September 14, 2021
We ended up staying three nights in Little Falls. It’s another dying mill town. More than 50% of the stores on Main Street are closed. Over Labor Day weekend there were less than half the restaurants open. The big draws- antique malls, breweries- were all closed. So sad for this small town (pop. 1,524). We decided that our next stop would be Herkimer, NY. Not a much bigger place and not really a good place to stop but they had a Walmart within walking distance of the gift shop/restaurant where we could tie up.
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| Carolina and Post Script at Little Falls |
The Tuesday after Labor Day, Post Script and Carolina dropped their dock lines and headed west. Post Script was going to make a long day and go all the way to Brewerton where they too would be storing their boat. We said our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch. We parted ways at the wall in Herkimer. Bob and I tied up, hopped off the boat and headed into the gift shop. The lovely ladies there gave us directions to the Walmart and a great book on the locks. We walked the 1/2 mile to the store and lo and behold they had bicycles!!! We looked over our choices carefully and finally settled on a nice little black and green number.
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| Herkimer Walmart’s bicycle selection |
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| Bob’ s new bike |
We stopped in at Applebee’s for linner. Remind us not to do that again. Then we headed back to the boat. When we arrived with new bike in tow we decided we needed to move on to a more inviting dock. We untied and continued on to Illion, NY and their $1/night RV Park/Marina. We were met by Mike who helped us tie up and gave us the lay of the land. The Empire State Trail and Canalway cut right through the camp ground. We decided we would have to ride the bikes since we were right there. Our first ride was to Frankfort just to check out the new bike. It was a great ride up and then back. We managed to stop at the Aldi just up the street and pick up a few things. I’m gonna make a big list for tomorrow.
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Canalway in Herkimer
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We rode the canal way again the following day and did a fairly large shop at Aldis all before the rain started around 1pm. We rode back to the lock in Herkimer that we had come through the day before .We enjoyed Illion but it was time to move on.
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| The wall in Illion |
We also disposed of Bob’s old bike while there in Ilion. I posted pictures on Facebook and got a lot of push back about how someone could use that bike, and how could we throw out a perfectly good bike. If it was a good bike, we would have kept it. The derailleur, the part that enables gear changing, had wedged into the spokes and was broken in half. The spokes were compromised and the tubes had been repaired numerous times. The bike had been on a salt water boat for 3 years and was almost rusted through in a few spots. We salvaged what we could and trashed the rest.
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| Goodbye old bike! |
Our next stop would be the Aqua Vino Restaurant in Utica. The owner of the restaurant bought the Historic Utica Wall. He could care less about the wall for boats….power doesn’t work, docks in disrepair…but he seems to like the way boats look outside his very expensive restaurant. We made reservations and ate in the establishment but did not find it that excellent.
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Carolina in Slyvan Beach
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The next morning we were up early and on our way to Sylvan Beach on the east end of Oneida Lake . There was a very nice wall in town to tie up to but no amenities. No electricity, no water, no bathrooms. There were restaurants open and nearby. The town is a summer resort town but summer is over and the amusement park was closed.
There was a jet ski competition happening that brought in a number of people to watch and spend money. This town is not dead yet. Hanging on by a thread. The boat traffic past us on Saturday was phenomenal. We saw at least a hundred boats exit the canal into the lake and back in again later that evening. We attended the jet ski competition for a bit and walked the length of this small shoreline town. We were ready to move on Sunday to Brewerton. This is our final destination but we will continue on to visit family. We are stopping to talk to Noreen about maintenance we want completed over the winter and some upgrades we’d like estimates to complete .
Sylvan Beach was an interesting stop. We enjoyed our time there but we need to move on. One last beautiful sunset.
We left on Sunday, Sept. 11th for Brewerton. We had weather coming in so we left before 8am to cross Oneida Lake. We’d heard it could get pretty bumped up in a good breeze so we were taking no chances. We timed it well. The wind came up just as we reentered the canal. Leslie and Hannah we waiting on the dock for us and helped us tie up at Winter Harbor. Leslie gave us a comprehensive tour of their facility. Bob and I were very impressed. We feel real good about leaving Carolina here for the winter. We can ever come visit her if we want to!
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| Post Script at the docks at Winter Harbor |
We are planning on leaving here tomorrow, Sept. 14th, and continue up the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario. We’ll probably stop in Phoenix to check it out then on to Oswego to wait for a weather window to head west to Rochester.
As we were saying our goodbyes and getting our last bit of advice from Mike on Irish Rogue, a lovely women dressed for the yacht club and not the boat yard walked up. She needed to borrow a phone to call her husband. He was nursing a sick Sabre called So Lucky in for service. We got to talking and walked down to help their lines. They were from Rochester and offered to get us a slip at the yacht club but we declined. Such nice people. We hope their Sabre is not hurt too badly. Captain Don is 87 years old and loves that boat.
We left Winter Harbor on Tuesday, Sept. 14 and traveled up through lock 23 then turned right into the Oswego River. We planned on going as far as Phoenix.we arrived around 12:30 and found the wall almost empty. There were two other boats, . We wedged ourselves in between the two and tied up. We were immediately accosted by Rose who wanted to see what our boat looked like inside. Bob can’t say no, so Rose and her husband, Marvin, boarded Carolina for a tour. They’re trying to decide what kind of boat they’d like to purchase for future cruising. No sooner had they left than Mick, the Scot from the boat to our aft, came over to welcome us to the neighborhood. Turns out we’ve been shadowing each other. We were in Sylvan Beach and Winter Harbor together but had never met.
Mick is an extremely well traveled single-hander. He has been to all the places we want to go. Bob picked his brains for two hours on the sun deck learning everything he could and then some. Mick is a wealth of boating knowledge. Every new friend we make adds a little more to our cruising knowledge. We are so lucky to have this opportunity. I hope we can continue for many years to come.
Mick introduced us to NEBO, an app for logging your boat travels. I’ve downloaded it but now I have to learn how to use it. Wish me luck!! We plan on staying here another day-rain in the forecast tomorrow. I’ll work on it then. NEBO may work better than our inReach if I can figure it all out.
Well , that’s it for now. I will write again after our stop in Rochester to rendezvous with my sister and niece. Kat is flying in from Singapore for the first time in over two years. Her mother is very anxious to see her and her husband, Ting. We spent time with them in Singapore and want to take this opportunity to see them also. I don’t think we’ll be going back to Asia for a while. Take care and stay healthy. If you have time, come visit. Till we meet again…..
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