September 14 Sylvan Beach to Marcy

We woke early and as I snapped my first photo, I noticed something in the water by a boat further up the canal wall but coming towards Persuasion.  Mike walked up, saw that it was a log and with the boat hook, pushed it out as it came close to our boat. Eek! The canal here is very wide and there seem to be lots of seasonal homes across from us.

We shoved off the wall at 08:00, leaving Sylvan Beach behind.  We got a different view of Snug Harbour marina this morning as we motored by.  Earlier today, before it was even light, there was lots of Carolina skiffs and pontoon boats heading out onto the lake to fish.  And in the evenings there are usually lots of folks and their kids coming down to the canal to fish.

After we motored for a little while, we saw a barge ahead and the Captain radioed.  Meanwhile, since we were expecting company, I had my foam curlers in….lol.  Awe, the cruising life!  You have to compromise when you can’t use your electric hot rollers.  Thanks Cheryl Lee for passing on this info.  They work great!

 

The barge operator instructed us to keep very close to starboard and come along beside him.  As you can see by our lifelines, we followed his instructions.

 

Our first Lock today was 22.  The lift was 24.1 feet

 

The lockmaster was very chatty and nice.  Waved as we left and bid us a safe trip.

On to Lock 21, a higher lift of 24 feet.  And a purple martin house to help keep mosquitoes away.

 

There are a lot of guard gates along the way today.  These help isolate sections of the canal in case of emergency, such as a break in the canal wall, accident or extremely high water.  They are also used when a section of the canal needs to be drained for maintenance or protection from the winter freezes.   The second guard gate is by Rome and that had quite a nice area to stop and tie up.

 

There seemed to be some logs and debris in the water that we had to be careful of.  And some had been pulled over to the side too.  We also came upon another barge that was dredging.  On the other side of the canal a guy was busy barbequing lunch.  I asked him if lunch was ready and he said yes soon, and he gave us a thumb up.

 

Further along, we saw another barge that had extra pipes and supplies and it was tied up.  Actually looked like it had been there for quite some time.

 

Just as we were getting close to our dock before Lock 20, we could see water spraying into the canal.  As we got closer, they did stop spraying and we could see it was the fire department.

We pulled onto our dock at 11:50 and just as we were tying off, Ken and Frances arrived.  Here they are standing pretty by Persuasion.

She had made sandwiches for lunch for us and brought strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.  Yum!  They also brought us some boat parts and our boat cards that hadn’t arrived before we left.  It was good to see them and after we had lunch, they took us to the Wal-Mart in Utica where we got some fresh produce and groceries.  Nice to have a car!  We came back to the boat and thought they were staying on Persuasion but Ken felt he was imposing.  Nonsense!  They wanted to find a hotel and then take us out for supper.  They found a hotel and Frances went in to book it.  The lady at the hotel recommended a few places and picked an Italian one.  It was the Bella Regina.

A lady who was outside the restaurant took a photo of the 4 of us…or she thought she did.  No photo.  Lol, so this is the one I snapped after.  I should have taken some of the inside.  It was out of the 70’s, a statue of Elvis singing, songs by him and Frank Sinatra were playing and so much memorabilia everywhere!  The hostess asked if we had reservations, which we didn’t, but they gave us a booth.  It is a good thing we were there early because when we left, there was not an empty table and folks were waiting.  The food was delicious and very large portions. (I forgot to take photos of the food)  My bad!  We were stuffed.  Thank you so much Ken and Frances!  Here are a few photos of buildings that were around our restaurant.

We drove around a bit and then they brought us back to Persuasion.  What a fun day!

Today we travelled 21.36 nm.