In the morning we made our way across Oneida Lake which is both very shallow and this day, very choppy. We made it across and while some recovered from the bouncy water we got diesel at Brewerton Boat Yard.  Kind and eager staff with a marine store. We did find diesel was 5 cents cheaper down the water way and we buy a lot of diesel. Brewerton put us on to On & Off hull cleaner it works very well to take of the tea stain that collects on the hull in all these rivers.

Proceeding out of Brewerton we say the inverse of the "house poor" situtation.  Here it seemed someone had wanted a dock for the very significant motor yacht and the dock happen to come with a house (the small white building behind the 65' of 70' yacht.

While not as large as the boat above Cherish feels very big for poking around some of these rivers. You know you are in trouble when the small rivers have road signs. You will see many of these real roads signs (not marine signs) in future blog entries. We were moving into the Oswego Canal system.

We were lucky enough to find a small open spot at the public dock at Phoenix, NY.  That towns goes out of its was attract and support boaters. They have a nice free veranda with umbrellas and tables plus the Phoenix Brats . From their website "program for the youth of the area that teaches the concept of service, co-operative work effort and individual growth." Great feeling and great learning experience. We meet retired gentleman that comes down to fix everything in the Bridge House and the surronding equipement including the pump out station. Another great town doing their best! Stephanie importantly notes that there were no bugs in Phoenix. We walked around the town and had a good breakfast at the Diner before we undertsood the Brats program or we would have had breakfast right off the boat catered by the Brats.  Sorry our fault for not "getting it".

Mark checking out an art project.

Stephanie's photo of the project in detail.

Currie woke early and went for a quiet walk

Stephanie got stuck with more laundromat time. After the lock and the raising the bridge, which made us feel very important ...

We motored down the canal and through more locks and water flow control gates.

As we move North on the canal, the number of "big boats" at this stage is dwindling but the number of people fishing in the canal increasing. One of the people fishing on the canal said to us, a line we ofter kid about. "That boats so big it has a boat on the boat" ... meaning Fitz (grey dingy) on the aft flying bridge of Cherish, white Bayliner 4788. In case you are wondering yes, we have a crane to lift it up and it is all very easy

You many wonder why Cherish and Newport RI are so small on her. We needed them to be visible in order to be Coast Guard legal. Interestingly in Phoenix we went into a sign shop to get a proper name and home port image printed. The sign shop proprietor, who from what one could tell in this town of honestly 2,382 people could not possible help us out with letter... just too busy. So if you see Cherish in small letters it is beause the blooming economy has the sign makers over the top busy!