June 18, 2019 – As the last boat to dock for the night, we had been squeezed onto the fuel dock. Just before closing time, the dock attendant came down to say that several other boats wanted to come get fueled up first thing (at 6 AM!) in the morning, so ‘could we be prepared to shove off by then?’
Well, sure we could. (Grrrr. )
So, with nobody making so much as a move toward the fuel dock by 6:15, we left anyway, for the 3 miles to the first lock, where we’d have to wait until 7 AM to lock through.
Surprise! After we idled in and tied to the wall before the lock, the lockmaster told us that if were ready, he’d go ahead and lock us through early (at 6:30!). Sweet justice.
After just one more lock on the Erie Canal, we came to Three Rivers, which represents a choice – go left to the Western Erie Canal to Buffalo, or go right, to the Oswego Canal, to Oswego and Lake Ontario.
We take the right.
There are seven locks to pass through on the way to Lake Ontario, all going down. A couple had bridges going across the locks at the far end. One lock lowered us enough that we could clear the bridge entirely. Another one required a bridge to be lifted as well. As we were exchanging morning pleasantries with the lockmaster, he told us that the bridge had been a bit finicky, so he was going to lower us, raise the bridge, and only then open the lock, in case there was a problem. Great. The bridge creakily got about this high and no higher – don’t know if that was the design, but he opened the lock and we slid under on the far right side and were just fine.
When we got to Oswego, we held up between Locks 7 and 8, which are only separated by about a half mile, and tied up along the park there. We had planned this stop, as it kept us out of any weather that might blow in off Lake Ontario, and if the conditions looked bad we could just wait it out, or if they were good, we’d pass out the final lock and head directly out in the morning.
It was a popular spot, and several more boats came in after us, including Justified, who we had followed into Sylvan Beach, and Vector, who we had leapfrogged many times, but never actually met until today.
We rode our bikes (uphill both ways, ughh) to go shopping, and later walked up over the bridge to the other side of the river where Chantale got a long overdue haircut at a classy old-time men’s barbershop.
We played a neat dice game over on Justified after dinner downtown, where the crew of BIG also joined us.
Overall, a good day – tomorrow, to the Thousand Islands.