On the Water with As You Wish: June 23 Utica to Sylvan Beach

June 23

Late start today from Utica as we only had 20 miles and 3 locks to traverse and we wanted to get to Sylvan Beach later in the day hoping the crowd at the town walls would have started to dissipate. Nice sunny day reaching into the upper 70’s along with a jet ski competition had the crowd out in full force. We pulled in around 3:30 and found a spot but not ideal and we’re still hoping later in the evening to move to another section of the wall further back from the jetty that provides more protection from the wave action coming in from Lake Oneida.

Busy day on the water at Sylvan Beach

The only significant town we passed after leaving Utica was Rome. Claim to fame is they once mined 10% of all copper in the US. It is also home to Ft. Stanwix – a reconstruction of a wooden fort originally built in 1758. From the water all you see is a bridge and a long town dock that looks inviting but on closer inspection is in pretty rough shape.

Flood Gate at Lock 20 that was shut closed and caused our delay at Little Falls

Most of our travel on the Erie canal has actually been through dammed up sections of the Mohawk River (that was the 3^rd and final enlargement in the early 1920’s). As we approached our maximum elevation of 420’ at Lock 20 the Mohawk became smaller and unnavigable and so this entire section is the true man-made canal portion. Some wildlife along the way with deer, geese, ducks, turtles and herons all spotted.

A big brood of new hatchlings trying to keep up with Mom

Locks 21 and 22 are down locks so a new technique had to be used for grabbing the lines and handling the boat as we were lowered. Not difficult – just different. Each of these locks took us down 25’ to the same 370’ elevation as Lake Oneida, a 20 mile long lake we’ll cross tomorrow.

Sylvan Beach is a central NY summer destination sitting on the shores of Lake Oneida with a full time population of 892. In it's heyday back in the turn of the century it was known as the "Coney Island of cenral NY" with thousands visiting the nice sandy beach, two amusement parks, hotels and restaurants.

Not quite Coney Island

Today it's still a small village with the same nice beach, a small amusement park, good fishing and lots of boaters with easy access to the lake. There are some hearty people up here. Physically very stout and not ashamed to show their bodies off in their bathing suits. And apparently immune to cold as they must go out sunbathing when it’s 40 degrees out based on some of the dark tans. Pretty crazy watching all the boats and people while tied safely to the wall.