22 Locks down, 8 to go

Inside one of the lock chambers. Ahead are the
gates of the next lock.

We left Waterford on our Erie Canal trip westward on Wednesday June 24, having enjoyed our stay at the dock & meeting several other boaters.  At the time, we didn’t know that we’d meet up with them again for the next two evenings, since we all chose the same town docks to stay at.

The Admiral has everything under control

The first set of locks are 5 locks packed very close together, called the “Waterford Flight”.  Their claim to fame is that they provide the highest lift (about 150’) over the shortest distance of any Canal in the world.  The lock operators coordinate their lock doors so that one group of boats can proceed all the way through in about 2 hours’ time.  And it takes about an hour to cycle the locks.  So we’re sitting at the Waterford dock monitoring the VHF radio to time our departure to the first lock, and suddenly we see the lower gates opening up.  We either leave right now, or wait for an hour until the next cycle.  We unplugged shore power, threw off our lines, & were underway in about 2 minutes!

 

 

 

Approaching Lock 7. Lower gates are open & water
leaking thru the upper gates.

These locks are different from those on the Tennessee River and the Tenn-Tom Waterway in that they provide long wet dirty slimy ropes to hang on to or to wrap around the boat cleat, rather than providing floating mooring bits.  Using their ropes tied to the top of the lock, we’re at the bottom of the lock 30+ feet from the attachment point, which allows us to swing away from the lock wall by 10-15’.  Several times, Sue had to go back to the helm to power us back against the wall, so we didn’t hit the other boats in the lock.  Not a real good design, but I guess back in the days of the barges & the mules, it looked good on paper.

The Admiral volunteered to handle
the slimy ropes inside the locks

First the road bridge, then the lower gate lifts vertically
then the chamber & upper swing gates

We locked up during the first 20 locks, as we progressed west through the mountains of central New York.  The past 2 locks leading to Lake Oneida were descending.  Sue guided the boat to a perfect landing inside the lock 21 times, where she had to stop the boat within 4’ of the hanging rope, while simultaneously be only 1-2’ away from the lock wall.  And only once did she end up with a “do over” landing, but it was a doozy!

 

 

 

Tied to the small town dock of Amsterdam NY

We stopped for most nights at small town docks (yes, the towns were small & the docks were also), which were very inexpensive.  And for a couple more nights, we stayed at free docks, which had no power or water, but they were free!  Some people think we’re rich because we have a boat; but in truth, we’re NOT rich because we have a boat!

 

At Amsterdam, an unexpected water ski show right next to the boat!

At the wall of Lock 18 for the night.  It's FREE!
Note the spider web of dock lines, since there were only 2 places to tie.

 

We’ll finish the Erie Canal soon & head north to Lake Ontario via the 23-mile Oswego Canal.  Then we’ll wait for a weather window to go out onto the lake for our trip down the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Cruising the Canal through the NY mountains, sure looks a lot like the Tennessee River

 

A Canal working tug, sporting the colors of the NY State Canal Corp

Waterford Visitors Center, at the confluence of the Erie Canal & the Hudson River

Waterford Visitor's Center, where all the boats stop
to prepare for travel either west along the Erie Canal
or south down the Hudson River

Confluence?!?  That’s a mighty big word for a retired person!  My prolific prolixity gets carried away sometimes.

We have been at this place by car many times over the years when we visited my brother & his family, when they lived right here in Waterford.  We have walked the dock, watched the locks, and talked with boaters many times in preparation for the time that we finally brought our boat here.   Well, we finally made it!



At Waterford, we made it under this bridge!

We had spent the past week just north of here, technically on the Champlain Canal, at a marina that was a “work in progress”.  The dock was shaky, the shore power only had 106 Volts (try running all your appliances on such low voltage), and very little water pressure.  On top of that, they wanted $2/ft for overnight dockage, which in our case totaled $96/night.  But it was very convenient to my sister-in-law’s home, where I spent evenings enjoying her fabulous cooking while Sue flew down to Nashville/Chattanooga to care for her mother.

Besides, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow & we needed to get under the low bridge before the canal water levels came back up.  I spent the past week taking down several light posts on the boat, as well as the dinghy davit, to lower our height requirement by 8”.  As we went under the bridge this morning, I climbed out onto the dinghy deck to see if we were going to clear.  We did, but only by about 9”.  As we passed underneath, I reached up & touched the bottom of the bridge steel.

We traveled the short 4 miles to Waterford & got a space on the floating dock.  Good thing we arrived when we did.  A short 30 minutes later, 6 boats showed up & took all the remaining space.  Dockage is free at this place, and a one-time fee of $10 will buy electric for as long as you stay.  And the power is a full 120 volts!

Friend Gail, sister-in-law Cindy, and us enjoying dinner
inside a castle near Canajoharie

Central New York has had excessive amounts of rain the past 2 weeks, to the point that the Erie Canal is closed about 100 miles west of here.  Won’t open for a couple more days, making a 10-day closure IF there is no more rain!  So we don’t need to be in a hurry to leave here.  We’ll have 20+ locks to pass through along the canal, so at some point, we might get good at it.  This next segment of our trip takes us to Oswego NY, on the shore of Lake Ontairo.  Then down the St Lawrence River to the 1000 Island area.  More photo ops than you can shake a stick at!

Sights along the Hudson River

For a minute, I thought I was in New Orleans!

We were ready to get underway early on June 10 on our last leg northbound, but we decided to wait until 1330 for a flood tide on the river to give us a boost from the tail current.  In planning our travel up the Hudson, I found that there are 4-5’ tides from NYC all the way past Albany to the Federal Lock at Troy.  This will create currents along the river up to 2 mph, which can be either with you or against you.  My boat already burns enough fuel, so we chose the tail current whenever possible.

 

We could almost set our watches to the Amtrack train

We took our time heading north, and anchored two nights along the last 100 miles to Waterford NY.  One anchorage was nice & quiet, except for the hourly Amtrack train running right along the river from NYC northbound.  I was surprised at how few other boats were on the river, since I knew that many other “Loopers” were headed north by this time.  In fact, we saw a fellow “Looper” tied up at a marina that we passed, whom we had docked next to at both Cape May NJ as well as Staten Island NY.  We called them on the VHF radio to say “hi”.

USMA at West Point.  GO NAVY!!

Some resemblance to the Tennessee River

Culinary Institute of America from the River.  YUM!

Bannerman's Castle.  There's a story here somewhere!

A big surprise as we round a corner of the river.
These big guys travel as far upriver as Albany.

Finally!  The Troy Federal Lock!

Then on June 12, we finally saw the place for which we had been searching for about the last two years……the Troy Federal Lock.  This meant the end (finally) to salt water and its tides and currents.  No more 2+ mph currents swinging us at anchor every 6 hours around our anchor rode (and horribly twisting the trip line around the rode), and no more timing the 8’ tides to determine whether you’ll make it through the shoaling along the ICW.  From now until sometime in November when we get back south to Mobile Bay, we’ll be in fresh water with no tides.

At Waterford NY, the Hudson River meets the Erie Canal
and the Champlain Canal

But instead of tides, we get to worry about our height clearances passing under all the bridges crossing the Erie & Oswego Canals.  Just prior to the C-1 Lock (the first one on the Champlain Canal), we barely made it under a bridge which was charted at 22’ clearance, but was really about 19.8’, and we cleared by about 4 inches.  We’ll have to pass back under that bridge next week when we leave to begin the Erie Canal westward, and hope that we don’t have much rain between now & then.

 

We’re staying for a week at a marina close to my sister-in-law Cindy.  We’ll visit a lot, eat a lot of her excellent lasagna, and get caught up on chores on the boat.  Sue will spend most of the week back in Tennessee taking care of her mother.  Then we’ll re-stock provisions, do some trip planning, and head west, eventually to Chicago.

Hudson River Valley

We put the boat at a marina in Croton-on-Hudson (ain’t that a cute name for a town), rented a car for a couple days, and spent both our Social Security checks acting like tourists along the mid-Hudson Valley.

A replica of the Fokker DR-1 triplane from 1917, similar
to what the Red Baron flew

We started out by visiting Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome just north of Poughkeepsie (who ever thought of that word?), where resides the largest collection of aircraft dating from 1903 when Orville & Wilbur did their thing, to about the 1930’s.  Biplanes and triplanes everywhere, some of them original yet, and some of them in flying condition.  I had first heard about this place in 1975, so I wanted to see what it was all about.  Unfortunately, the weekly airshows start next weekend, after we’re gone.  Looking at those aircraft, we realized that the saying was very true: “Those daring young men in their flying machines”.

 

 

 

Sue was intrigued by the early machine guns, which
originally shot off the wood propellers.  Later the propellers
had a metal back side to deflect the bullets.

 

 

The chapel, parade grounds & dining hall at USMA.
I won't tell you about the time we flew 3 Navy helicopters
up the Hudson & yelled on our loud speakers as we passed
the USMA..

The next day we humbled ourselves to tour the US Military Academy at West Point, where all the pennants said “Beat Navy”.  The history of that place is amazing, going all the way back to George Washington & them nasty British redcoats.  I wore my shirt with the Naval Aviator wings on it, but couldn’t get a rise out of anyone.

 

 

 

 

View of the Hudson from the USMA.  Didn't some General say
to capture the high ground to win the battles?

 

That afternoon we went south a bit to the Village of Sleepy Hollow (yes, Virginia, there really is such a place) where a guy named after George (Washington Irving) really did know someone named Ichabod Crane, and started a legend about what he wished had happened.  We also toured the cemetery where the Irving family is buried; the same cemetery wherein lies Andrew Carnegie, William Rockefeller, Walter Chrysler & Leona Helmsley.

 

 

Restored home of FDR (and his mother)
at Hyde Park

During the next two days we learned about the Roosevelt family of Hyde Park NY.  Franklin Roosevelt was the only person to have been elected President 4 separate times (prior to term limits), and lived almost his entire political career paralyzed by polio.  His wife Eleanor (a distant cousin & a niece of Teddy Roosevelt) was a remarkable woman herself and, as a strong activist for human rights, was years ahead of her time.

 

 

 

At the Culinary Institute.  Do we look like we're starving?

Finally, we had to force ourselves to tour the Culinary Institute of America, also in Hyde Park, to see how all the great chefs of the world are trained.  And, of course, we just HAD to feed our appetite and our faces, at one of the four restaurants on site.  Yeah, I know, this cruising lifestyle is tough, but someone just has to do it!

Today is a weather day in port as the cold front comes through, but tomorrow we head north again.  We’ll take 3 days traveling the last 100 miles up the Hudson to Waterford NY, where the Erie Canal joins in.  We’ve picked a couple nice anchorages along the way, which should be quite enjoyable.

New York City

the new World Trade Center

What can I say?  No other place on earth like it!  We spent 4 days & nights in the city & had a blast!  Sue is still vibrating from all the noise & excitement.

By staying in Staten Island, it took us just over an hour each time we went into or out of the city, either by subway/ferry or by bus.  There is a Looper who lives at Great Kills in Staten Island who is the AGLCA Harbor Host for NYC & he went way above & beyond to make our stay comfortable & memorable.

We have been to NYC several times before, especially since our daughter went to college at New York University – right in the middle of Greenwich Village.  We had even done Times Square at New Year’s Eve, so we had that one crossed off our bucket list.  So this time, we did something old, something new, and most importantly, we DID NOT get lost in the city!

At the 9/11 Memorial.  The buildings above our heads
are REFLECTED by the glass building behind us.

At John's Italian restaurant, where we first ate in 1994



Riding the Staten Island Ferry, we had an escort with
a machine gun

We saw the new 9/11 Memorial & museum, ate Italian at a favorite restaurant in East Village, visited MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art) & saw the original painting by Henri Rousseau which our granddaughter had copied for an art contest in New Orleans, saw two Broadway shows (we finally saw “Phantom of the Opera” after our daughter had seen it twice; and we saw “Airline Highway”, about life in a slum motel along Airline Highway in New Orleans), ate some good food but also ate hot dogs from the corner street vendor (and survived), and made many many memories.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting in a Dunkin Donuts along Fulton Street, I look across the street
to see the original headquarters of Keuffel & Esser.  All you engineers will
recognize K & E as the inventor of the slide rule.  I remember using my
father's slide rule when I started college (in the prehistoric days!)

Is there any other reason NOT to drive a car in downtown Manhattan ?!?

Oh wait........how about non-stop traffic jams !?!

We saw familiar sights

 

Times Square at night

Next to Times Square, you chocoholics will love this place!

 

Nonchalantly cruising into New York Harbor
 

 

A highlight of this part of our travels was taking our own boat through New York Harbor, dodging the ubiquitous ferry boats, to take some dynamite photos right in front of the Statue of Liberty.  At the time, we had another Looper boat with us, so we photographed each other’s boat in front of the lady.

 

 

 

Just because I'm heading into the world's busiest harbor,
do I look worried?

 

Looking right at the Lady

Our friends proved that we were there, even with our dirty moustache on the bow.

On our departure day, we started by leaving Staten Island into Raritan Bay, where the seas were 2-4’ with whitecaps everywhere, and ended the day 50 miles north of NYC along the quiet calm Hudson River.  Quite a day.

Just a passing friend.  Minutes later we saw him shooting all
his water cannon in lower Manhattan

P.S. (for those of you who used to write letters with paper & pen)
I saw this slogan on a Looper's website:

         ADVENTCHA BEFORE DEMENCHA

seems to fit