The Erie Canal - Part 1

The Erie Canal, built between 1817 and 1825, is 363 miles long and was the first all-water link between the Atlantic Seaboard and the Great Lakes. It opened vast areas of the upper Midwest to settlement and commercial agriculture and made New York City the nation’s prime seaport and seat of world trade. The current canal has 35 locks which will raise us approximately 565 feet to the level of Lake Erie. After hearing so much about it, we were anxious to get started.

We bought a season pass for $75 so we could take our time; the other options are 2-day and 10-day passes. We left Waterford on Tuesday August 19th in a light drizzle so on went the foul weather gear. Locks 2 thru 6 (remember there is no Lock #1) are called “the Flight of Five” and raise you 169 feet in just 1.5 miles. This is Paul keeping our mast off the lock wall at Lock 4.

These locks all had ropes for your bow and stern and some also have a cable or pipe to tie at midships. We found having the line at amidships and using a boat hook at the bow and stern was just as effective as holding onto the slimy lock ropes.

Here’s an eastbound boat exiting the lock we’re heading for next. It was one lock right after another and kept us very busy for a couple of hours.

This first part of the Erie actually follows the Mohawk River. This is one of the reasons we had to have the mast lowered – lots of low bridges.

This dam at Lock 8 is quite wide, some are much smaller.

We went through a total of TEN locks on Tuesday – definitely a record for us. The highest lift was 35 feet and the lowest was 12 feet. We tied up for the night just past Lock #11 at Amsterdam, NY. This was a free dock with electricity provided by the town but not a lot happening. We walked to find a store in the morning but weren’t successful so on we went. It’s getting quite cool at night and the feeling of fall is definitely in the air.

There were only two locks to negotiate the next day but the wind was brisk so we had to be vigilant about not letting the mast hit the lock walls. Luckily they were only a 12ft. and 8ft. rise so no real problem. The locktender was wearing a NY Jets shirt so we had the Brett Farve discussion. The Jets fans don’t seem that thrilled to have him.

It felt rather odd to be cruising down the Mohawk at 7mph with the traffic of I-90 (NY Thruway) on our left and freight trains speeding by on our right!

We stopped for the night at Canajoharie and tied behind m/v Knot Home. We’d first met these Loopers from FL, Larry and Dorothy, in Charleston, SC so it was fun to share Loop adventure stories with them at happy hour on their boat. (The wooden cut-out dog is one of three there to scare away the geese. It's not working so well; the lawn you see is full of goose doo doo!)

Canajoharie means “the pot that washes itself” in a native language. So we took a walk to see this natural wonder scoured into the creek’s dolostone bedrock. Paul is standing in front of one of the boiling pots but the water was rather low so it wasn’t as dramatic as it could have been but still neat to see.

Another item of interest was this traffic light they call a “dummy light”. It’s supposedly one of the earliest traffic lights and the oldest in the country still in use today – wow!

Enough excitement for one blog posting!