We arrived in Baldwinsville Thursday (May 22) around 6:30. We had been told by the lockmaster in Brewerton that the locks would be open later starting that night. The website for the canal said the summer hours would start on the 23rd. We took advantage of the new hours and tied to the upper wall. We are glad we got there on Thursday as the weekend will be busy here. Boats started lining the wall on Friday for the Memorial Day Weekend blues concert here at the amphitheater.

Mark and Vicki arrived soon after that. We were wined and dined at a very nice restaurant in B'Ville. So nice to have them in Little Sodus Bay this year.

Friday morning brought our daughter Amy and two new crew members. Jake is seven and his sister Gracie is four. They will spend the day with us today(May 24) bringing Sabbatical back to Newark. Sabbatical will sit in Newark until we can get her unloaded and restocked for a month of cruising on Lake Ontario.


Thanks to everyone who has made another adventure on Sabbatical an enjoyable one. To our sailing partners, Eagles' Wings, it was a pleaure having you along. To our many friends in Key Largo, you make it all sooo worth while. And to all those friends we have met along the way both old and new, there are just no words to tell you how filled our hearts are.

Tuesday, May 20

And this was this morning in Waterford, NY. The beginning of the Erie Canal. We learned that several of the boats on the wall, we knew. Tumbleweed is a Canadian boat that we had traveled with last year on the Great Loop and again we met them a couple weeks ago in Cape May. LadyHawke, Dick and Lynne Davenport who we have traveled many times with and whom we once shared a finger dock at Katlynn Marina. Recess, another Canadian boat that we had met in Solomons this fall while going south. It's that time of year when most everyone heads home.






This is one of the gates that control the amount of water that comes down through to Waterford before the flight of locks. Two years ago when so much water came down through the canal I am sure these could have been found closed. Several of the locks are still rebuilding.

Saturday, May 17- Monday, May 19

Saturday we traveled to Pollepel Island and began getting the boat ready to have her mast taken down. It was a short hop there from NYC and we wanted to be able to spend the next day with friends Jeff and Carmel Jones in Poughkeepsie. Gary has this operation pretty much memorized as to what has to be done. Pollepel Island is just across the river from Newburg NY.
Sunday we did indeed enjoy going to dinner with Jeff and Carmel. They also found us a drug store and grocery store so we could provision for the remainder of the trip. We stayed at the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club and rock and rolled on the river. Friends we met in Cape May stayed in NYC for about $4.00 a foot, plus electric.

Monday, May 19 was the tough day. Not only traveling 80 miles to Waterford but it included having the mast stepped in Catskill Creek. We pulled in to Hop-O-Nose Marina at 11:00 am. We went directly into the dock and within 30 mins the mast was dropped and 30 mins after that (securing the mast) we left that marina. A quick stop to fuel and pumpout at Riverview and we were on the river again. Annette at the helm and Gary finishing up the tie down of the mast we headed for Waterford. This is a picture of one of the Hudson River lighthouses. We see several along this section. We put in to Waterford around 6:30 pm and as tempting as going out to dinner was, Annette loves the shepherd's pie at the local restaurant, the cold temps and wind kept us aboard Sabbatical for dinner. What's with this cold weather up here?

As many times as we have gone by her, the Statue of Liberty never gets old. We reached here on May 15 after 13 hours of being on the ocean. We made one overnight stop in Atlantic City after Cape May. While it was not the nice flat water that Annette likes, it was doable and we could see by our weather information it was a small window of opportunity that we needed to take. We tucked in behind the statue in Liberty Park to anchor and spent an additional day because of weather. Last year when we came north I guess we were just really lucky because the weather was perfect and the seas were flat.

Tuesday morning, May 6, as we passed Annapolis, we were treated again to the sight of this ship leaving port. We traveled to Still Pond to an anchorage where we spent the night. It was beautiful on the Chesapeake today and we made good time.


After changing our minds many many times Wed. morning, we decided to really push it today. We hauled anchor around 6:30 am and headed for the C&D canal. We caught the tide which was great, getting us up to around 11.6 kts. sog. We entered the Delaware at 10:30 and soon lost the ride. We would catch it again at the mouth of the Delaware when the tide would turn.

In our travels we have seen many different fishing boats. This one was using a large net.

Then we started around the tip of Cape May and our good day became a bad day quickly. What should have been an hour trip into the Cape May channel, took us over 2 hours, a call to the Coast Guard and then a helping hand from TowBoat US to get us into a slip at Utsch's Marina in the dark. Not a fun ending to a good day.

I guess if you have to be stuck somewhere, Cape May is not a bad place. The nor'easter that would bring winds of 73.1 mph and seas up to 14' made us very thankful that we were tied to a dock. And boaters always seem to make a bad situation into a party. We once again met a great group of loopers. We celebrated Mother's Day at the Blue Pig.

From left to right: Annette, Nat, Ellen, Roy, Sandy, Jim and Gary. We were later joined by Steve and Ruth. Roger and Erika from Tumbleweed were absent this day but are here at Utsch's also. We met Tumbleweed last year when we did the loop.

We will sit again today, May 13, in the hopes that tomorrow will be a better traveling day. Winds today are forecast for 30 mph gusts and Annette will definitely go home by car if we even think about leaving the dock.

After leaving the Potomac on April 30, we headed up to Solomons. We found Don and Ann Marie there from Might As Well V. We had drinks on their boat and then had dinner at the Holiday Inn. They are trying to sell their boat ( a great boat for anyone who's looking), so this may be the last time we will see MAWV. However, we hope it will not be the last time we see Don and Ann Marie. Without their gentle persuasion the summer of 2006 to continue with the boats doing the Great Loop, we probably would have spent the last two years on the same dock, sailing the same waters of Lake Ontario. Not that that is bad but the adventure has been so great. Don is going to be building a new home for them in New Hampshire this year. Thank you guys! We hope to see you there.

The trip home this spring has been all about friends and family. New friends, boating friends, old friends and family. We have made 10 stops so far and have just had the best of times. And if all goes well, we will have a couple more special stops before we reach Newark. These handsome guys have been friends since their days at Brown University (1963-67).


From left to right, Jeff Foster, Gary, Jack Rebok, Greg Norgaard, and Jeff Jones. After almost 40 years it was time for these guys to meet again.



On the weekend of May 2-5 we were all in Bethany Beach MD. On May 2 we docked Sabbatical in Cambridge MD, rented a car and headed for Bethany Beach. The second picture shows four of the five couples.

Tomorrow we will either stay here in Cambridge another day readying ourselves for the trip home or head north. A call from Eagles' Wings on Friday night found them behind the Statue of Liberty. It was cold and rainy there so we may just drag our feet a little watching the weather closely.