Atlantic City NJ to Norfolk VA

  Norfolk Virginia on one side of the water and Portsmouth on the other. Either way this is a great place to anchor and enjoy some sites and food.

 The people of this area are warm and inviting. We made new friends here.

 Kyle likes to fish while we travel. Occasionally he catches dinner.

Sunset

 Sunrise

 Norfolk is home base for many Naval Personal. They build and maintain their ships here.

Even though the harbor is active the anchorage is very calm.

New York City to Atlantic City NJ

 We went out of Long Island Sound and into the Atlantic Ocean to sail to Atlantic City NJ. We found a great place to anchor and hung out for a couple days. Last time we were in Atlantic City they wanted about $4 a foot to dock ! So the free anchorage was welcome.

The beach was packed, it was July, of course.

 We met a wonderful family who had sailed here from Germany. As you can see by the sweaters, even though it was July it was still cool at night. Happy to be heading south

 You can still see lots of rebuilding happening on the New Jersey coast from the damage that Hurricane Sandy did a couple years ago.

Our trip in the Atlantic was sunny and calm. Just the way I like it :)

Catskill NY to New York City via the Hudson River

Once through all the locks we could put our masts back up. We did this in Catskill NY.

Sailing down the Hudson River is really quite pretty.

 There are many lighthouses, a few old castles, beautiful homes and scenery.

 New York by water is stunning. It is a unique experience to be able to sail through the city. You know there are millions of people very close to you but you are virtually alone in the river.

Sailing past Lady Liberty is a thrill even for us Canadians. The emotions of what she stands for are not lost on us as we look to see where the old Twin towers once stood.
We anchored near Coney Island and watched the sun set over the city. Stunning is the word that comes to mind.

Entering the Oswego Canal...only 29 locks to the Hudson River

Our journey took our demasted boat from Lock 8 in Oswego NY down to lock 23 of the Erie Canal where we then headed down to Waterford NY (lock 2)  and the Hudson River (lock 1 at Troy NY).  We were in no hurry to be anywhere particular so we paid $50 for a 10 day lock pass (instead of $20 for a 2 day pass) and enjoyed the ride.
The locks range in how far up or down they bring you, a few feet to 40 ft. The last part Locks 6 to 2 must be down together, one after another, takes about 2 hrs. It is the largest drop/raise in the shortest distance in the world. From lock 7 to 2 we went down about 160 ft in 1.5 miles.
Our 7 ft draft prohibited us for entering a lot of the smaller marinas along the way. But you can tie up by the locks for free. So we often did just that.

This is a typical view of how your days are spent on the canal. Looking for these buoys.

This is Lock 20 near Utica NY. You can tie up for free and there is often even power sources available.  They have little park areas, usually garbage cans, picnic tables and porta potties. Many times we could walk or ride our bikes to stores or restaurants.

Some of the locks that raise you require you to drive under their door to get in or out. This is one of the reasons, along with bridges, that sailboats must demast. I believe max height is was 21 ft.

 Waterford NY sits at Lock 2. You can tie up to the dock here free for 72 hrs. It has 2 grocery stores, many places to eat, parks, trails etc.

At Lock 15 we found this nice herb garden so we walked to the grocery store and took advantage of the fresh herbs for cooking dinner

Full time liveaboard Cruisers At Last !

On July 1 st 2014 we left our slip in Hamilton Ontario Canada in the early morning and began our journey to sail the world.

We journeyed to Youngstown NY in the Niagara River and watched the Canada Day fireworks over the river. It would be our first of 4 nights of fireworks that celebrated Canada Day and Independence Day in the USA as we traveled down the south side of Lake Ontario east to the Oswego NY  where we would enter the canal system to head south.

 

We stopped in Rochester NY..where the border patrol guys move really fast..lol

 We stopped in Fairhaven NY and enjoyed July 4 th celebrations.

Then we demasted in Oswego NY to head into the Canal System.