September 10-11

After saying goodbye to Debbie and Wayne, we traveled a full day to guard gate 2, where we stayed for the night.

Much of the eastern section of the Erie Canal passes through the Mohawk River Valley. It is very picturesque with forested hills rising on both sides. It is also becoming more populated and so there is a greater awareness of both traffic and housing.

Of this little place just east of Schenectady, called Llenroc (Cornell spelled backwards) the cruising guide says it has 30 000 square feet with 15 fireplaces, ten bathrooms and an indoor pool bar with two portholes that look underwater into the pool.

This is our last day on the Erie Canal, and we have two miles to cover. The guide book says boaters should allow two hours for this section. There are five locks collectively known as the Waterford Flight which will lower us 169 feet. This is the highest set of locks in the world.

Waterford was quite full and we ended up tying to the lock wall just below the lock.

Thirty-four locks without a scratch! Feeling pretty good about this, and rather confident that we had earned our canalmen’s papers, we settled down to coffee and breakfast when all of a sudden everything started to rock and shake. I scrambled up to the cockpit and looked back at the lock to see this torrent of water leaving the lock for a descending vessel. As soon as things calmed down, we moved the boat to a more secure location and spent the rest of the day doing laundry, grocery shopping and searching out that elusive Internet connection.

One of the things we love about cruising is the people we meet. While doing laundry, we spent a most enjoyable and informative hour talking with Barbara. She and her husband, from Germany, have been cruising for the last seven years throughout North and South America. We have so much to learn, and people are so wonderful about sharing.

September 8-9


During our exploring yesterday, we discovered that Little Falls would be hosting the annual Garlic and Herb Festival. We decided to spend the morning at the festival before moving on. Debbie found the perfect hat and we enjoyed a tasty lunch.


Immediately upon leaving Little Falls you pass through Lock 17, which has a vertical drop of 40.5 feet. This makes it the largest drop on the Erie Canal. It is also unique in that it is one of only two locks in North America that has a gate that is lifted above the boater. All other locks have doors that swing open as the vessel passes through.

We passed through three more locks before tying up at the west end of lock 13.

The next day we made another short hop from lock 13 to Amsterdam, NY. It has been raining quite steadily through yesterday evening and today, so we spent the afternoon developing our euchre skills. After dinner, the crew of the s/v Gorma hosted the Amsterdam Invitational ‘Goose and Juice’ Euchre Championship. Calling upon all of their resources, mostly legal, Debbie and her partner shocked their opponents with a one-game victory!

September 6-7

Debbie and Wayne met us in Rome, NY last night. After getting settled aboard, we drove (a luxury) over to the Savoy Hotel for a great dinner. The Savoy will be celebrating its centennial next year. The towns along the canal are usually quite old, with a history dating back to times when they supported this major transportation route.

Today we moved on to Herkimer and tied up to a wall for the night. It seems that through this section of the canal we are either next to a major highway or beside a busy railroad track, or both.

The next day we made a short hop to Little Falls. The weather has been extremely warm the past couple of days, with afternoon highs in the mid-90’s. This made Little Falls a prime destination as it has a visitor’s centre with showers. This is the town of Little Falls as seen from the bridge crossing from the visitor centre to town.

September 4-5

We departed from Lock 27 early on Tuesday morning. The mist was rising from the water and it was a beautiful morning. It was also particularly memorable, especially for the ‘admiral’, as it marked the first day of official retirement. You be the judge of how difficult this transition appears to be.

We tied up to the canal wall in Brewerton for the night. This was eventful for two reasons for us. There were three boats already tied to the wall, a sailboat and two trawlers. They were all from Canada and following a similar plan to ours. It is nice to know there are others to meet again along the way

The ‘middle’ section of the Erie Canal passes from Lyons to Rome. It follows the Seneca River and traverses Lake Oneida. It is more open and more populated, with many stretches of lovely homes.

There are seven locks along this section. Three of them are lift locks which raise the boat to a higher level. They are somewhat more turbulent and we have to work a little harder to keep the boat where we want it against the lock wall.


Another early start on Wednesday morning so that we can cross Lake Oneida in a calm. As it turns out, it is quite breezy to start, and becomes calmer throughout the trip. Once across the lake we make our way to Rome, where we meet Debbie and Wayne. They are going to join us for the next part of the trip.

We have made one other realization about the middle part of the Erie Canal. While there are many walls to tie up to, very few of them provide water or washroom facilities. It has been a couple of days since our last shower, and we are becoming less enamoured with ourselves, let alone each other. We decide to walk down to a small marina and inquire about the possibility of getting a shower. We track down the owner who says, ‘I don’t usually do this, but I could let you have a quick shower for … $20. Ya know, the price of hot water …’

We thanked him and returned, a little dejected, to the boat. Along the way Corinne asked, ‘Do you think we could fill that plastic shower bag. We did, and it felt great. We took a couple of pictures, thinking it would be interesting to include on the blog. After looking at them, it was unanimous - no one needs to see that!

September 3

We got a lazy start today, after a longer trip yesterday. Our passage took us from the ‘western’ part of the Erie Canal to the beginning of the ‘middle’ part. We are learning that each section has a personality of its own. We spent the night tied up to the lock wall on the eastern side of Lock 27. This picture is waiting to enter the lock. The lock keeper must either raise or lower the water for your passage.

The western section, from Tonawanda to Lyons, is very much a man-made section of the canal with narrow passages and many potential stopping spots along the canal walls. There is a towpath paralleling the shores of the canal which has been restored to make excellent biking and walking trails.

There is also a vibrant business in canal boats that people rent for a week or two to travel up and down the canal. They are very comfortable boats and the people we saw seemed to be having a great time – for the most part.

Earlier on, one of these boats came in to dock behind us, misjudged the current badly, and started spinning around so as to land on top of us. The cap’n managed to back it out into canal and take another run at it. He came head on to the canal wall and crashed magnificently into the concrete abutment, swung around slowly, and we were able to secure the boat without further incident. A husband and wife came off the boat and thanked us profusely for helping. The cap’n said he wasn’t really worried, because the boat was made of steel, weighed twelve tons, and built as strong as a tank. We can attest to that after seeing the big hunk of concrete it took out of the wall and shudder to think of what it would have done to our boat.

A few minutes later the wife, a real sweetheart, came by with two small bottles of wine and said she was so thankful we were there to help, as she was quite scared.

Shortly after that the third crewmember, the brother came by and said he didn’t know how the cap’n could be so stupid. He himself had years of experience with boats and his brother refused to listen to his advice. He was getting fed up.

The next day they pulled into Bridgeport, right in front of of us, and we were up in a flash to help again. This time the brother was at the helm, and guess what? Crash into the wall, just miss the boat behind them, give it one more try and six people were scrambling to get them safely moored.

The following morning, as we were preparing to cast off, the cap’n dropped by with four tomatoes from his wife’s garden and thanks for helping out.

September 2

It is Sunday of the long weekend, and being a little impatient, we have decided to move on. We have no particular destination in mind, and there are so many choices.

While in Brockport, we stumbled upon a quite remarkable grocery store called Wegman’s. We talked to the manager, and he told us they had a ‘flagship’ store in Pittsburg – about 30 miles away. As we were motoring along, Corinne said, ‘You don’t think he said the store was in Pittsford?’ Sure enough, when we consulted Skipper Bob, it noted a Wegman’s in Pittsford, another town along the canal. We arrived just after noon and after lunch, walked the two miles to the store.

This is an amazing store with so many tantalizing things to tempt you. It is good to shop with only a pack and a long walk, because it enforces at least a little restraint.

The drawback to this adventure was everything was full through our next couple of potential stops, and we ended up mooring to a lock wall at dusk in Newark, NY.

August 29 - September 1

Aug 29 was a beautiful day, hot and sunny, just made for relaxing in Middleport. We spent a good part of the afternoon sitting outside of the local library working on the blog and catching up on email, and the rest of the day just …

Our neighbour along the canal was telling us that one of Middleport’s highlights is the wing-dings at the local bar. Not wanting to miss out on a highlight, we went over for a supper of the best wings that we remember eating.

Aug 30 started out overcast and worked into occasional showers – really a perfect day for traveling. We went as far as Bridgeport, the home of SUNY, (State University of New York) and spent a couple of days there, as it is the long weekend and becoming difficult to find dockspace. It is a wonderful little town, with a very nice tourist and visitor facility along the canal. The centre is staffed by a core of over 100 volunteers and is a big tourist draw for the town.