Monday brings winds from the west and strong sunshine with little cumulus clouds. We are to cross twenty miles of Lake Oneida today, so up goes the mast and boom and on go the sails. 12-15mph winds with some stronger gusts, so we put in a single reef in the main for a day of tacking. There are times when two would've helped the handling. Waves are 3ft and choppy, so progress is slow until we figure out that waves are better along the north shore. Challenging sailing at times, but much more fun than motoring. We're the only sailboat out today.
Brewerton lies on the far end of the lake, where we un-rig the sails and mast, and set up for canalling.
We've been looking at our progress, and how far there is yet to go, and changed our proposed itinerary. We'll continue to Seneca Falls, probably wednesday, and down Lake Cayuga to Ithaca, then backtrack to the Oswego canal, and skip the western half of the New York State Barge Canal, aka the Erie Canal. This'll save us much motoring on canals, and still get us to Ontario and Lake Champlain. It also avoids the intimidating Welland Canal with its 140 foot deep locks. We can also spend more time visiting wineries and historic sites.
After dinner we take a walk about town, and notice a very small state park on a map of the town. And very close. It's … and we meet the two curators who happily show us around. Fort Brewerton was a star-shaped fort, built here in 1759 and the earthworks are plain to see. The museum is housed in a replica block house of the period. They have lots of good artifacts and enthusiasm for their history. We shared knowledge with the curators. Fun and very informative.
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