it was the only place that has them. While we were in Kingston we verified our reservations with them and then decided to call a cab to get our phone. As we were waiting for a cab a gentleman in a Cadillac drove up and asked us if we needed to go any where. We told him our plan and he offered to drive us to the mall as he was going that way anyway. He went with us into the mall, waited for us to arrange for the phone, sat with us while we had a quick bite to eat and then drove us back to the boat. He was a former Looper and knows what its like trying to get around and get things. He would not take anything for his time and gas. We met up with the others who had been waiting for us, hoped into the dingys and headed back to the boats. While we were away unfortunately three sailboats had arrived on the dock and proceeded to tell us "no generators". It was ok for us as we are set up for this but the other two boats with us have a problem so things became very intense. 

CLAYTON TO GANANOQUE

June 27- We left Clayton this morning at 11:00 am and are heading for Gananoque to check into Canada (Home Sweet Home!). We arrived and Koby and I had to stay aboard until Dave had gotten through with customs. We are quite a piece from the shore so we put Koby in the dingy and motored to shore. We then got a map of the downtown and proceeded to seek out the grocery store. It was about a half hour walk there and back, but it was a lovely walk through some pretty historical neighbourhoods. Dave and Sid and Koby went out scouting for some anchorages for us when we got back from shopping. We hope to try that tomorrow if possible.

Heading to Gananoque 

A pretty cottage in a narrow channel

Gananoque Municipal Marina just ahead

OSWEGO CANAL TO CLAYTON (THOUSAND ISLANDS)

June 24-26-We left Oswego this morning at 8:30 am locking through our last lock on the canal and headed out into Lake Ontario. The gods were with us this morning as the lake is calm and we have 55 miles to travel on it today. We are heading for Clayton, New York in the Thousand Islands. We arrived at Clayton Municipal Marina, tied up and went exploring. Clayton is a lovely little town with wonderful shops, art galleries, restaurants and a antique boat museum. We are planning to stay for a couple of days so that we might visit the boat museum and Boldt Castle.in The boat museum was fantastic in the way it was laid out. There were five buildings to wander through and we also got to tour the house boat once owned by the Boldt family. You could spend as much time as you like wondering about the buildings. Dave's back began to bother him after a couple of hours so we headed back to the boat. The next day Syd and Evelyn and ourselves loaded into our dingy (Bill and Bobbi go into theirs) and we headed 10 miles up the St. Lawrence to Boldt Castle. We made a couple of stops at other marinas along the way scouting out a possible stop in the next day or so. We finally arrived at Boldt Castle dock, got our tickets and personal guided recorders and proceeded through the castle. It was built by Mr. Boldt for his wife and when she died suddenly he just abandoned the castle. It was bought by a family who thought it should be finished and the public allowed to view it. Each year it is restored room by room a little more by the proceeds generated by the public visiting the castle.

Leaving the Oswego Canal

Crossing Lake Ontario

Clayton Municipal Marina, New York

One of many restaurants in Clayton

Omish carriage (he was setting up his wares)

One of the paintings on the buildings downtown

Part of downtown Clayton

We took in the antique boat show here

A beautiful sunset in Clayton

This is Boldt Castle

A closer look of the castle

Pictures of the interior

The top two floors have not been restored as yet

This is the play house

The view from the castle

This is the Boldt boat house

One of the Boldt boats

BREWERTON TO OSWEGO CANAL

June 23- We are late leaving today as the guys working on Mist's converter showed up this morning and seem to have it finally working. We left Winter Harbor at 11:00 am with five locks to get through today. We are going to stay at the free dock between Locks 7 & 8 at Oswego. Lock 8 is the last lock before we are through the canal and out into Lake Ontario. We were lucky the dock was empty when we got there. Bill wanted to treat us to dinner this evening so when he went for his jog he scoped out the town and knew where to take us. We dined at a place on the canal which had a view of Lake Ontario. We had a wonderful dinner, walked back to our boats and called it a night.

Caught up to another looper on the canal

This is where we turn up the Oswego canal

A little trading post along the canal

A place called Fulton we passed through 

Free dock between Locks 7 & 8

Having a wonderful dinner with friends

WINTER HARBOR

June 22- We are staying one more day as Mist is having some work done on their converter here. The guy came late to check our the converter so the problem was not resolved today. Bill is a little frustrated and says he will just leave it for now. We all spent the day cleaning up our boats and doing laundry. This marina has two very large heated buildings where people leave their boats for the season. They also do repairs and painting of boats here, so I was very surprised at how clean and tidy the yard was kept. 

SYLVAN BEACH TO BREWERTON

June 21- We left Sylvan Beach at 11:00 am as we are only going 30 miles across Oneida Lake to a marina called Winter Harbor in Brewerton, New York. The wind was really howling as we made the crossing on Lake Oneida which made for a bumpy ride for a couple of hours. We arrived at the marina at 1:00 pm and went right to the fuel dock so that we could top up our fuel as the diesel was at $2.21/gal. We got onto our dock and then took the courtesy car to Walmart to get some supplies.

Heading into channel to Brewerton

On the dock at Brewerton (Winter Harbor)

This is the marina owner's home

SYLVAN BEACH

June 20- We are here for a another day so we got out our bikes to go and explore the area. When we got back it was very warm but we had some breeze. We got in the dingys and went out into Oneida Lake went around to the beach to have a swim. We were not allowed to beach the dingys so we anchored them, walked into the beach for awhile. When we got back to the boats we decided to have a barbeque under that great tree. That night we had a heck of thunderstorm which kept me up until it passed by us.

There was a marina cross from the free dock

Koby and Tanner having some play time

LITTLE FALLS TO SYLVAN BEACH

June 19- We left Little Falls at 8:30 am with five locks ahead of us. We are not sure where we might stop today, but we are early so we think we might continue onto Sylvan Beach which is just before Lake Oneida. We arrived there at 2:00 pm and came into a free dock and tied to rings not cleats . It was Friday so it was quite busy with boat traffic in this area. It was quite warm so we pulled out our chairs and sat under a large tree next to our boat. When it cooled down somewhat we went looking for somewhere to eat. On our way back we found an ice cream parlor with the best ice cream I have ever had.

Traveling along the Erie Canal

So calm you get a mirror image

The free dock at Sylvan Beach

Taking time to relax under a tree

AMSTERDAM TO LITTLE FALLS

June 17-18-We left Amsterdam at 8:30 am and just as we were leaving, along came the sailboat again. We locked through 2 locks with him and then he decided he would stay back and not lock through with us again. So it is just four of us locking through now. We have 7 locks today and then we are calling it quits for today at a place called Little Falls. This is a quiet relaxing place and we like so much we are staying for another day. The Looper ``Not so Big`` left us this morning at 7:30 am and will be greatly missed. We got our bikes out this morning and went up to the Farmers Market such as it was. We purchased a few things there and then headed over to the grocery store to pick up a few things. We heard about the bakery so of course we had to stop in there. We headed back to the boats and it was quite hot so we sat under the trees for some time. We had a few chores to do before leaving tomorrow so we dispersed and got those out of the way.

Heading over the bridge to downtown

Some older building along the river

Looking up the main street

Some very old buildings on the river

An old hydro building

A ladies group are knitting covers for things downtown

Saw wedding carriage heading downtown

WATERFORD TO AMSTERDAM

June 16- We left Waterford at 8:30 am along with a couple of other Looper boats, Gemini and Not so Big. There was a sailboat from Owen Sound called Clarity that locked through with us as well, but we had to keep waiting for him to catch up. We locked through 10 locks and decided to call it a day and pulled into a place called Amsterdam, but Gemini decided to continue on and the sailboat stayed at the outside of the lock for the night. It was a nice place but the restaurant food was bad and we had trains every 15 minutes running through. Koby loved that we just had to step out of the boat and there was grass. We got out our chairs and sat under a tree in the shade and had docktails.

The first of ten locks today

This is called a Guard Gate

A rocky shoreline in this area

Many bridges as well as locks

A tour boat we passed