We enjoyed a leisurely, fine-weather motor down the Oswego and Erie Canals this week.  With stops in Oswego, Phoenix, Sylvan Beach, Little Falls, Fonda and Waterford we took our time on all but the last day.

Here are a few random pics.

The green paper is our permit to be on the canal for 10 days, at $50, it is quite the bargain.

Kinship at Phoenix, we liked this stop a lot, docked next to a nice park with WiFi.  A coffee shop  a few meters down the street made it all the better.

We saw a few housed where the front faced the canal, some were very impressive.

The Mohawk Valley forms a natural path for the canal, Interstate 90 follows a similar path as does a major railroad line.

 Here a canal worker fishes on his lunch break.  He is in a strange aquatic manlift, we have never seen one like it.

High school rowers heading down the canal

What looks to be a house near Schenectady, wonder how lives there?

We were the last boat of the day to go through the locks at Waterford, here you can see the guard gate being closed behind us to mark the end of the day.

Here is Kinship on the right at the end of the trip.  The leg from Fonda to Waterford might be all downhill, but locks can be hard when it is windy.  We had a long day and were glad to get tied up at the canal wall.  This morning we moved over to the visitors center on the left where we have power and water and a pump out.  Tomorrow we will head out down the Hudson to Hop-o-nose to get the mast put back up and Kinship will be a sail boat again.

Lastly here is Pete Seeger singing the Erie Canal Song, it dates from the building of the current canal and the demise of mule drawn barges as the new canal has no towpath.

A later edit – The Shards have published their segment on the route we took, one day we will be able to sail and film…