Keeping up...

It's harder to keep up this blog than I imagined it would...
Here we are almost a month into this trip and I'm not sure where the time has gone.  The last blog had us at Little Falls on the Erie Canal, which we left the next morning.

Exiting the lock

The next lock we came through was quite spectacular in that the end gates actually lift up instead of opening like doors as all the others do and we drove out from under them.  Of course it drips all over you, but its neat just the same.


Locks can be very interesting to go through.  We had to be ready to hang on to the rope or cable or pole hanging down the wall of the lock and you never know until you see who's going in with you which side you'll get to grab on to.  Work gloves are a must, as its mucky on the walls and a rope too on each corner of the boat.  It's best to keep the boat off the wall if you can, though going up in a lock isn't so easy as it can get quite turbulent inside. Going down is much easier the turbulence is nearly non existent.  We were lucky in that we rarely had anyone in a lock with us, so we just kept on the same side all the time. Most of the time it was for the shade you can get from the wall going down in the lock, it was still hot out.

Dam for the over flow of the river

The Lockmasters are all very kind and offer little tidbits as you go along, most are very chatty.  The best bits we got about the second lock from the last... go figure.



So after several more days of going through locks, we went through 30 of them, we got to downtown Waterford, NY  We were glad to be done that part, and we got there before the forecast thunderstorms, that didn't happen.

The last four locks were in what's called the Waterford flight.  They are all within half a mile at the most from each other and they are the biggest drops of them all, averaging 33 feet. It's kind of a big sigh of relief to get there, there's now only one federal lock to go through at Troy and then downstream a bit to where our mast will be put back up.

 In Waterford though, we walked on the bridge over the Hudson River to get groceries.  The store allows boaters to take their grocery carts back to the visitors centre where our boat is. The thing is that you have to tell them that's what you're doing... The store parking lot has an electronic line around the perimeter that causes one wheel to lock up if you cross it.  Well, yup our cart locked, so we had to find someone to get it unlocked so we can carry on to our boat with our goodies.


The dock where we're tied up here has a model of the new york state canal system inbedded into their brick walkway and labeled so you can see where you've been.  You can see the beginnings in this picture, from Lake Erie as it wiggles its way along the walk.  The light coloured brick is the canal.  It ends in NYC at the far end by the bridge in the background.



A few of the people that we've met along the canal have arrived here either before us, or came in that day.  We have met some very nice people, Bob and Ingrid, Tom and Louise, Dan and Paula to name some.  Steve and Lise from our marina at 50 Point caught up to us that day too.  They started several days on this adventure behind us and got the Waterford the same day as us.  They were moving faster and for longer days than we did.
Waterford isn't a big place, so we headed out the next day towards our mast at Hoponose.  We, and Bob and Ingrid got through the last lock, the Troy Federal Lock, the biggest and with the least to hang on to, without incident.

Passed by Albany and large ships, that can catch up to you in a hurry.  The Hudson River isn't as busy as we expected it to be, albeit there was a couple huge ships we came across, and a couple tugs with their barges, but nothing like we expected.  We could go miles with no one around us on the water but birds.

Finally at Hoponose, and we are reunited with our mast.  These four strappin' lads carried it like it was nothing.
We spent time cleaning our poor boat from the canal ordeal of slime and muck.  She's much prettier now.  While we were there, in one day at least 7 masts were put back on.


Back on the Hudson heading south, we were again passed by this big ship, the wake they put out is huge.  We had to pull a u turn to hit the wake so it wouldn't really give us a roll.

A couple tugs went by, this one without a barge, other pushed the barge in front of them.
The next day we went as far as Kingston, again the weather was supposed to be turning ugly with thunderstorms for a couple days.

We docked in front of the Hudson River Maritime Museum and stayed for two nights.

This old trolley has been rejuvenated and runs on a short track in front of the museum.  The one in Nelson is a better deal...

Our cute little boat on Rondout Creek

The museum is very good, showing how the river has been used over the centuries.  Kingston itself was burned to the ground by the British in the late 1700's but not for lack of trying by the locals to keep them out.  They strung a cable across the river to try and stop the big British ships, to no avail.

Our boat is first behind the big one up front

Bob and Ingrid stopped here too, as a place to hunker down during the supposed storms.  The storms kept getting pushed back, but finally last night one rolled through - OMG there was one good bolt that was very near us.  I did a little leap.  Neither of our boats got hit, but it did hit not far away.  A little nerve wracking with a 48 foot metal pole sticking up.

We have left Kingston today, passed this lighthouse at the entrance to the Kingston harbour.  It had been manned for over a hundred years before it was automated..





Further down the Hudson we passed by West Point military academy.  We had thought about stopping in, but their docks were somewhat sketchy for tying up to, so we carried on to Haverstraw Bay and Croton-on-the-Hudson.





This was the sunset tonight, red sky at night......  Tomorrow we will be into New York City, either from here and go in by train or we will moor at the 79th Street Boat basin in downtown Manhattan.

Thanks for following along,.... til next blog.

Lake Oneida sunset

This sunset was as the end of our day, a couple days ago now, in Sylvan Beach on the east end of Oneida Lake still in New York state.  We had to go over it from Brewerton to carry on our trek. It's quite a shallow lake about 20 miles long has a few shoals here and there to watch for, with buoys and markers all the way across to follow. This place has a fabulous beach, but with signs up all over the place not swim in the lake.... oh and to watch out for the blue-green algae blooms.

section of old canal system

Back on the canal, we passed old sections which firstly was just a ditch with water in it and a path alongside where the critter that hauled the boat walked.  When motorized craft started to be used they made it a bit wider and deeper.  Now the newest version of the canal has a depth of anywhere from 9 feet up to 16 depending on the line you take in the canal.  It is quite wide, enough to easily pass two large tourist cruising vessels side by side.  The width of the boat of course is determined by the width of the locks and fixed bridge heights, some bridges are quite low which is why masts have to come off to get through.

Guard Gate 7

These are called guard gates, that can be lowered to divert the water from a lock if it needs to be worked on, or there's too much water flow or debris after storms.  There is always an alternative route for the river just above these gates but not boats.  They used to close them off for the winters just as the water was starting to freeze.  The fellow at the place we are at right now who has always lived here remembers that the gates were lowered when there was a few inches of frozen ice on top and as the water dropped away so did the ice and for a few weeks they would have the most perfect skating rink a mile or so long.

Rowers,.. going faster than we were

As we motored our way along two of these skulls of what looked like high school boys, came along in practice, as the coach in the motor boat was continually keeping them in sync.  Very graceful, and in slow motion rowing, but those little boats were cruising along quite quickly as we found out later when they caught up to us from behind.  We're stuck with a 10 mph speed limit and no wake, they're not and don't really have a wake.  Can't imagine how fast they were actually going to catch up.

Dredging barge

Passed a couple dredging barges that weren't actually in use that day, it would have been neat to see them in action.

Main Street, Little Falls

Today is September 11, a somber day in the States for obvious reasons.  We are in a town called Little Falls, we've stopped here for a couple nights, mostly because the weather wasn't looking exactly as we like, there were thunderstorms in the forecast for last night and this morning with winds gusting up to 50 kmh, so we slept in.  We must have been tired, as neither of us heard any of the storms only some of the rain. The sun and humidity saps the life out of one.

We caught up on some laundry, then went into this town to see what's around and found a lot of empty store fronts looking for renters.  There's a couple hardware stores, a couple bars, a couple sandwich shops and a liquor store on the main street operating and that's about it.  There is a grocery store and dollar store on the next street down.

The buildings in this picture, which were for the old canal, are full of antique vendors of all sorts; some crafts and a bit of food stuffs.  Yesterday we arrived in time to catch the last of the garlic festival which was held in the courtyard just on the other side of these buildings.
We learned that this town used to boast two shoe making factories as well as a bicycle factory that had 700 employees itself.  The Salada Tea company is still here and is across the canal from where we're berthed.
We'll likely be back enroute tomorrow  and will see what new adventures await us.  Til our next post...

I'm going to start by saying that I'm not a very good story teller, so I hope you will bear with me.
September 4th, we throw the lines and are on our journey from Fifty Point Marina in Ontario .... Got a good start, sacrificed my watch to the water gods (not on purpose)... so they should be happy for awhile.  Beautiful sunny day.

We found Kermie on board, so he now has a prominent position on the pedestal to keep a watch on things.
Our first port of call was Wilson, New York on Lake Ontario  and as foreigners to the US, we have to check in with their customs department each time we touch their soil.  There are videophones at most ports that we use for this check in process.  We started our journey on the long weekend, so getting through to them took some time as one could expect.  The yacht club we tied up at that night offered to take us over to the videophone, so their youngest employee Justin, loaded us into his own little outboard and gave us the tour of the harbour over to the dock.  He told us where the best place to eat was, what was happening over here and there.We took his suggestion for a dinner place at a bar and grill just down from our berth, that was having a battle of the blues bands.  The music was local and fantastic, the evening was warm and we didn't get home til dark as we didn't want to leave.... we were still hearing the music as we slipped off to sleep.

Next day we ended up in  Rochester - a long haul, and the Monday of the last long weekend of the summer.  I don't think any more boats could have crammed themselves into the harbour entrance.  We had to get fuel and phone in to customs, both at the same place.  The fuel dock had just closed, and the videophone was right in the hottest spot one could be in, and it took time again to get through.  While Al is on the phone trying to get through and I was sweating buckets, I was watching a emergency situation unfold.  We overheard that the police, coast guard, emergency personnel all emerged onto the same dock to wait for a boat being towed in which had several casualties, multiple injuries, burns etc... oh dear, and we were right there in the middle of it all as it was about to unfold... 

well, this lady came out of the pub beside us to say she was a nurse and she could help in some way if needed... she didn't realize when she read WestMarine on Al's vest that it was a marine store name and not some government official.... Oh my goodness....As it turned out, the mass casualties hopped out of the boat that got towed and got themselves onto the gurneys,  I'm not seeing too many mutiple injuries here....We finally got our customs business dealt with and headed to the yacht club for the night,  They were having a end of summer bbq on the lawn that we joined in on.  The day ended quite nicely, beautiful night again.

The next stop is to have our mast taken off so that we can travel through the Oswego and Erie canal system.  There are many fixed bridges and locks to go under and through that a mast will not fit standing up. 

She's naked

All wrapped up and ready to be shipped

Again the day was stiflingly hot if that's a word, so hot so that after the mast was off, I walked over the spit and took a dip in Lake Ontario.  Very refreshing....then a nice cold beer, the day was complete.

Now we've begun our trek down the canals, we finally got our cruising permit in Oswego, after an officer came to check us out. We had called in at a fuel dock in Oswego which was also where the videophone is.  The CBP told us to wait there for an officer to come and see us, however the manager of the fuel dock instructed us to move up the river and she said she'd tell the officer where we were....I figured we'd be deported for moving for sure... but it would have been worse taking the rath of the manager of the fuel dock.... cranky!!  The officer did find us in a short time, we visited the lockmaster to get our canal cruising permit and away we went.  We cruised through 3 locks with not too many bruises to our lady, before we called it quits in a wee little place called Minetto.  There we met another couple on their first cruise down south.  They are hauling their mast on a large wooden cradle that's up on their deck.  He listened to a bunch of older sailors from his home club....I don't think his mast is going anywhere.

Lock 08 at Oswego, NY

A few of the canal residents we spotted.  Did I mention that its very hot and humid???

We definitely have found that each day has some new experiences, surprises....

Today we were pulled over after one of the locks by the US Coast Guard for our 'on board' inspection, we passed with flying colours, We also had one of the police boats run a sonar around the outside of our boat to look for, who knows what.  I asked if they could clean off the bottom while they were at it??  They were good natured officers or I wouldn't have been so brave.  We had just gotten underway again when the skies opened and it poured poured and poured more.  We ended up going back to the  dock at the lock we had just exited until it was over, as we couldn't see where we were going very well.  The storm ceased, we carried on to Brewerton, where we are tonight.  Did I mention the heat and humidity and it doesn't cool down at night?  I didn't know that one could have a gloss of sweat over ones entire body. The only relief is going into buildings with air conditioners...not too many close at hand in a boat!!  Ice cream doesn't even help!!

We'll see what new adventure will behold us tomorrow....

Not sure when the next edition will be, certainly depends on how good the internet is that I find.

Hope you enjoy.

Getting ready...

Well, after a whirlwind fall, winter and spring we are just about ready to cut the lines and sail away.  We bought Needfull Things last fall, moved her to a different marina, and put her on the hard until this spring.  We drove back to Ontario in April and spent 3 months getting her set up to head south. 

So, at the end of August we will be heading out on the adventure of our lives, from Lake Ontario through the barge canals to the Hudson River past New York City and the statue of liberty then south via the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) to Florida and Bahamas this winter.  

We hope you enjoy following along with us as we explore the eastern seaboard.