Our Voyage

Its not so much about anything else other than long distances between ports and not wanting to be on the water at night.  As a result, if the winds aren’t just right its motor city for this sailboat.  For example, Lake Erie was dead calm and we needed to go 72mi the first day, so no sailing.  The next day we had to do 35mi into a 5-10kt head wind so no sailing.  The following day was dead calm with nasty winds predicted for the following couple days so it was a long 107mi day to the far end of the lake completing our Lake Erie adventure and missing some strong headwinds.  Bypassing some treasures, like Cleveland to avoid weather is a hard pill to swallow but then it was more important to do Cedar Point amusement park than the rock’n roll hall of fame. But back on point, this trip is not conducive to sailing.  Maybe in the Bahamas, or if we sail in the Atlantic up the East Coast, but all this inland waterway stuff we won’t.  When we “sail” its norma...

Each evening I make plans for the next day, yet every morning I have some apprehension that raises its head about leaving what we know and heading out into the unknown, especially on dark cloudy windy days.  It’s not like Star Trek, we have charts, maps, guidebooks, satellite imagery, and a host of other knowledge at our finger tips but there is something to never having been there.  Am I noticing the map scale properly, will the anchorage already be full, which way will the wind be blowing, is there a current we’ll be fighting, will the forecast be wrong, will there be a mechanical failure, and on and on.  Yet everyday we’ve made it to our next destination, maybe not the one we planned at the start of the day but a destination that has been interesting in its own right and the next morning I have that same anxiety of the unknown.  We have a wall hanging in the main salon that we picked up years ago.  But even being reminded of it constantly doesn’t remove...

The last few miles of the canal uses the Niagara River to make the connection with Lake Erie at the city of Buffalo NY.  There is one last lock parallel the river that lifted us about 15ft, the fall of the river for the final 8-mile run.  From the top of the lock there is a dike to separate us from the raging Niagara which was flowing at 12kts!  We would have gone over the falls had we traveled the river.  The dike didn’t look very substantial as shown in the picture but it worked. How appropriate that General Mills has a plant in Buffalo that waffles the smell of fresh baked Cheerios.  And how sweet to see the mast back where it belongs, yeah!  What an amazing waterway full of history and surprise.  So glad we did the full length, the best towns are west of the Oswego exit to Lake Ontario.  It’s glory years have passed and it’s no longer commercial but it is a wonderful opportunity for those with a boat to explore some history and to dream ...

It is an amazing spectacle of God’s imagination; it is an unparalleled work of art.  Everyone says the Canadian side is best.  Heck I even said this time, recalling the great time I had on the Canadian side my only other time in 1984.  But I’m no longer so sure since we enjoyed the USA side the most this go around.  Maybe it was the hordes of tourist in Canada, or the crowd control, or the crazy pricing, or the commercialization but we seemed to experience the power of the water more from America where you could walk right up to the waters edge and even touch it in a few places.  It was amazingly open but getting so close was an entirely different perspective than the overview shots from Canada. My favorite view was the water flowing down the main river to the American side of the horseshoe that disappeared over an edge with the backdrop of the sheet of falling water from the Canadian side of the horseshoe and the blue sky above.  It was unparalleled beau...

The Governor Roosevelt is tug built in 1928 that is still operational today.  It is a working museum piece that they still varnish the wood and polish the brass.  It’s been updated with a new propulsion plant, modern electronics, modern wiring and probably a lot of new timbers but it’s reminiscent of our past and it was exciting to see that they were keeping it in use pushing barges around.  Other NY canal boats up and down the canal were painted the same, with NYCS blue and gold.  And it was clear the crews were aware the privilege and proud the beautiful boat they worked. You’ll see this canal boat in the dictionary under the definition of “cute boat.”  I can’t imagine what they use it for but it looked like it could still be used.

I like the old school navigation of dead reckoning even if it’s not very accurate.  With a compass built into our binoculars, its easy and accurate to get a bearing.  As we were going down Lake Erie I was wondering where the Weland canal came in (the canal around Niagara Falls), I was hoping to see some commercial traffic.  I could see it on the electronic charts but I couldn’t see it on land and then it hit me, this is a big loss with electronic charts, not being able to get a bearing to a target.  I’m sure there is a way, but I haven’t figured it out yet.  Likewise, I wouldn’t know how to put a bearing in to validate our current position.  Instead, I use the phone or the iPad to validate the chartplotter and we already know how well those devices have worked in Canada -NOT.  As long as GPS doesn’t go out I’ll be fine, but if I need to dead reckon, give me those paper charts!

What can I say, GPS has our 20,000lbs boat plowing through a couple hundred feet of soil!  The next time someone tells you how accurate their GPS is, just remember how accurate it is. While we’re on the topic, I was really impressed my phone and iPad “GPS” and it’s ability to pinpoint our position on Navionics charts and Google Maps.  I had become rather dependent on it, preferring my phone chart to the ships chart plotter.  That is until they both stopped working somewhere around the Canadian border.  Turns out the phone has a very poor GPS (Samsung S8) that it supplements with Wi-Fi signals that Google maps as they drive up and down the streets.  The iPad doesn’t even have a GPS, it is totally Wi-Fi even though I was assured when I bought it that it did.  Brian’s Samsung tablet works flawlessly.  So now I have a tablet and Brian has an iPad.  Guess only those of us on the fringes need worry about the details.

We were traveling down one of the straighter sections of canal when a faster sailboat roared by us at 7kts versus our 6kts.  Even under power it’s hard to lose to another sailboat.  But he wasn’t keeping a tight helm and I could imagine the pilot yacking away and periodically looking up and making course adjustments, so I felt better about losing out.  When he did a strong S-curve up ahead underneath a bridge, I assumed he swerved to avoid a log or something in the water.  Ha, no such thing, now I think he was using his auto pilot and it was simply searching for the magnetic heading.  Because as we traveled under the same bridge our autopilot did the same thing to our boat!  The iron in the bridge added about 20deg variance to the heading and then swung back minus 20 as it oscillated back to the original heading.  This became entertainment for me measuring the MagVar as we transited different bridges.  The old railroad bridges had the most magvar,...

The Seneca River, that is the basis of the western branch of the Erie Canal west of Rochester, is mostly a swamp that is meanadering until it mostly gives up and becomes a man made ditch.  Until that transition, there are pockets of development that made us think of the Lousiania Bayou.  We saw more people interacting with the waterway along this section than anywhere else.  People were out fishing, swimming, floating, sitting, grilling, and playing.  Some had amazing tiki bars.  What stood out to us wasn’t the obvious wealth difference but that they seemed to be having fun.  Spending lots of money isn’t necessary for having fun. We stopped along the way at Voss’s restaurant and bought steak sandwiches for $5.95/ea.  I had low expectation but it came highly recommended by the Ilion marina owner.  It was amazing, a large piece of real meat, like something you would serve for dinner, on a low-quality white bread bun with roasted onions and...

I’m going to guess, but I’m thinking the Fairport Yacht Club would welcome you with open arms if you brought a libation to share.  I’ll also bet they’ve had some fun times under the tent as well.  Goes to show you don’t need hallowed halls to be a yacht club.

Even a “Free Wall” Doesn’t Attract Some Customers.  At times, actually most of the time, we felt we had the canal completely to ourselves.

Most people think boating on rivers is safer than oceans.  It certainly doesn’t have the risk associated with big storms and monster waves.  But it does have many other risks like logs, rocks, strong currents, shoaling and lots of distractions.  As old timers like to say, inland waters don’t have “sea way.”  Likewise, the margin to disaster without seaway has shrunk from hours to seconds; things happen very quickly on rivers, you need to be a lert, i.e. one who is aware of his surroundings at all time.  And staying a lert, means not letting your guard down for even a short period of time – the shore is looming just a few feet away.  Traveling at 6kts (10.1 ft/sec) you can be on shore in less than 5 seconds in some of these narrow passages!  Ocean travel is much less stressful as a result.  Who would have thunk?  A log like this is more a hazard to a power boat which would skip over the top only to rip off the prop and rudder.  Of cou...

There are a surprising number of people who follow this style of boating.  The people we’ve met who are marina hopping refer to all their favorite locations by the name of the marina and what they did there.  As for us, we prefer anchorages which I like to think of as luxury camping.  Marinas have an a la carte menu for all their many services.  For example, NYC liberty landing charges $5.50/ft/night (and they didn’t give us clean towels or make the bed), diesel at $4.49/gal, laundry at $6/load, electrical hookup for $20/nite, sewage pumpout $5/tank (the only reasonable thing about the place), bottle of beer $8, and dinner at their restaurant ~$75/plate.   Docktales from other boaters are free even if some tales are actually useful.  Of course, this was NYC and there are plenty of places with lower prices, but this is high end sampling we experienced.  The good news is it doesn’t have to be this costly if you don’t marina hop and anchor out cook...