Happy Halloween from Athens,NY

Today we stepped the mast ourselves with the help of Aunt Sara in Castleton. From there we stopped at the free dock in Athens to trick-or-treat.
The town is beautiful and there were a lot of trick-or-treaters out with us despite the cold front.
Today was an especially cold day out on the water.

We made it

The storm did not hit us bad at all. A few gusts of wind and some rain bit now clear sky's.
We are not sure how long we will need to stay here as it depends on the height of the Hudson River. The federal lock is also still closed so it may be later today or tomorrow before we can get out of here.
Aunt Sara is with us until Thursday but she may extend her trip so that she can get to sail with us.
The sky is clearing up and the sun just peaked out behind the clouds.

Preparing

We prepared for the storm yesterday by bringing the boat up to lock 3. The water moved slowly up because they have drained so much water from above us in preparation for the storm.
The lock keeper had us all over for dinner last night. He has a 6 year old granddaughter that Samantha immediately became friends with. They played barbies and Nicholas helped carve a pumpkin.

Hunkered Down at Lock 3

We are all tied up and buckled down for the upcoming storm. We are sharing the dock with 7 other sailboats, 2 barges, 3 tour boats, and 2 power boats. Everyone is sharing power and the lock keeper has given us full access to his house up here with a shower, bathroom and sitting area. The wind gusts have already started.
One last play at the park before the storm.

Cleaning the boat

Paul's sister Sara is coming today. We are all excited for Aunt Sara to be here. As we wait for the approaching storm we are busy cleaning and getting everything in its place.

Prepping for Frankenstorm

We are going to stay in Waterford for the next couple of days and see what happens with Sandy. We have electricity, water and showers at the welcome center so it's comfortable and the town is nice. The Lock keepers said we can go back into the locks when the storm approaches so the boat will be perfectly safe and we have a friend here (Mark) who has invited us to stay at his home if we need to get off the boat. There are other boats waiting it out here also. This will give us a chance to do some more work on the boat while we sit and wait. 

The last lock on the Erie canal

Waterford, NY

We had the grand finally of Erie Canal with the last 5 locks in a row. We dropped over 30 feet each time.

Lock 10

We made a quick stop yesterday to play at a park then stayed the night just before lock 10.
Bright and early 7:00 AM we set off to finish the Erie Canal.

Little Falls, NY

Today was a monumental day. The oven was completely installed. We celebrated with oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
Yum!
We stayed in until we got to port then went for ice cream (again). This seems to be our favorite thing to do even though it is cold and rainy.

Sylvan Beach, NY

We crossed the big lake Oneida and are docking at Sylvan Beach tonight.  There isn't much here but we did find another ice cream store with Moose Tracks ice cream, the kids new favorite.  We met up with another sailboat called Bucket List and they almost lost their mast when crossing the lake.  Good thing Paul is a builder by trade.  Our mast made the trip just fine.

Nicholas and Samantha took turns driving the boat, with adult supervision of course.  We also saw another old wooden boat from Telluride, CO.

Cross Lake, NY

Last night we stayed at a beautiful lake. We anchored out and slept wonderfully. There was a little guilt over running the generator at 6:00 AM to run the heater but after the boat warmed up we were all in good spirits.

Pittsfield, NY

This town seems to be a suburb of Rochester, NY. We stayed over night Saturday night and had Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  These are pictures that Nicholas and Samantha took while we were under way.

Holley, NY

Today was a beautiful day with sun and no waves.  The Erie Canal reminds us of a highway for boats.
The start of the Canal was two locks that dropped our boat over 25 feet each time then we went through a series of drawbridges that lifted for us.

The colors of the leaves changing are amazing.

Stepping the Mast

We had this done yesterday but I wanted to include pictures.