Brockport to Newark, NY.
Both Tom Kelso and the canal barge had left by the time we got up. We showered, had breakfast on board, and cruised to Fairport, arriving at about 1230 hrs. We walked around town and had just asked in a general store if there was a grocery nearby when we were approached by a woman who had overheard our question and offered to drive us to a small Italian grocery which “was certainly open on a Sunday.” It was, however, certainly closed, but she then recommended that we eat at the Irish Pub and dropped us off there instead. When we returned to the dock the CD22 Fun Patrol (which we had noticed in Newark) was moored in front of us. We stopped to chat with Roy and Laura Davidson, who live near Palm Springs, California, tow the boat behind a motor home (now parked in Buffalo), and are spending a month on the western Erie before wending their way to Florida. Roy had mentioned that the Mid-Lakes Marina had ethanol-free gas, so we stopped there to fill up and found two more C Dories, a CD22 and one of the four CD29s ever made. We had gone aboard a CD29 at the Annapolis Boat show and found it huge and rather ungainly. The marina rents the old-fashioned canal barges, and we enjoyed looking around inside them. The young fellow who gassed us was very embarrassed when the tank burped really hard and gave us a couple of ice cream bars as an apology. We stopped for the night at Newark, which has wonderful murals at the dock, a quiet harbor mistress (in contrast to Nancy!) who finally opened up when bemoaning the loss of most of the town’s historic buildings during what she felt was misguided urban renewal, and which showed us a terrific sunset as Mary cooked another of her super alcohol-stove dinners.