Day 7: Day 3 on the canal

Being at a marina we decided to take advantage of the power and cook a hot breakfast. We do not have a inverter on board that will support the little electric oven we purchased for the boat & our propane stove does not work (I think it’s because of a pretty significant dent in the copper line? Yet another thing on the ever growing top ten list of stuff to fix on the boat.). Needless to say hot food is a novelty on this trip. After breakfast it was about 7:30 and we headed out for the day we had hoped to make it as far as the opening for lake ornida where we heard there was a nice amusement park and lots to do. Unfortunately when we got to lock 20 we found out it was broken. We spent the next 3-4 hours chatting with several other boaters while waiting for the repair crew to fix the lock. Once they got the lock working we were back on our way and decided to continue to push until we got through the lock right before the lake so we could try the lake crossing early in the morning to avoid any bad weather. I had read several folks accounts online mentioning that they had been hung up not being able to cross the lake due to the chop on the lake. It was about 8pm when we got though the lock before the lake and we tied up on the lock wall for the night. There were tons of bugs and we were pretty happy that Amy had picked up some bug candles and spray during her Wal-Mart run a few days ago to help deter them that night.




A few pictures of the locks:

Day 6: We continue our canal adventures

This morning we woke up just before six and continued down the river. By the time we got to lock 11 we felt we had a pretty good handle on the process and were starting to get relatively confident in our locking skills (Going forward we used lock 11 as our standard to measure our success though each of the additional locks). We went through another 10 locks or so that day before tying up at the Johnsonville Marina & Redneck boat club around 6:30 where will topped off on fuel, water, and pumped out our holding tank once again. The manager was nice enough to drive us and another group of folks to a local restaurant that would then shuttle us back that night. We had hopped to get some laundry in that night but it seemed everyone else had that same idea as well so we gave up about 9:30 and went to bed.

At this point in our trip we have used just over $70 or 23 gal worth of diesel after filling up I watched a 43 foot power boat drop almost exactly $1000 for about 300 gallons that he had burned up over that last 2 days. I figure we can cover that same distance in about 4-5 (long) days and will only use about $70 bucks to do it?

Day 5: We make the Erie Canal

We had hoped to make it to Albany but ended up there about 1pm and kept going until we arrived at Troy. We decided to stop and take on some fuel & get a late lunch. We were feeling pretty good still so we decided to head back out and at least make the Erie Canal visitor center which we herd offered free dockage and power for up to two nights. By the time we go there though it appeared all the prime spots were taken so we made the decision to head into the canal that night.

Our first lock was interesting. Being our first we radioed ahead, asked for any tips and let the lock keeper know it was our first time. He was somewhat helpful basically telling us to pull all the way forward and grab on to a rope. We headed in, Amy was pretty nervous as she really had no idea what to expect when we got into the lock and I had told her to tie a line around a cleat and just grab on to something when we got in there. I think we somehow managed to bump both the front and back of the mast while trying to grab the ropes hanging from the walls. Apparently I did not have the boat completely in neutral when we were trying to tie up so that led to a few problems as well. Needless to say we made it though our first lock ok (I believe this was the federal lock?). The next five locks were a bit more interesting as we bumped the mast a few more times (I really hope we have not damaged it?) and got the boat completely sideways in the locks twice. We made the decision to try and push for lock 7 that night and ended up locking though it a little after 9pm. This turned out to be a bit nerve-racking as the markers do not light up at night, luckily we had bought a good pair of binoculars and between the two of us we were pretty good at spotting the next marker as we progressed. Once we got though the lock we were done and tied up at the lock for the night.

The lock keepers are a friendly bunch and were pretty helpful with directions, what we should be doing better and any other questions we had about the area. Our first few locks were a bit stressful & there was some yelling back and fourth for the first three or four but after that we settled down and got a little better. One of our major problems seemed to be with getting our transmission out of gear, after we got though the first five locks I made an adjustment to our transmission cable and our locking has gone much better since. Overall we had a very long day but we felt it was productive.

Day 4 Still Stepping the Mast

I spent the morning watching them take down the next two sail boats masts. Both these boats were owned by Canadians that had spent the winter down in the Bahamas and were heading back home for the summer both had lots of story’s to tell but were not that fluent with English. Both couples owned very elegant, large and fairly new looking boats. The yard was pretty quick and got both boats masts down in about 3hrs. We were last as we needed to have some supports made to hold the mast. The yard ended up making one X for the front and a arch to go over the back of the boat made from 2x6’s that would hold the mast up above our bimini allowing not to have to sacrifice any room in our cocpit area but still forcing us to perform some interesting boat yoga to get around to the front of the boat. The yard finished with us about 3pm and Amy and Belle were still out adventuring. Amy decided to take Belle out to find a park and explore the town a bit while I stayed back and helped take the mast down. They got back about 4 and we decided to spend another night. We found some other sailors that were nice enough to drive Amy over to the local Wal-Mart for some food & bug spray and we decided to wander back into town to catch a movie and grab some dinner that night. The town had a lot to see and do and appeared to be geared largely toward tourists as they had lots of antique shops, art galleries and wood working places. We had a very positive experience at Hop a Nose, they had the best showers we have found to date, were very friendly, and the food at the marina restraint was great. Apparently the yard owner is a chef by trade but when the marina came up for sale he bought and started learning about boats. The marina is a bit of a work in progress but it is clear they are really working to make it a nice place.

Day 3 Stepping the Mast

We knew we needed to get our mast stepped prior to getting to the Erie Canal so we asked around the marina a bit and got the suggestion to head to Hop a Nose marina in Catskill. We found them in the GPS and it said we would be there at about 3pm. When we called they said no problem, come on in and they could probably get to us that day. Unfortunately several other boats had the same idea and beat us in. We decided to tie up and spend the night. The owner was nice enough to tell us what we needed to do to prep the boat to have the mast taken down and we spent the next several hours figuring out how to get the sails off, take off the boom and loosen the stays. That night we all headed to the near by ice cream shop for a treat. They had a bunch of little rides like what one might find outside of a Wal-Mart or Meijer and Belle quickly found some kids her age to play with, we hung around until dark then headed back to the boat for the night.

Day 2 on the Hudson River

We got a bit of a late start not leaving the dock until around 9. We spent another long day on the Hudson traveling for about 10hrs. Going by West Point was neat; I wish we had time to stop for the tour as I’m sure it would have been very interesting. We passed by so many huge houses that day that we just could not pick out our favorite so we decided we were better off with our boat and kept going. On a side note Amy decided that any of the houses landscaped all the way down to the water must be reserved for folks with crazy money (clearly not us yet). Overall we were still doing pretty well with our boat, we had veered off of the channel at one point in the day and got caught up in some pretty deep sea weed that got wrapped up in the prop. I did my best to untangle it by shifting from forward to reverse a few times and it seemed to help getting our speed back up from 3 knots to 5 again. We pulled in to Norrie Point Marina at about 7:30 that night and again we were all pretty tired. I coming in I thought I had the boat all lined up for a nice soft landing but did not realize the current was as strong as it was and ended up hitting the dock pretty hard (I hope that scratch comes out?) Unfortunately they did not have showers or fuel but they did have a pump out and ice and the staff was very nice.

So the adventure finally starts..

We got word Wed night that our issues had been fixed so we rented a car for a one way trip. We left Thursday morning and arrived late Thursday night. We were tired and it started to rain shortly after we arrived. We quickly found several leaks and were so tired that we just lived with them for the night. The next day it was time for a test run. We took the boat out of the dock, scared the heck out of several of the boat owners across from us as I almost ran into a few of them on the way out of the slip but thanks to heroics on the part of the marina staff no damage was done and we made it out ok. I think the marina staff was a bit worried about us as the mechanics followed us for about 30 min in their little boat to ensure we were ok?

For the next two hours we ran up and down the channel wide open and everything seemed to be running fine, with that we decided we were ready to leave. After the botched take off from dock I knew there was no way I was going to be able to back this boat back into the slip again so we pulled up to the gas dock and asked for some help (secretly I think they were happy I did, as I may have mentioned before this was sort of a high end marina and most of the boats around me probably started around 250k). It was time to pick up a few last minutes supplies, drop the rental car and go… Well apparently the rental car company decided to close early that day and we were stuck until the next day with the car. No problem with another trip to West Marine I got a few more fuel filters, traded my smaller GPS for one with a larger screen, and got some new fender holders. The next day we got up went to breakfast messed around a bit and went to return the rental car once again only to find out they apparently closed at noon and it was 12:15… Ugh.. After a number of phone calls we finally found one office that was open on Sunday so were stuck in Sea Bright for one more day.

Finally Sunday comes, as you may have guessed we were the first ones in the office to get our car returned. Luckily the office was nice enough to drop us off at the marina. It was about 10:30am and we were finally ready to leave.

The second time out of the dock was no problem, but we did have one of the marina staff on standby should we need some help. We radioed to the first bridge, waited 15min and had no problem getting though, we could see the next bridge and called ahead again np, so we circled around for a bit but I guess we were too far out as they decided not to open for us, after calling back again they said they would open in another 30min… This time we made sure to get extra close and made several follow up calls on the radio to ensure they remembered we were there and waiting for them. No problem this time they opened and we were headed for the Hudson bay. It was a beautiful day, the bay was clam. We went past the statue of Liberty & Elis Island, it was really neat to see them up close. I can’t stress how cool it was to go by the statue in our own boat to see it up close. This was my first time seeing it this close as I had only gone by it once before on a harbor cruise. We decided that we were making good time and the tide was with us so we kept going until we got to Terry Town Marina. We had put in about 50 miles that day, put up with six foot waves for the last two hours of our trip and were pretty happy with what was really our first day out on the boat. The marina was nice enough to give us an end dock and we had little trouble ting up for the night, we visited the restraint at the marina and the lobster stuffed with crab meat was the best I have ever had! The only downside of our experience at Terry Town was the ¾ mile walk to the rest room from where our boat was tied up, this wore pretty thin with the girls especially since it was a pretty windy night and the fact that they turned off our power at 8:30am before we had breakfast made. Other then that our night there was pretty much what one would expect.