Herkimer, NY – Brewerton, NY, June 27, 2008

Today was pretty uneventful. We got underway at 7:30 with an overcast sky. It never rained and was a nice day for cruising. The sun started coming out around 2:30 this afternoon, but it was still quite nice, not very hot. Again, the scenery was very pretty. One picture shows a bridge just before the lock. There were a lot of private docks, many of them having table and chairs, ready for entertaining.

Margaret called us this morning to tell us they were going to Winter Harbor Marina for the night. They had called and there was a very good boat rate as well as very reasonable diesel, with a discount for cash. It was quite a haul for us but we were going to try to make it.

We only went through 4 locks today, and were held up at all of them. One was already locking through a boat going west and had one waiting to go east. That was about a 20 minute wait. We’re not sure what was going on with the second lock, but we had to wait about 15 minutes for it to open. The 3rd lock waited for a boat that was quite a ways behind us and was going very slowly. The 4th lock took extra time because the boat mentioned at the previous lock didn’t have a permit and had to buy one.

The 3rd and 4th lock were ‘down’ locks. We went down 25 feet in each lock, so ended up today at an elevation of 369’.

We went through Oneida Lake, the largest body of water on the Erie Canal.

We made Winter Haven Marina just before 5 this afternoon. Winter Haven is located in Brewerton and is very close to Syracuse. We were in time to fuel up and pump out. We took on 163.9 gallons of diesel. We hope that will take us on all our travels in Canada because the cost of diesel is higher there.

Total locks 24.