I hope you are enjoying the summer. Summer, water, waterways, and enjoyment should always go together. Remember what the canal area looked and felt like a short six months ago.

Many thanks to Christianne White for sending along this photo of Anemone, a 28′ custom-built trawler built and operated by Dave Christensen and Wendy Larsen. No matter the homeport is Phoenix, Arizona, they are doing the Great Loop the leisurely way. Here are Wendy and Dave at lock 20 in late June.

I’d love to know more about this vessel; it has the classic lines of a Chris-Craft or Matthews wooden cruiser from about a century ago.

Boats are designed to float and travel from place to place. Here’s Anemone northbound at the Statue of Liberty, since these waterways are connected.

Let’s look at a few more summer cruisers on the Erie Canal, these from the CSNY archives. A Syracuse-registered Mark II [would that be pronounced as twain?] here was westbound at lock 8 [?] in the late 1950s.

A Duluth-registered Mesabi II here from the same era cruises alongside a wooden barge, the photographer’s platform. I suspect this was taken along one of the land cuts of the canal that are laser-straight.

The next ones I took while I worked on the canal part-time between 2014 and 2019. Cruising through traffic at the east end of Sylvan Beach, Ragtime looks to be a Hacker, a replica classic.

I caught Dolphin below lock 19 some years ago. It’s not a replica, not restored, but lovingly maintained 1929 66′ Consolidated Commuter yacht, meaning it was built in New York. See its siblings here; Dolphin is hull # 2938.

Here’s a photo from Little Falls I took in July 2018. Imagine the scenery Ocean Star has sailed past.

The barge to the distant left in this shot of Ocean Star confirms that this was 2018; that’s the Glass Barge powered through the canal system by Jay Bee V.

Many thanks to Christianne for inspiring this post by sending along photos of Anemone. I have more photos long-distance travelers spotted on the NYS Canal system that I’m eager to share. Inspire me by sending what you’ve seen. Otis tells me the low-maintenance way to travel is just to sit, but please have a camera nearby.

Share them by sending to canalsocietyofnysphotos@gmail.com.