New York

Sprint Home to MA

Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginai

After 20.5 months (620 days to be exact!) on the boat, it was time to go home!

Clayton, NY

New York, St. Lawrence River, The Great Loop

Clayton, NY and The Thousands Islands

Today, our first lock E23 on the Erie Canal and that concludes are travels on that canal. We turned north to start our journey through the the Oswego Canal. After 5.5 hour and 6 locks we arrived in Oswego, NY to stage for our first encounter with a Great Lake. Tomorrow the weather is predicted to be smooth, so we will cross Lake Ontario.

Brewerton, NY

New York, Oswego Canal, The Great Loop

Our 20 Nautical Mile journey today took us across Lake Oneida. It was a beautiful day with great cruising conditions. We docked at Winter Bay Marina and got a pump out and filled up with diesel – cha-ching! The marina has a nice facility and very cruiser friendly but is not near anything and not bike friendly. However, they provided two curtesy cars so, we did a bunch of provisioning and our first trip to a Wegmans!

Ilion, NY

Erie Canal, New York, The Great Loop

After three days of travel and 17 locks, we were ready for some downtime and rest. We docked at Ilion Marina and RV park because they had room for all three boats. It ended up being a great spot: no wakes, beautiful scenery, nice area on the land, directly on the Erie Canal Bike Path. With all the positives were able to forget about the fry vent and trains.

Erie Canal, NY

Erie Canal, New York, The Great Loop

Three Sons made it to the Erie Canal! We stocked up with extra fenders, lines, gloves and patience and are ready to take on part of the 363 mile journey. This historical canal in upstate New York, runs east – west traversing New York state from Albany to Buffalo. The canal was completed in 1825, to help reduce the cost of transporting goods and people. Now, it is used mostly for recreation and tourism and raises boats 566 feet from the Hudson River to Lake Erie through 35 locks. Since we can not fit under a low bridge on the western part of the canal, our plan is only cruise three fourths of the Erie Canal turning left once we hit the Oswego Canal.

Waterford, NY

Erie Canal, New York, The Great Loop

Since lots of Loopers were headed up the Hudson from Shady Harbor, we decide to hang back one day. We enjoyed a relaxing day with a few chores and ended with dinner on Sweet Equity with Kim and Andy. Our departure from the docks with scheduled “wheels up” at 8AM.

New Baltimore, NY

Hudson River, New York, The Great Loop

Boaters’ Appreciation Weekend at Shady Harbor in New Baltimore, NY

Kingston, NY

Hudson River, New York, The Great Loop

We took a quick jaunt up the Hudson River to Rondout Creek to visit the quaint waterfront town of Kingston, NY.

Hyde Park, NY

Hudson River, New York, The Great Loop

Reading and researching about the area, we decided to spend 4 days at Hyde Park and take advantage of the many attractions. We are not sure if it was the beautiful mid 80 weather with cool evenings, the places to walk and explore, the museum and breweries, the very bike friendly streets and lanes, the quiet, wonderful, simple marina with very few people, or the fact we were close enough to MA for Zach to visit, but we just loved this spot.

New York City

Hudson River, New York, The Great Loop

We squeezed in a little more time at Atlantic Highlands with Chris and Paul as we only had a short ride into New York City. Another great weather day for cruising. We had a strong following current for the whole trip and although this is one of the busiest harbors we go thru, the commercial traffic wasn’t too bad and it was a pleasurable ride past Lady Liberty and lower Manhattan.