We left Schenectady Yacht Club at 8:05 AM in light mist and about 60F. It was not exactly a great travel day, but the mist stopped after the first of 5 locks. I get to sit in the cold but dry enclosed flybridge while the Admiral hangs fenders and tends lines. The first lock was full of rafts of sticks and logs. The lockmaster did try to clean it out, but we had to coast through several small islands of debris with the engines in neutral. At cruising speed the bow wave normally pushes smaller debris aside, but at maneuvering (slow) speed we can easily ride over larger debris rather than push it aside. After the second lock today, I thought that we had successfully passed through/over a large raft of branches when we heard this loud THUMP. Sure enough an 8 foot long branch about 3 inches in diameter popped up behind the boat a few seconds later. Lucky! This kind of event is always followed by a few tense moments when you feel for vibrations from the propeller. Then you try the steering, then slowly increase the throttle and hope...
At 4 of the 5 locks today we passed a lot of construction work. They were repairing dams and working on flood damage both on shore and along the channel in to and out of the locks. I presume that most of this damage was from last Spring (2013), when this portion of the canal was closed for 5 weeks due to flooding and then for repairs. I am certainly glad that New York is repairing the canal system, but this tug and barge are in the part of the channel where we would normally be traveling. Thus, we got forced out into the turbulence from the dam adjacent to the lock, and after we passed the tug, we had to turn sharply to get back into the channel for the lock. Well, nothing like real world experience to improve my boat handling skills...
We had a short wait at our second lock while a single tug came through in the opposite direction. However, this gave us a great view of another classic (meaning old) tug as it passed us on the way out of the lock. The Grover Cleveland is part of the NY State Canal System fleet that maintains the canals. Those fenders are all real rope...
Tonight we are in Fonda, NY at a free dock provided by the canal system. We are sharing the dock with the tug Waterford and her tow of large pipes used as part of dredging operations. There was very little room for us, but the crew kindly pulled the tug back by hand about 30 feet to make room for us.
Tomorrow? We hope to have slightly better weather with no rain, low 70sF and 6 more locks. So far in the Erie Canal, we have transited 12 locks and have gained 245 feet in elevation. This is just getting started as we have quite a few more locks yet to come.
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