Oneida Lake to Lake Champlain (and back…)

We have spent 29 days living aboard a 25′ O-Day Sailboat cruising from Oneida Lake to Lake Champlain and back via the Erie and Champlain Canals.  We meet tons of people, made many memories and explored many communities from a very unique prospective.

Now that we are back to being land dwellers, we have slowly been getting back into the real world mode of using a clock and having others relying on us, and us relying on others.  Everyday we see family and friends who just cannot fathom where we have been for the past month.  Everyone is just in disbelief that we spent a month on a boat, much less travel well over 500 miles on a 25′ sailboat.

We are now hooked on cruising.  I equate this to people as having all the benefits of camping in an RV while going to a new campsite every night, without the fuss of breaking down and setting up camp; also we have the option to be in complete solitude if desired.  We loved exploring all the towns and history that lines the waterways.  Even more so I think we enjoyed the people from all walks of life that we meet along the way.  We meet locals as well as other cruisers from thousands of miles away.

We left the trip knowing that we would have to buy a new boat, one that was more accommodating to living aboard and power cruising.  The sailboat was great, but it just was not an ideal boat for such a trip.  Furthermore we now want to go west to see the Western Erie Canal, Finger Lakes, Oswego Canal and Lake Ontario where a motorboat would be ideal.  Also we missed many things along the way during our trip, so we plan on repeating this trip again.

See the Rain or Shine Blog for details of our new boat and why we chose the boat we did.  We looked for over a year and finally found a boat had a balance of everything we wanted combined with a reasonable price.

If you have any comments, questions or are planning a trip please feel free to contact me and I will be as helpful as I can.  You can post your comment here on the blog, on the forum or email me at mail@nycanals.com.

Happy Boating,

Greg & Leila

Begin: Lock E20, Marcy

End: HOME!!!! (Oneida Lake)

We awoke on the boat for the last time, and we just stayed in bed relaxing.  We knew that this was it, back to the real world.  We ate and then after a brief walk around, we were on our way.  The stretch between Lock E20 and Lock E21 is about 18 miles, perfectly straight, and honestly quite boring.  After a few miles at 6 MPH it all looks the same.

We decided to bypass stopping at Rome and made it to Lock E21 in about 3 hours.  We dropped through the final two locks and were on the final stretch.  It was quite strange to be motoring in familiar waters.  Even stranger was being on the sailboat in an area that we cannot normally get to due to the route 13 bridge.

We had called my father before getting into Lock E22 and he agreed to meet us at the Sylvan Beach Wall.   We unloaded the boat at the Sylvan Beach Wall with dad’s car right there.  It was amazing how much stuff we had aboard.  I loaded the boat slowly over a few days so I did not realized the magnitude of stuff we had brought.  We got the boat completely unloaded and began getting the mast ready to be put up, but we were delayed by a strong down pour.  It was ironic that our trip ended with a downpour when we saw only about 3-4 daytime storms the entire trip.

The storm passed quickly and then we put the mast up and motored out into the lake.  The wind was from the south and we sailed home using the spinnaker only.  I checked my GPS and using the Spinnaker only we were cruising at 9.5 MPH!!!  It seemed like the boat was flying.  The boat raised out of the water by about 3″ when all the equipment was taken off.

We got home, moored the boat and rowed ashore.  The trip was over; it was very depressing.  We were tempted to just pass Sylvan Beach and keep going, perhaps to the Finger Lakes or Lake Ontario, but we did not have the time.

Begin: Lock E16, Mindenville

End: Lock E20, Marcy

This is the final full day of our trip as we planned on making it to Marcy for the night and watch another musical performance at the Lock E20 Canal Park.  We milled around a bit at Lock E16 as we really enjoy its scenic private location.  After eating and untying we were on our way to Little Falls and the largest lock of the trip.

An hour later we were locking up Lock E17.  We decided that we would stop at Benton’s Landing in Little Falls and run into town for some final rations of food.  We did not stop at the Little Falls Terminal Wall on our way through, so we also stopped and took a walk around there too.  It is a very nice facility with a water fountain, power, water, restrooms, showers, and a boat launch.  Unfortunately its a bit of a distance from town to tie up and walk to a store, but there is always Benton’s landing.

After leaving Little Falls we were on our way again, we cruised our way through the remaining locks only stopping in St Johnsville for fuel.  Locking through Lock E20 meant that our trip was nearly over.  We tied up to the north west side of the lock, against the concrete wall rather than the dock for easier boarding and to leave room for children fishing on the dock.

Once secured we took a walk to stretch our legs while the band was setting up.  Upon return we tidied up and started the grill.  This was the perfect ending for a great trip.  We were making burgers that we bought in Little Falls earlier in the day while listening to some good music.  We just relaxed for the evening sitting near the boat enjoying the music, and when the bugs came out went into the boat and played cards with the band in the background.

A movie and it was time for bed, we both were getting quite depressed, we did not want to get back to the real world.

Begin: Lock E12, Tribes Hill

End: Lock E16, Mindenville

We awoke on day 27 and Hollyken had already left.  We have our routine in order by now and we had a quick breakfast and were on our way.

We were on auto-pilot today, just cruising along.  Nothing all hat interesting happend.  We ended up stopping at Lock E16 again.  We made it early in the afternoon, and thus we used the picnic table to play cards for the afternoon; went for a walk along the canalway trail and all in all just relaxed.  We are begining to realize we will be home soon.