Jack Tar Adventures

Link to today’s route:  https://share.nebo.global/voyage/f0a7406a-3257-4b48-a108-8c7f542c7785

This morning, we did our last lock on the Erie Canal, which continues west all the way to Buffalo.  I’d like to take this opportunity to reveal a few stats about the portion of the Erie Canal that we locked through:

1. We started in the Troy Federal Lock, which lifted us 17.3 feet from the tidal Hudson River into the fresh waters of the canal system.
2. The Waterford Flight, which are locks E2 through E6 lifted us 169 feet in just 1.5 miles – the highest elevation change in the shortest distance of any canal system in the world.
3. After we passed through the locks in the Mohawk River Valley, locks E7-20, we reached the canal’s highest point at about 420 feet above sea level.
4. We descended in locks E21 through E24 to reach an elevation of about 374 feet above sea level.

We completed approximately half of the Erie, but then turned north, where the Oswego Canal begins at the junction of the Oneida and Oswego Rivers.

Just about a mile south of the first lock on the Oswego is Phoenix NY, home of the Bridgehouse Brats.  If you stay at the town dock wall there, the brats will deliver your groceries or run other errands for you for tips.  The Oswego Canal only has eight locks.  We continued lock down (descend) in all of them until we reached Lake Ontario.

Peter had to make an emergency maneuver to avoid hitting a brood of ducks. And we spotted an osprey returning to her nest with breakfast for her chicks.

There were many more lake houses along this section of the canal, of all shapes and sizes. Most of them had docks, and many had boats.  We think that most of the riverbank of Erie Canal must be state-owned because there are very few houses there. 

We did the last two locks on the Oswego Canal with a motor yacht that had stabilizing engine thrusters, so all the captain had to do was use a joystick to keep his boat in place in the lock.  Peter and I, however, were struggling again in the wind.  The thrusters from the other boat stirred the water up a lot, which made it even more challenging for us to stay in place.  That, and he didn’t leave us much room to pull in behind his boat, even though there was plenty more room in the front of the lock.  Some people.  Fortunately, this time there were cables we could tie and cleat our lines around instead of just ropes we had to hold onto, so we were much more secure than when we drifted to the other side of the lock in the Erie.  We were glad that the other boat continued through lock 8 while we tied up on the free city dock wall for the afternoon and night.

Peter walked over the bridge into the town of Oswego to get a haircut.  He took pictures of where our boat was docked from the bridge over the canal and several interesting buildings in town.