It was another 38 degree morning when we left Rome at 0700. We arrived Oneida Lake a little after 0900 to find the lake perfectly flat, just the way we like it. By noon we had crossed the twenty mile stretch of lake and were back in the canal proper. The entire crossing was in almost dead calm conditions, the only interesting thing that happened during the crossing was being hailed by a large power boat asking if we wanted a slow pass. What makes it interesting was not that he hailed us, but the fact that we were about five miles from shore where the lake is about three miles wide. When he passed us he couldn’t have been more than a boat length or two away before he roared off at 20 plus knots. Maybe he had some new people on board and wanted to demonstrate the technique before needing to use it in the canal. It just goes to show that you never know what is going to happen, and to quote Captain Ron, “If anything is going to happen , it’s going to happen out there”.
Early morning on the canal.
Oneida Lake
Arriving at Baldwinsville we found that the town hasn’t installed their very nice free floating docks yet, requiring us to tie to their deteriorating concrete bulkheads. At least the power and water was turned on.
No floating dock (yet).
We are close enough to Erie to plan out the rest of the trip through the canal. Tomorrow we go to Clyde and should reach the end of the canal at North Tonowanda five days from now. The forecast for that entire time calls for light winds. What is the forecast for day six when we would start up the lake shore? 20 knots gusting to 30. Fortunately we don’t put too much stock into wind forecasts that far in the future. Stay tuned.
Today: 50 nm in 8.3 engine hours. 4 locks. Total: 4230 nm
Dave
Life aboard LIBERTY 