EXITING THE CANAL

After a long day getting to Illion, we decided to slow down a bit. Our 10 day pass expired on the 29th and we decided we did not want to push ourselves. We talked to the Catskill Riverside Marina about putting our mast up and they just suggested we call a day or two in advance. We had heard a lot about Little Falls, New York, and decided we would take some time to see what Illion had to offer and then take the short hop to Little Falls for our next stop. It didn't take long to explore Illion. The marina was a single wall with a little cafe and a RV Park. The cafe owner was very accomodating and stayed open a little later so we could have dinner. Our meal was served on paper plates with plastic utensils, but it was very good. We met a fellow sailor named Dan Klock who was a professor and he supplied us with a lot of good information on the rest of the canal and part of the way down the Hudson. We realized we had seen his boat earlier in Middleport. The Village of Illion had very little to offer. We walked about 3 or 4 blocks into town and saw nothing of interest. There is a Remington gun factory in the area that you could visit, but apparently it wasn't within walking distance since we saw no signs of it. We did find an Aldi and stocked up on a few supplies. We untied and left for Little Falls. We got there in the early afternoon and were able to relax and go visit the town. The Marina at Little falls was very nice. They had spent money fixing up an old storage house for the canal and had a nice park like setting around a welcome center that had a nice lounge, restroom and shower facilities, and wi-fi. Little Falls had attracted commerce early on with a series of locks and aquaducts to help connect the rivers and streams. They had preserved many of the waterfront buildings and some of the old canal and aqueduct structures were still visible. At one point, it had a booming cheese business that recieved and shipped cheese on a world wide basis. Salada Tea still has a factory there on a little island between the new canal and the falls. This is apparently where they got the name "Little Falls". The second picture is some buildings along the old canal built on rock foundations. Some actually had aqueducts running under them to feed the various canals and channels that linked the rivers and the canal.

This is an example of some of the beautiful buildings built in the 1800's.

Like most of the towns and villages along the way, it has been economically distressed lately and there were many vacant buildings and few places that were open. The volunteers at Little Falls were very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. One volunteer was a High School shop teacher and involved the kids in all kinds of projects around the marina. He even had them design and build a form of propulsion for a kayak. Would you believe a leaf blower? He had grown up a block away from the marina and his 90 year old mother still lived in his childhood home. He certainly knew all the answers to any question we had about the town and the canal. The Canal had been hit by the remnants of a huricane last year and it is still showing some scars.

We got a 2 day pass and got an early start on the 30th with our goal to reach Amsterdam, New York for the evening. We made good time with a 1/2 to 1 knot current giving us a bit of a boost. The locks are closer together here and we were beginning to think we had the process down. We were actually traveling on a portion of the Mohawk River. It was in a valley between the Catskill and the Adirondack(hope I got that right) mountains and the river was getting wider and the scenery was getting more spectacular with huge stone cliffs and heavily wooded hills. The wind also began picking up. Every lock seemed to be a little different, but the ones we started to see were smaller and had a very low freeboard. This meant that the water was right up to the top of the wall with only a few inches to spare. They were also right next to the dam that they used for the locks, which left a large open area. If you combine the wind, the open spaces and the high freeboard, all of a sudden, our boat was in a vulnerable position as we had to coast very slowly into the locks and reach down to grab the lines secure ourselves before the water started dropping. When we came up on Lock 12, we did not see anyone on the locks, so we called on the radio. We didn't get an answer right away, but saw someone walking down the hill to the locks. He responded and began opening the gates. We did everything the way we normally did, except this time, the wind caught our bow and blew us sideways before we could get both lines secured. All we had was one line at the stern and the lock master had already started the process of lowering us. With us turned sideways, our mast was hanging over the wall and would be ripped off it we could not get straightened out. Not good! The stern of the boat was grinding against the concrete wall as we tried everything to get it straight, including yelling for help. The lock master finally came over and we threw him a line to pull us over. He admitted he would have been in big trouble if we had lost our mast. We will be calling his supervisor and see if we can't get some compensation for the damage to our stern that had ground away the fibreglass on the outer edge. We almost had the same problem in Lock 11, but the attendant was a little more cautious and did not start locking us down until we had both lines secured. With all the stress, we were ready to finally get tied up at the Amsterdam dock. We had heard a lot of nice things about this dock, but unfortunatley, other than being a nice setting, the restaurant was closed, the showers and baths were minimal and there was absolutely no place to walk to that was open. We had to pay $1.00 per foot to spend the night with electric. We did run into several people there, including Gayle and John on Safe Return. They were on their way back home to Virginia on the Potomac River. They had a wealth of information about places to go and see, especially in the Chesapeake. The more places we hear about, the harder it is to choose, but we love having all the options. Safe Return was having some issues with an unusual noise and needed to find a boat yard to check it out. We left the next morning for our final day on the Erie Canal. We would be facing a series of 10 more locks with the last 5 in the canal being one right after another for a dramatic drop down to the Hudson River Valley. At the bottom of Lock 2 was our stopping point for the night in Waterford, New York. This is our last lock on the Erie Canal.

We were looking for a spot with electric and thought we saw one close to the welcome center, but a lot of boats were coming in from both directions and we wanted to make sure we secured a spot. We circled around and headed for the empty spot. The docks were floating and were low and there was a stairway coming down from the concrete wall, so it was a challenge to see how close I was coming to the dock and also watch to make sure our mast was not going to hit the stairs. It proved to be too much of a challenge as a sharp piece of metal on the dock scraped a chunk of fibreglass from the middle of the starboard hull. In two days, we had suffered more scratches than we have had in the last six years! To add insult to injury, as we were tying up, we noticed that the spot was for the pump out and we were not supposed to spend the night there. Since it was late, the volunteer told us we could spend the night but would probably have to leave first thing in the morning. In the morning, we moved out boat to another spot and our friends from Safe Return pulled in behind us. This is the image we had from a wooden "pirate" boat parked directly beghinfd us.

We had a nice evening of cocktails and conversation. We called it a night with a promise of joining Safe Return in Riverview Marina in Catskill, New York. We exited the Erie Canal into the Hudsaon the next morning with the hope of riding the tide all the way down to Riverview Marina.

We went through our last lock at Troy, New York, and from that point on, we were able to use the autopilot and relax a little more. Here is a view of one of the larger cities we have seen so far. This is a view of Albany, just South of the Troy locks.

Before we knew it, we were in Riverview. They were very accomodating, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to step their mast or take one down. We spent two grueling days cleaning and preparing the mast, getting it up, and then re-rigging everything, both running and standing. We left this morning on 8/4/12 and headed down the Hudson toward New York. The tide affects everything, so we had to leave as close to 7 in the morning as possible to get the best push down the river as possible. The view was spectacular as we passed mountains and mansions that included the Vanderbuilts, the Roosevelts and even George Washington's home. We are now tied up to a guest dock at West Shore Marina