We have been attacked!

Saturday night, a swarm of Mayflies attacked the boat. We are covered by them. May flies are harmless and only live in this form from 5 minutes to a day. They seem to be attracted to light.

We did have the lights on for a while before going to bed and we were moored under a street light last night. We had heard about this happening on this Mississippi River, so we had bought a small leaf blower. It was a surprise to see the quantity of bugs on the boat.

Journey, left Ilion, NY for Sylvan Beach yesterday, a distance of 40 miles. It was supposed to be rainy with occasional thunderstorms. We had clouds to full sun and humidity. This is the highest portion of the Erie Canal and we started going down at the last two locks. Locking down is easier than going up as you don’t have to hold the boat to the wall pulling on long ropes. It is dirtier though. Those ropes have been hanging down from the lock edge towards the bottom of the lock for who knows when. They are greasy and slimy. We left at 7:10 to try to make the first locking of the day since we were a slow boat and had a distance to go. There were 8 boats ahead of us. The lock master tried to fit us in but couldn’t due to one boat not moving up as much as it could in the lock. So, we had to back out of the lock and wait for the first group to go up and for the lock to be recycled. Another boat joined us while we were waiting and with only two boats, our locking was quite relaxing. We caught the pipe and placed a rope around it and rode it by inching our line up the pipe as the lock filled. This method has less wear and tear on our muscles and less filth on the boat than the line method. Unfortunately, there were only lines in the remaining 3 locks.

We made it to Sylvan Beach and unfortunately the dockage in front of the amusement park and the Crazy Clam restaurant. It is Saturday night, the amusement park listed its hours as until midnight and the Crazy Clam has a live band starting at 9 pm. Ugh, sleep might be a little difficult. There are no services available like water to clean the boat up with, so we put some boat soap in a bucket with a small amount of water and started getting the worst of the spots. We rinsed using the back deck shower. The humidity is high here in New York and it is uncomfortable to do basic chores outside. Hmm, high humidity and May flies, what a combination. New York has pretty countryside and the people are nice.

We crossed Lake Oneida on Sunday and landed at Winter Harbor Marina in Brewerton. They are known for being looper friendly. They got us moored in by their travel lift which is one of the more peaceful areas of the marina. It is out of the river and all the pontoon boat wakes. Pontoon boats are very popular on this area of the Erie Canal. Go figure. Anyway, we were filling the boat with fuel and one of those pesky boats came by throwing a large wake. Kevin yelled at them at the top of his lungs and they finally realized that people were not happy with them and slowed down a little bit. On Monday morning, Kevin woke up with a partial laryngitis. We bet the two events are related. Anyway, we spent Monday doing laundry, followed by checking out the courtesy car for resupplying the boat. Well, we were allotted an hour and a half time period to drive 12 minutes down the highway to the closest stores, We were on our game. First stop, Target to get soda stream gas bottle exchanges. Oh good, there are not many cars in the parking lot. Bev gets out of the car at a run into the rural store. Yes!, no one waiting in line at the customer service desk. She was able to exchange the one empty Soda stream canister, but they would not sell another one at the customer service desk. She would have to run down to housewares to get a new one, then back to the checkers. Didn't happen. On to the grocery store. Bev had divided the shopping list in half and Kevin and Bev went their separate ways calling each other on the phone to let the other one know where they were in the store. Checked out of the store with 25 minutes left on the courtesy car. Do we have enough time to stop for some wine. They do not sell wine in grocery stores in New York. Yes, Bev jumped out of the car at a run to pick up enough wine for us to enjoy before going into Canada. Oops, not enough time to put fuel in the car before we need to have it back. Called the marina and told them that we would be about 5 minutes late if they wanted us to put some fuel in. Otherwise, we could give them some dollars toward a fill up later. They opted for us being about 5 minutes late and putting a couple of gallons in.

All chores for this stop are complete and we were relaxing in the air conditioning when 4 dock workers come up to our boat and start untying our lines. What the heck! That is not the way to run a marina, especially a marina that prides itself on service. Kevin went outside and found that they wanted to fit one more boat in on our wall. (Reminds us of the one thin mint episode from Monty Python). They did not knock on the boat to talk to us before they started untying our lines. We were not happy. They moved us up as far as they could without touching the wall in front, tied off the bow and stern lines, but left the midship line loose, which means we could hit the front of our boat against the wall any kind of wake comes in. We both expressed our displeasure at their actions to the owner of the marina. He apologized and said they were just trying to help a boater fit in with all the issues on the Erie Canal. Now, we wonder if we will be able to get out of this spot tomorrow as they have kind of blocked us in.