Date: October 4, 2013
Day on the Cruise: 156 (Holding)
From: Home in Alabama
To: Home in Alabama
Statute Miles: 0.0 SM
Time: 0.0 Hrs
Cumulative Miles: 3,984.3 SM (Holding)
On Board: Susan, Chuck, Maggie, Trooper, Peanut
Last week we summarized our thoughts on our trip along the Great Rivers. Today we want to post our thoughts of our July cruise along the Erie Canal. We will follow with a summary of our Great Lakes experiences in the next several days.
Our cruise on the Erie Canal was long anticipated as being one of the highlights of our Great Loop trip. We wanted to travel along the historic waterway to see the Northern New York countryside and the small towns that dot the route of the Canal from the Hudson River to Buffalo.
Our expectations of the Canal portion of the trip were fueled by reading other cruising blogs and by an actual visit in 2011 to Lockport, NY, which is a Canal town near Buffalo. We anticipated seeing quaint towns that had been passed by in time, but that had neat downtown areas along the Canal. We hoped that these towns would be easy to access from the Canal and from places that we could dock and tie up. Further, we hoped for little local places to eat and to shop.
We had heard of the town walls that offered docking and amenities to boaters passing through on the Canal. We envisioned these walls as being easy to tie up to and having promenades along the walls with appropriate power and water as well as bath houses in close proximity to the dock.
What about the portions of the Canal that did not involve the towns? We expected the Locks to be old and rustic, and very small. We expected the waterway to be very narrow and primitive. We hoped the countryside along the Canal would be lush and green and very rural.
Our experience with the Canal started when we got to Kingston, N.Y on June 28. The Canal Corporation closed the Canal a few days later due to damage to the dam at Lock 12 from heavy rainfall on June 27. This unexpected closure put us in limbo in Kingston, and we extended our stay. The original stay of two nights turned into almost three weeks.
During our stay in Kingston, we visited the Erie Canal twice. The first time was a stop in Waterford, NY where the Canal starts at the Hudson River. We had driven to Vermont in a rental car and stopped at Waterford on our way back. The Hudson was very high due to the excessive rainfall. We observed the River and the first Lock on the Erie from the Waterford Visitor Center, which looked exactly like pictures that we had seen. We could not wait to get into the Locks at Waterford, and start our journey through the Canal.
Our second visit came a few weeks later when we drove up to look at the repair work on the dam at Lock 12. The Canal Corporation was not giving any information on the status of the repairs or a tentative schedule for re-opening the Canal. All we could get were rumors of "he said this", and "I heard that....." There were a lot of boaters in limbo trying to make decisions on what to do regarding their trip plans. We were actually considering back tracking to Florida and giving up on The Loop. Our look at Lock 12 gave us hope that the Canal was close to getting back on line. We stopped for a second visit at Waterford and saw some friends who had been in Kingston with us.
We finally got into the Erie Canal around 12:30 PM on Thursday, July 18. We did the "Waterford Flight" of 5 locks in a row. Transiting these locks was a lot of fun. Each Lock had a short canal between it that was narrow and very scenic. It was like going through a park as we completed the Flight.
As we journeyed West on the Eastern half of the Erie Canal, I was not prepared for the fact that so much of the Canal followed existing rivers such as the Mohawk. The Canal was wide and the scenery was very picturesque. There were dams at most
Locks, and these dams were movable in nature. I was not impressed with the marinas in that these were very small with rickety docks and not much infrastructure. There are also a lot of old boats on the Canal, some in very bad condition.
Our first wall was at a park in Amsterdam, NY. The town itself was a block or so from the water. This park had the nice wall with great amenities and an excellent restaurant on site. We really enjoyed it, except that the town was not that pleasant and the scenery along the Canal here was pretty rough.
Little Falls was the next wall. The town was on both sides of the Canal, and the scenery was pretty. The wall where we stayed was at a Canal Corp. facility, and the wall was high and that made it difficult to get on and off the boat. There were good amenities at the wall, but it was not right downtown.
We completed the Eastern portion of the Canal after a 22 mile crossing of Oneida Lake near Syracuse, NY. It was a relief to get off this Eastern section of the waterway because we always had in the back of our minds that another storm could do more damage here and delay us again. We also had completed the majority of the Locks when we finished up the Eastern section.
The Locking experience was fine. The Locks are old and the folks operating the facilities were all very nice and accommodating. They did the best they could with what they had. It was sometimes frustrating that they would not talk to us on the radio or acknowledge our communications, but when we got into the Locks, they always went out of their way to greet us.
Our lay days at Ess-Kay Marina in Brewerton were great. This was a very scenic laid back place and we enjoyed the nice folks and the other cruisers. We would stay here again in a heart beat.
Our journey on the Western half of the Erie Canal was the best part of our 12 days on the waterway. The towns were more involved with the Canal and it's traffic. Fairport and Tonawanda were highlights of what Canal towns should be. Lyons, Brockport and Medina were similar but not quite as vibrant. We loved the towns that were spread out on both sides of the Canal with bridges connecting the walls. We loved the local restaurants that are in these towns. The people that walked the walls and the promenades along the walls, and the crowds that gathered to see the boats were all very cool. All of these places had good dog walking areas and were pet friendly. We loved walking around in the towns and looking at the shops and the old architecture. These are the Erie Canal towns that I will always remember.
The Canal also becomes a Canal on the Western section. Few if any major rivers comprise the Canal once you pass the Seneca River. The waterway is narrow with long straight stretches. It takes you back in time to the days of "my mule Sal who pulled barges on the Erie Canal". There is almost a continuous bike/walking path along this section of the Erie that almost replicated the old mule tow paths. It was fun to wave to dozens of people out on the paths either biking, or walking, or just enjoying being on the banks of the waterway.
You cannot travel as fast on the Western Section of the Canal due to the configuration of the Canal and the number of boats moored along its banks. This makes for a slow go and long days. This also makes for sometimes boring travel. The scenery changes with lots of agricultural areas appearing as you get farther West. Bridges are numerous and VERY low! The lift bridges are also located on the Western section, and these have to be negotiated one at a time. Old canal structures are also more prevalent, and this includes ancient aqueducts, bridge support structures,and walls.
We took our bimini top down at Brewerton in order to get our air draft under 15'. This was an involved activity, and we had to store our Isinglass panels rolled up on the fly bridge. Putting the top back up in Tonawanda, NY was much more difficult than taking it down. A zipper on the bimini broke and we could not get one side panel zipped at the top. We also could not get a rear corner zipped up. These two issues have plaqued us when it is windy. Needless to say, the bimini deal has not been very pleasant for us!
We saw some incredible scenery and houses. I especially loved the old farm houses and barns that dotted the countryside as we glided past them in the boat. Older homes in the small villages that we passed also reminded me of times gone by. The trees and foliage was lush and green from all the rain that the region has seen this year.
I did not realize that the Canal came as close as it does to Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes. We got within 7-1/2 miles of the Lake on the Northern most part of the Canal West of Rochester. I wonder why the Canal was never connected to the Lake here?
After 34 locks and hundreds of bridges, we have completed our 12 day trip across New York on the famous Erie Canal. We enjoyed the Western portion of the Canal from Brewerton to Tonawanda most. We loved Lyons, Brockport, Medina, Fairport, and Tonawanda. We were disappointed with what they call marinas and boat clubs up here as well as the clunker boats that we saw. The sheer length of the Canal, 340 some odd miles, often made it monotonous at 6 or 7 miles per hour. But, we loved our journey on this historic waterway, and will cherish our memories of the trip forever!
Thanks for Reading!
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