We’re just out on Ontario with the New York coast to the right.

We’ve got internet in Canada now so I’ll dump these posts into the blog.

Our Sunday trip from Oswego across the east end of Lake Ontario was smoother than expected with the waves 1 foot or less. It got a little rougher when we entered the St Lawrence river. We had a 15 mph wind against the river current that kicked up sharp whitecaps and a bit of spray. The wind was against our travel as well. We spotted only one other boat out just before leaving Lake Ontario, and 2 or 3 others along the river. The small boats stayed home.

The Last Chance protects this area of the Thousand Islands

We reached the Clayton city dock before 2 PM and were greeted by improved weather and “Dock reserved all weekend for special event” signs. We came in anyway and found the event was just ending. A few hours later it was just us and one other boat. We had plenty of time to walk much of 2 streets holding the older commercial part of town.

We ate twice here. Not great but better than average.

Clayton started in the 1800’s as a resort area and has grown very little since then. It was the jump off point for many of the Thousand Islands. Visitors transferred here from railroad to boat to get to their island destination. Some of the old buildings remain on Riverside Dr. which is their main street, but too much has been rebuilt for it to really have that old town feel we have been getting in other upstate places.

The Antique Boat museum is the big attraction here. The 3 hours we allocated for it were not enough. Sue went just to keep me company and ended up enjoying it as much as I did. She liked the historical information, such as how different types of boats made the Thousand Island community possible when it was an ordinary thing to row a boat 20 miles in a day.

A “National Boat Show” with boats & engines from the 20’s to the 40’s

Rowing and sailing small boats on the undammed St Lawrence must have been interesting. We hit currents usually exceeding 1 mph and sometimes as much as 3 mph on today’s trip on the tamed river. We thought we accomplished something using 500 hp of diesel engine to go 20 miles downstream to get to Clayton yesterday!

Racing boats from the last century

Today, our 2nd day, was solid rain in the morning that stopped in the afternoon. Tomorrow we’ll see how far we can get. There are 3 locks in the US part of the river and 3 more in the Canadian part before we get to Montreal. These are the big commercial locks giving priority to the big boats, which can make for significant delays.

It’s Saturday, and we passed fishing boats all the way. This is the first, 200′ from where we were docked.

We left just before 7 this morning for Oswego, hitting our last Erie Canal lock, 23, and then 7 locks on the Oswego Canal before Lake Ontario. All locking was down, 126 feet overall to the 243 foot elevation of Lake Ontario.

The Erie Canal is like a very long park.

We had a following current of about 1½ mph most all of the way, so I could throttle back and just glide along at 10 mph with little or no wake. This was a good thing, because all the little Saturday fishing boats were out. I still had to slow a bit for them, but It was nice to glide by at a faster speed. The weather was bright but overcast and called for a light jacket in the morning, but very comfortable after the last few hot days.

We floated behind the main pack with the stragglers.

The other boats out in force were kayaks. I found out at (Oswego) lock 4 that today was Paddlefest, where a great many kayakers set out from various places above lock 5 and paddled with the current to Oswego. We got to lock 5 just as the gates had closed on several hundred kayakers. We locked through afterward and came out to kayaks everywhere, being herded by a number sheriff’s boats and jet skis. I eased up to a sheriffs’ boat and learned that the locks 6 through 8 would each take all the kayaks together as a group through before any other boats could pass. With time on our hands we turned off the engines and found that with the current helping we still went almost as fast as the stragglers. It was the first time we had just floated down a river, and was quite pleasant.

Here they’re packing into the last lock, O8.

Looking over the lock 8 gate. The last of the herders leave the lock. Ontario is beyond the distant breakwater 

We finally did get through the last lock, number 8, and tied up at Oswego Marina at the end of the canal. Just a few hundred feet out to Lake Ontario. The weather is getting a bit worse in the next few days, but the forecast for tomorrow (Sunday) looks doable, especially since we’ll be off the lake and into the St Lawrence by noon.

Evening across the river from our boat at Winter Harbor Marina

We leave tomorrow up the Oswego Canal to Oswego on the Ontario south shore. Weather and waves appear OK so far on the open lake so we plan to head east to the St Lawrence the next day.

Lots of great building models. We like old buildings, big and small.

Buildings and models from WWII time.

A number of things were fixed at Winter Harbor Marina while we were gone. Not many places get things done as well as they do. We also got our other business taken care of as well as one side trip to the Medina Railroad Museum.

We judged the museum well worth the 2 ½ hour trip to Medina. We went into overload with all there was to see, so we’ll have to visit again to pick up what we missed.

An operating hump yard, hump is at the far end.

I thought I knew most of what A C Gilbert created, but I never knew anything about this building set, assembled above with tender and 7 additional car kits following.

We had lunch at the town’s only Mexican restaurant before seeing the museum but suggest trying some other nationality if you ever visit there.

We leave tomorrow morning, finally on the move after 3 weeks.

Harini’s sister and mother with Sue, the boys brother Derrick and cousin Nistial.

Things were a mess in India. The people we trusted there bribed some government officials to create a legal situation where it was more difficult for us to monitor them. Pretty devious and had us fooled for almost a year.

Our room was through the detector and on to the left. A government official was using this room.

Once Sue appeared in the slums again things changed pretty quickly. The rule still held: no one stands up to Sue Ma’am in the Indian slums. She, with help from our Indian family and attorney, came within a day of putting a few people into prison, but at a cost of interrupting the school year for over 600 kids. It got a bit ugly but we instead pushed through a quick settlement and are getting the school back on track with as little interruption as possible. Not at all just, but the kids needed schooling more.

Sue’s first meeting with her teachers in a few years. Harini at the right.

We arrived back in NYC the morning of Wednesday July 12. The kids had a flight back home on Friday morning, so we dropped our bags at our Brooklyn hotel and took an Uber into Times Square. We returned the next day to breakfast at Juniors, the top of Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station and the afternoon at the Met.

Bethesda Fountain at the north end of the Mall in Central Park.

View of the Lake on our way to the west edge of the park.

After the kids left Sue and I moved to a hotel in midtown Manhattan for two more nights. We spent Saturday morning in Central Park and did some shopping in to areas of the city. Sue doesn’t buy much anymore, but still likes to shop a bit, and claims nothing beats the prices and selection in the big city. We also ate at some great restaurants. We both agree on one thing: the deep dish “Numero Uno” pizza at Uno’s restaurant is the best. We’ve had it in the Baltimore Inner Harbor and across the street from the NYC Museum of Natural History and nothing else comes close.

The Lordville Presbyterian Church. We got there on Sunday, but too late for the service.

We rented a car for all four of us to get from Brewerton NY to Kennedy airport for our India trip. The 4 ½ hour road trip took 5 hours when the scenic route along the Delaware River was taken. I had to force the Google Maps route through Hancock, Callicoon, Barryville and Port Jervis to get it to stay along the river.

Callicoon from the Delaware River. Our hotel is top near the left.

Built in 1852, our hotel had a good restaurant and on the 2nd floor a large ballroom 

We split the trip in the middle by staying at the Western Hotel in Callicoon. We stopped a bit in each of the above named towns and crossed over to Pennsylvania a few times as well.

The Delaware River from the Narrowsburg Bridge

There were no major attractions along the way. The scenery is said to be the best in New York, but like the Blue Ridge Mountains a few years ago, not spectacular like the river gorges and valleys we see in the western states. We’re not complaining. We’re glad we’ve seen much of the more spectacular West, and are now really enjoying the deeper history of the East.

Just before Barryville, the Roebling Bridge, originally a 6′ deep canal taking barges over the Delaware River. Oldest wire cable suspension bridge in the US. Roebling is better known for the Brooklyn Bridge.

This overlook was a mile north of Sparrow Bush NY. Pennsylvania on the other side.

We did make it to our hotel in Queens and made it through a few issues such as, “will this e-visa for Aaron really work?” – they did question it and were going to send us to another part of the airport, but then a senior airline official decided no one was going to send him back from India with his Indian mother waiting for him there, so just let it go. Harini told me she can get PIO books, essentially Indian passports, even for Sue and me as well as for Aaron, so hopefully no more visa issues for us.

Sue relaxes. Our new crew will take care of everything.

After a lock Ethan rests up front too.

We spent a bit of time Monday morning catching up on the batch of mail we received a few stops back. I was able to pay the bills by mail and clear up some other business and we took off around 10 for Little Falls. We left the dock and went right into E14. Little Falls came a mile after E17.

Last lock of the day, E17, is a 40.5 foot lift. We have to float over all that concrete in front of us.

There were several boats, but fortunately the position at the far end along the wall was free. Active Captain said our type of power was there and so it was. We tied up about 2 PM and Sue and I walked the half mile into town around 3:30. Monday is the new Sunday for many stores and restaurants up here, so most places were closed, but it was our type of town so we knew we had to get back the next day. No Uber up here but we found a cab driver with a 5 minute response and so bought a number of items at the Price Chopper market and rode back to the boat.

We’re walking across the bridge, looking back on the south side of Little Falls.

The north side of Little Falls. The two foreground buildings are old stone factories, now shops.

Looking east down the Mohawk River. The canal splits off in this area and is to the right.

The next day the cab driver dropped us in a residential area with really nice homes. We walked downhill through that back to downtown and poked around a few hours. Later Ethan and I got haircuts and we ate half of a large excellent pizza at Ruggiero’s.

Main street. That cover in front of the stores extends for blocks both ways.

City hall. Fire dept. underneath to right. 13,000 people in 1920, now under 5000.

We finished up at the town historical society, after which I called the cab driver who had just seen us come out of the building. He answered his phone and pulled up in front of us simultaneously. That’s service! He knew we liked to look at houses and so toured us around a little before taking us back to the boat. Like Waterford and Canajoharie it would have been great to spend another day or two here.

Someone just purchased this tall house and is working on it.

This recently restored house is a B & B and wedding place.

It turns out we can’t spend those extra days due to a boater’s worst enemy, a schedule. Three days ago we learned that Sue’s presence is required in India, so all four of us plan to get on a plane June 27 assuming Ethan and Aaron’s India visas get straightened out. We’ll leave the boat at Winter Harbor at the west end of Lake Oneida where we plan to store it this winter. We should be back under way around July 13.

The volunteer fire department monitored the rubber duck race. No buckets aboard. Just for transportation?

Looking from the bridge. Star Gazer in the center. Old Beech Nut factory above. A lot of boats Saturday afternoon.

Saturday morning lock 14 was closed from 9 to noon for the rubber duck race. The city of Palatine Bridge, across the canal from Canajoharie, puts this on every year and this was their 150^th anniversary. Five dollars per duck to raise money for something. We attended, but they need to spice that up somehow or we won’t be back for it next year. Across the bridge they had a big barbeque and old car show in the Big Lots parking lot.

Church Street. Nearly all buildings occupied, but times are tough.

As close to a town square as we could see.

We enjoyed the town on our side. This is the kind of thing we came to see. Beech Nut built this town and their abandoned factory still dominates down by where we’re docked. They used to sell candy, gum, soup, nuts and all sorts of other foods when we were kids. Now they only have baby food and that’s moved off to another town. Locals in the shops talked about how much they liked living here and lamented the loss of so many jobs. This is part of the country that voted for Trump, hoping he can bring some of the jobs back.

Beech Nut started the Arkell art museum. Not world class, but definitely worth a look.

Sue walks in the room: “That looks like a Norman Rockwell.” The original (without ad copy) was hanging beside it.

We went to church at the Lutheran church Sunday morning. We thought about the large old Methodist church we saw, but weren’t sure it was in operation. Not too many at the Lutheran church either. The stained glass windows there were really nice.

Sue again: “That one’s different. Doesn’t it look like those Tiffanys we saw in the Met?” We found out it was a Tiffany.

Canajoharie is Indian for “boiling pot”. We’d heard about that and asked the the staff in Gino’s restaurant, where we ate Saturday evening. Three of them were local, had seen it as kids but could not remember how to get there. The cook in the back knew. Later Sunday the kids and I hiked to the other end of town, which fortunately in Canajoharie is not very far. It was more than expected. We saw the famous pot and small waterfalls and water running over rock both above and below it. Sue should have come on this one. It reminded me of Happy Isles at Yosemite before the big rock slide.

The Boiling Pot is the only pool deep enough for swimming here. Not much of a crowd for a warm Sunday afternoon.

Falls and rushing water both above and below the pot. Really nice. Why more people are not here I don’t know.

Stopped raining for a few minutes here.

The next day, Friday, was forecast rain, and it did. We travelled about 40 miles through locks E8 to just short of E14. All these were spaced apart along the way. Sue decided that being crew in the rain was not her thing so the boys gave their new raincoats a workout. It probably doesn’t quite rise to child abuse, and each liked that fact that with those vertical poles one of them could hold lines, letting them out as needed, and control a 25 ton boat while currents in the lock were trying to shove it around.

Some locks had only the ropes. Here the kids could take front and back and hold on as well as possible freeing me to give a little thrust or engine those few times it helped.

Just as we came out of a lock.

The rain stopped for the last 15 miles, Sue took over the helm and we enjoyed the scenery. We really like the trees here, nearly all hardwood rather than the pines we see in the west. I suppose the rain makes it that way.

We reached River Front Park in Canajoharie around 5, found the city dock completely occupied and took the first position on the concrete wall at the side of the park along Canajoharie Creek. No electric was available there but the weather was cool enough that air con was not needed, so our batteries would take us until the next day.

Homes in a very small town along the canal.

Saturday morning I ran the genset to charge the batteries. It failed after about ten minutes. I already had that problem at Waterford, called the service people who decided it could be a bad oil pressure sensor but might go away. Looks like another repair.

It’s not good for the batteries to discharge too much, but a boat had left from the dock so we moved over there and hooked up. This is the only place we’ve been so far with both free dockage (Waterford had that) and free power as well.

Just coming out of E2 with the E3 gate just over the docked workboat.

We left Waterford right into lock E2. Both front and rear thrusters worked fine as we pushed away from the dock and flipped 180 to point to the lock. Once in position along the lock I pushed the rear toward the lock wall and nothing happened. The rear thruster failed which put me back to opposing the engines to move the rear of the boat.

Out of E3 with E4 just showing around the corner.

This was the first time with our new crew of Ethan and Aaron. That, along with me trying to figure out the thruster, not having been in these type of locks for 2 years and trying to work with those stupid ropes that hang down from on high made things extra exciting for a little while. We hit our stride quickly, however. The rear thruster is needed most in when I really want a powerful shove. Other means turned out to work OK in the lock, but that needs fixed.

Guard gate between the 5 gates and E7.

Five locks, E2 – E6, are each just a few hundred feet apart. They came in rapid succession as we lifted out of the Hudson River valley. They operate together, so as we left one lock, the lower gates of the next were open and ready for us. After lock 6 we had an hour to enjoy the scenery, which on the Erie is world class, before hitting lock 7, our last of the day.

E7 was a 27 foot lift with several busloads of school children packing the railing up on the other side. The “lock full” of boats, about 6, that started out from Waterford were still together after the 10 miles between E6 and E7 so all went in together again. I was 2^nd from the front and had get close to the front boat to leave room for the boat behind.

Reception at lock E7.

As we rose the kids got quite a show as the large boat in front broke loose, swung out and hit both sides of the lock at the same time. I think they just had those ropes down from the top to hang onto, so it’s hard to blame the boat’s crew. When coming down from that high those ropes just pull the boat upward, not into the lock wall. Back in our position there was a strong vertical rail that our midship line could slide up as it held us into the wall.

The boys are learning. Using the right method, in lock E7 Aaron held our boat to the wall entirely by himself.

Another 20 minutes from E7 we stopped at Schenectady Yacht Club. It’s a small marina and the only place we fit was at the far end of the fuel dock. There are no marinas close to downtown. We all walked a half mile was Stewarts, a chain of small stores selling their own brand of foods, especially ice cream.

Looking out Rondout Creek to the Hudson as we leave at 5 AM.

Kids sacked out left and right. Sue likes looking at homes on the bank.

We left Rondout Creek and went the last 60 miles up the Hudson to Waterford at the start of the Erie Canal. We went by Albany on the left, then Troy on the right just before getting here and also passed through the Troy lock, a more standard sized (larger) lock than those on the Erie canal.

Each Hudson lighthouse has a restoration group. The Coast Guard has deeded them to these different groups.

Another lighthouse just before Albany. Most have restored & furnished interiors. You can visit.

We’re at the free Waterford town dock as before, just a few hundred feet west off the Hudson with a few hundred feet more to the first lock, E2, of the canal. The Mohawk River, which has been dammed to make the canal, gets wide here so there is plenty of room for the town docks, the lock entrance and a lot of open water.

Small town tucked back in a bay on west bank of Hudson.

Most unseaworthy boat we’ve seen lately. Just floating down the Hudson midway between Kingston & Albany.

We are off the Hudson now for awhile. We did pass places we’d like to see more of and have taken a few notes on stops to make next time. People can spend their entire boating season cruising the Hudson. There is a lot of history in many of these towns.

Waterford is old but some houses unfortunately now have aluminum or vinyl siding. This is actually in great shape, needs just a bit of work, at least outside.

Across the Hudson to the supermarket. They let you take the cart & drop at docks. Monuments to Waterford’s war dead above sign.

Waterford has some more “recent” history. Edison had shops here. Much of the development for television took place here including the first TV broadcasting station. If you are a model (or real) railroader you have heard of Alco diesel engines. They were manufactured here.

Waterford town docks from the bridge just before the lock. Star Gazer in this but a ways back facing other way.

Mohawk River meanders to the left. Canal to the right. Gate E2 just left of line of boats & past 2nd bridge.