Day 6: Fonda to Brewerton, NY

Underway at 6.30 am.

Docked at 6.30pm, in Brewerton, western side of the Oneida Lake. We went a little bit farer than we expected, so pretty much in advance on our schedule, which will probably let us more time to reach Rochester, NY tomorrow.

The Greatest Loop started the day at 6am as we launched from a remote spot between lock 12 and 13 where we had lashed the boat for the night to a municipal wall. We headed up the canal and only needed to wait a few minutes for the 7am opening at lock 13. Our breakfast of yogurt and french press coffee sent us on our way into the rainy morning, well rested and looking forward to making good progress. 

We did manage to travel about 100 miles working our way up the canal through 10 more locks towards Oneida Lake. We arrived at lock 21 and then 22 for our first descending legs of the trip, working our way down towards the Lake. The day provided a beautiful meandering journey through the New York country side and we had plenty of time to enjoy it as the posted speed limit on the canal was 10 miles per hour. We learned some good lessons about traversing the lock system. Big fenders are a must. We found that the lock staff were very friendly and helpful with any questions. Life on the canal has a slow pass and I think we learned very quickly to embrace the tempo of the journey. 

Once at the lake we made the 30 mile blast across on very smooth water to our evening stop at the Ess-kay Yards, a wonderful little marina with very friendly people. We added 112 gallons of diesel, did a pump-out and added fresh water. The folks from the Yard met us as we arrived and were very enthusiastic about our adventure. Great people and they lent us a car so we could head out for a steak and well deserved beer. We are now back at The Greatest Loop and settling in for the night. We have a great day planned for tomorrow with less miles but some more interesting sites to see along the way. It was a good day.

Between Fonda and Brewerton, we've estimated 98 nm, 62 Gal. so about 1.58nm/ Gal. Average speed was around 7.5 knots.