1000 Islands (actually 1864 islands, but I didn’t count all of them)

We’re in the 1000 Islands area, and it is drop-dead gorgeous!

In the rush to leave the Erie Canal, 6 boats lock
through at a time.  Makes for tight maneuvering.

We finally departed Brewerton NY (it was beginning to feel like we were back in Demopolis AL, where we spent a month one week back in 2009.  John & Susan will know what I’m talking about) on July 8 and went through 7 more locks.  It is very tiring & a lot of work going thru that many locks one right after another, not to mention how dirty the boat gets from the lock walls and slimy dock lines.  We stopped just before the last lock along a free wall, because Lake Ontario was rough with a north wind, which blew right up the Oswego River to the final lock.

 

Follow the leader to the next lock

We are traveling with “Irish Lady Too”, a 42’ Grand Banks with Kurt & Susan aboard, so we got together to grill salmon for dinner.  And, of course, we had to start drinking all our “adult beverages” because when we go into Canada, we’ll pay extra duty if we bring too much.

 

 

 

 

 

Approaching Ontario Canada.  Where's Don Quixote
when you need him?!?

From our anchorage, we are close to the ocean freighters

The next day was absolutely beautiful, so we made the first opening of the last lock, and were extremely relieved to be finished with the Erie/Oswego Canals.  The lake was absolutely flat with no wind waves, (very unusual for the Great Lakes) and we played follow the leader across to the mouth of the St Lawrence River. For the most part, we let “Otto the Pilot” drive the boat.  We knew we were getting closer to Canada when the radio stations reported the air temperature as 27 degrees, and the USCG gave their VHF radio broadcasts in both English and French.  The lake & river water was a pretty blue-green, very clear, and sparkled in the wake of the boats.  The total opposite of what we saw along the Erie Canal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our anchor pulled up half the weeds off the bottom!

 

Then we entered the St Lawrence River and the 1000 Islands area.  Without boring you with all the details, here’s the “Executive Summary”:

          The water is crystal clear.  We can see at least 10’ into the water.  This is probably the prettiest place we’ve cruised so far in 7 years.

          We anchored for 2 nights and the bottoms are full of weeds.  We anchored first; then the other boat tied up to us.  Having 2 large boats rafted together must have been quite a sight!

          Hundreds of other boats around.  We’re close to Clayton NY and the Wooden Boat Museum, so we see lots of antique wooden boats.  The ship channel goes right thru the islands, so the ocean freighters are all around, and numerous.  And, of course, the locals are absolutely crazy on the weekends.

          The islands are beautiful, most have houses on them.  Some houses are castles (wait till I post all the photos), and some are mostly shacks built on a tiny island.

 

Some of the homes on the islands

 

I think this guy has more money than he needs.  We need to redistribute some of it!

Our buddy boat passing Boldt Castle on Heart Island, on our way to their dock.

In front of Boldt Castle.  You need to look it up.  Amazing story.

The power house & boiler room of Boldt Castle.  Note tour boat in background.

The boat house of Boldt Castle was on the next island.

The next castle the next day.  This time, Singer Castle built by the president of Singer Sewing Machine Co.

 

We’re now at a marina for 2 nights to do laundry, refill fresh water tanks, and finish drinking our liquor before we leave tomorrow to go through customs to enter Canada.  We’ll spend about 7 days in Canada first visiting the Canadian side of 1000 Islands, and then going west along the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and finishing by locking through the Welland Canal.  The fun ain’t over yet!

This house takes the entire island, but it's one of the 1000!

 

Our boat at anchor behind another island.  We left our boat at anchor while we took
our friend's boat to see one of the castles & tie up at their dock.

Happy Days are Here Again !!!

We just received our “Get Out of Jail Free” card, a.k.a. Canal Reopening Notice, effective tomorrow at 8 AM!  Since it’s been a week since the canal closed, I’ll bet there will be a mass migration of boats heading for the first lock tomorrow morning!  Rather than follow all those lemmings, we’ll wait until Wednesday to leave our humble surroundings.  Besides, the weather will be better Thursday and Friday for crossing Lake Ontario.

We had some enjoyment at this marina, where we were crowded in with some other boats which we originally met 100 miles ago in Waterford at the beginning of the Erie Canal.  We somehow got together each evening for some “adult beverages”  and told each other of our woes and successes.  And now, one of those boats decided to travel with us for the upcoming week or so as we go through the 1000 Islands area of the St Lawrence Seaway & Canada.

We’re planning to be in Canada by the end of this week, where wifi and phone contact is very expensive.  So the blog may take a hiatus for 7-10 days while we travel into the Canadian side of the 1000 Islands, then across the northern shore of Lake Ontario, concluding with passage through the Welland Canal (a series of 8 locks bypassing Niagara Falls).  We’ll re-enter the good ol’ US of A in Erie PA & go through customs.  Then we’ll update the blog before our next adventure!

Beautiful Downtown Brewerton NY

Or, as most of us have said, “wherethehellisbrewerton?”

We all got the dreaded email on July 1, after a week of heavy rains throughout Central New York, “Mariners are advised that the following sections of the Canal System have closed to all vessel traffic, effective immediately, due to high water levels and excessive currents caused by heavy rainfall overnight…”  We were just one more day away from getting out of the Erie Canal System into Lake Ontario when the bad news hit.



We’re at a marina in Brewerton NY, just north of Syracuse, which is jam packed with boaters who are stranded by the canal closure.  We’re tied next to 3 Grand Banks trawlers, whom we docked next to way back in Waterford NY, and whom we’ve traveled with all along the Erie Canal.  Most of us are Loopers, heading to various routes through or around Canada, eventually ending up in Chicago to head south in the inland river system.

One of our many Looper dock parties!



So, when a bunch of Loopers all end up at the same marina for a while, the only thing to do is to have dock parties every evening & tell sea stories.  If we’re together long enough, we all will run out of sea “stories” and have to start telling stories that are actually true!

 

 

 

One of the gorgeous wooden boats in Clayton

Since we’re spending the 4^th of July here (and probably several days more), we rented a car to visit the places we had planned to visit once we got out of the canal system.  In addition to seeing Fort Ontario in Oswego NY, we drove to Clayton NY to visit the Antique Boat Museum, which has the largest collection of wooden boats in the country. 



Interesting mermaid bow ornament

 

 

 

We were told by our friends Bob & Gail, about this museum several years ago when we lived in Chattanooga, so it’s been on our bucket list for a while.  And we weren’t disappointed.  Most boats are from the early 1900’s, and have so much varnish on them that the varnish factory must be working overtime.  I got a special kick out of the wooden boats built by Lyman of Sandusky Ohio.  When I spent summers with my grandmother on the Lake Erie islands in the early 1960’s (yes I’m that old), I saw many Lymans all around.  And now they’re in a museum!  (Reminds me of the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.  When we toured that place, they had one of the helicopters that I had actually flown in 1972-1973 on display!  How old does that make you feel?)



Port & starboard (red & green) running lights made into the owl's eyes

A familiar ol friend!  The rake of the bow allowed them
to take the waves of the lakes easily.

 

Antique racing boats

 

Our other excitement this week was my having surgery on the back of my hand to remove a questionable growth.  It had been festering for 2 months & I had had enough.  We luckily got an appointment with a surgeon right away, so now I’m in “sick bay”.  It’s a pain in the buttola to have some of our doctors in New Orleans, some others in Chattanooga, have our legal residence in Florida, and be in New York when we need medical attention.  Ahhhhh, the life of a full time cruiser!  During the upcoming weeks while my hand heals, Sue might have to become the Deck Ape Apprentice.

Visiting Clayton with Canal captive boating friends
Curt & Susan from Baltimore

And then last night, I get a phone call from a boater friend from New Orleans whom we haven’t talked to in several years.  We initially met her & her husband just before we bought our boat in 2008, and we ended up buying the same kind of boat that they had.  They had lost their previous boat in 2005 when the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed right over their marina.  It was really a surprising and welcomed phone call.

 

 

For now, the best way to make us happy is for the NY Canal Corporation to get rid of all that water & open the canal so we can GO CRUISING!

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.