ssloop: Erie Canal

Just before noon on Monday, we pulled into the Erie Canal Welcome Center at Waterford. At the Welcome Center we picked up information on what to expect while traveling through the Canal and walked up the hill to the lock to purchase our 10 day pass from the lockmaster. The locks are numbered, beginning with Lock 2. The first flight of locks (2-6) are referred to as the Waterford Flight. An engineering wonder, the flight features five locks where boats are lifted the greatest height in the shortest distance of any canal in the world. (169 feet in less than 2 miles) The locks on the Erie are quite different than what we experienced on the rivers last fall. Instead of bollards, these locks have either cables, pipes or ropes to secure the boat against the lock wall. We were fortunate that Paul & Cindy were still part of our crew as we ventured through the 6 locks. After having traveled 35 miles for the day, we took a slip at the Diamond Reef Yacht Club. Later many of the members seemed surprised that we made it in their channel. That would have been good information to have known earlier as we did dredge their channel for them as we came through it. One of the owners loaned us his car to go to dinner. Nice!

Tuesday morning, Paul & Cindy stayed on board and helped us spin the boat by hand (Huck Finn it) and then we slowly worked our way out. We dropped Paul & Cindy off at a Marina across the river so they could take a taxi 6 miles to the Albany Airport to catch their flight home. We continued up through the canal and locked through Lock 7 a 27 foot lift. Shortly after leaving the lock, a severe thunderstorm came through with a vengeance. Rain, wind, thunder, lightning! We could hardly see the front of the boat much less our surroundings. We were forced to use our chart plotter and GPS to stay in the middle of the channel. After the storm, we decided we had enough fun for one day and stopped at the nearby Schenectady Yacht Club for the evening. We traveled a whopping 12 miles that day. Soon after stopping we received a call from Paul that their flight had been canceled. So they rented a car and drove 12 miles to come spend another night with us. (Sweet! We had transportation to dinner and great company!)

Paul and Cindy snuck out before dawn on Wednesday to catch their flight home. We traveled 44 miles, through 5 locks to the town of Cananjoharie. We stayed against the barge wall as the free dock was full. We tied all four of our 50 foot shore power cords together to get electricity to the boat.

Thursday we traveled 29 miles, through 5 locks to the town of Ilion. We stayed at the Ilion Village Marina. We took a walk into the Village and bought some supplies at Aldis on the way back to the boat.

On Friday (the Captain's Birthday!!!) we traveled 40 miles, through 4 locks (the last 2 of which we locked down) to Sylvan Beach free town wall. Sylvan Beach is a small lakeside town on the east end of Lake Oneida. The town has a beach, a small amusement park and lots of visitors on summer weekends. We are now at the 43 parallel, which means we are as far north as at home. Shortly after arriving, we dropped the dinghy and took a ride out on Lake Oneida. It was a short ride due to another storm heading our way. The storm hit hard, but we were safely back on board. The special birthday occasion again called for peel and eat shrimp!

Saturday, our friends from Just Us arrived in Sylvan Beach. We had a great afternoon on the beach together and later picked them up via dinghy for dinner at the Crazy Clam.

Sunday, the winds were calm so it was a perfect day to travel across Lake Oneida which is 20 miles long. We stopped a couple miles short of the west end, dropped the anchor and enjoyed lunch and swimming. It was great to swim in fresh water again! We continued on to Ess Kay Marina in Brewerton for the evening. And again, another rainstorm came through which left us uncertain on future canal (flooding) conditions.

Lock #3 on the Erie Canal.