Brewerton, NY

Hi to everyone, we're all doing very well but not really enjoying this cold snap going through. Not sure if Toronto got this as well but it's been cold and rainy for days! We left Waterford within the 2 days and we made good time to Herkimer, NY. That's about halfway to the big Oneida Lake that you have to cross as part of the canal. At Herkimer they have a Walmart so we were there with perfect timing for the release of the new Harry Potter book. We got one of the first copies sold and ran back to the boat to start reading. It was great and we just hung out on the dock and read the whole book in a couple of days. She did a great job- very spectacular ending- huge finish, should be a great movie. I won't give away what happens but it was great. Rob is a little sore as he strained his back a little. We're attaching a mast step hinge so that we can raise and lower the mast ourselves without the crane. Rob actually had the hinge custom made in St. Catharines by a welder before we left but we never installed it. Hopefully it'll work and will also bypass the problem with water collecting we're having with the cup that holds the mast now. We'll see, if we don't have time or Rob's back is no better we'll just use the crane at Oswego.
So we crossed Lake Oneida- it's a fairly big body of water on the canal. It really isn't any big deal after the trip we've done, however it can get very rough with stiff choppy waves and the big deal is that our mast is down on our deck!! So we roll and roll and we always worry about the mast tied to the deck too! So we timed it with the wind at our backs- following sea and the crossing was perfect. Now we're only 1 day away from Oswego. We have heard though that Oswego is having a "Canal days" festival so we may easily get delayed there if we need the marina- we may need to wait for mast stepping for Monday. We'll see, supposedly there'll be great fireworks!
From there we haven't decided yet whether we'll hop along the US coast and then cut across to Toronto from Niagara-on-the-Lake, or cross to Kingston area and go that direction. We'll see how we're doing timing wise. We can't wait to see everyone, it won't be long now!! :)