Daydream's Great Loop: Lock E-20, Marcy, N.Y. and a Nice Lady, Joanne Haley!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 81 - June 20, 2017

This morning the weather was sunny, and it stayed sunny as we transited locks E-18, E-19 and E-20, but it started raining hard just as soon as we got here. That passed, though, and it has been sunny since then. We had decided to stay at the little floating dock at E-20 next to the Town of Marcy city park, but Bob and Peppe decided to push on to Rome on Again, so we are here with Rip and Beth Tyler on their Monk 36 Lab Partners and another larger boat on the other side of the Canal named Firestorm owned by Mike and Laurie Dickens, whom we just met this evening.

Lab Partners at Lock E-20 Wall

Daydream at Lock E-20 Floating Dock

Lab Partners is tied up at a short concrete wall just past Lock E-20, and Daydream is tied up on a small floating dock just a little farther on. As an extra bonus, we have electricity from a 15 amp socket just up from the floating dock!

We are both right next to the Gruenewald and Smith Park, which is a large town park right on the Canal with a pavilion and a lot of picnic tables. People have been in the park all day, and Baxter made friends with quite a few of them! There were also many people fishing in the Canal at the park.

We had sundowners with Beth and Rip on the flybridge of Lab Partners, which I am pretty sure is larger than the entire cabin of Daydream! I have mentioned this before, but IF we were going to get a trawler, a Monk 36 would be at the top of our list! Rip is, first, a very talented woodworker - all the teak modifications he has made to Lab Partners are indistinguishable from the factory woodwork. He is, second, a self-described geek, Everything is wirelessly networked, including two computers running Coastal Explorer, a dedicated Raymarine chartplotter, Rip's Android tablet and Beth's iPad, and quite possibly, the toaster and oven (I think that is facetious, but I cannot be certain!).

Rip and Beth have a big yellow lab name Cally (I think Lab Partners has something to do with their affinity for labs!). Their schedule revolves around Cally, much as ours does around Baxter. Baxter and Cally had some nice play time in the park!

While we were there, Mike and Laurie came over, from Firestorm and we chatted a bit with them, but talk of their air conditioners, full size refrigerators, washers and dryers, generators, and so forth had us wondering if we were in the same world. Yes, we are all on boats, and yes, we are all doing the Great Loop, but our boats seem to have very little in common except that they float! But like we say, the gin tastes just as good on our little 25 foot C-Dory as it does on their 45 foot yacht!

After we returned from Lab Partners, a couple who lived near the park came by and we started talking. The man's name is George and the lady's name is Joanne Haley (spelling?), and she told us about how the park had fallen into a sad state, with the grass not being mowed, but she went to her state representative who helped get things back on track with the city, and today the park looks great! When she left, she told us was going to bring some fresh baked cookies down to us.

Boy did she! While I was out taking some photos, she brought down a whole plate of cookies, a huge apple turnover, a bag of vegetables, and homemade sausage! Thank you, Joanne! They say the people of Northern New York are the most friendly in the world, and you proved it today!

Here are today's pictures!