He had planned on a multi day stay in Tonawanda, NY for the Fourth of July and visits to Niagara Falls and the Welland Canal. However, For the past three days we have been forced to extend our stay at the dock due to high winds, heavy rain or thunderstorms (and sometimes all three). The storms that passed through this afternoon and evening were headed east at about 55 mph and had wind gusts reported as high as 30 mph. As usual, we have managed to keep busy with the seemingly never ending projects on Lucky Us. In addition, the Admiral has gotten daily exercise riding her bike to a lumber store, hardware store and Home Depot. The accessibility via bikes is very good in Tonawanda, especially with the trail along the Erie Canal taking her halfway to Home Depot, which was the furthest away.
Yesterday, we did take Lucky Us on a VERY short cruise of 200 yards to the other end of the dock wall for a much needed pump out. The canal wall has remained full after the weekend, which was surprising. We had thought that most of the boats that had arrived over the Fourth of July weekend would have gone back home on Sunday evening. However, the Dock Master explained that people leave their boats here all week in order to guarantee a good spot for "Canal Week" that starts on Friday evening and runs for 9 full days.
The weather forecasts are now improving starting in two days. So, we now have a (tentative) plan for heading west on Lake Erie. We hope to leave tomorrow morning to head out the Niagara River and into the Port of Buffalo. Meanwhile, out on Lake Erie the waves are supposed to be subsiding from 4 to 2 feet. It is only a 12 mile trip that we have planned for tomorrow, and most of the trip will be in protected waters and not out in the big lake. However, part of the trip is bucking the current in the Niagara River for 2 miles. Then the rest of the trip is in the Black Rock Canal, which is along the east side of the Niagara River. It has one lock and was designed to bypass a stretch of the Niagara River where it is narrow with a strong current. All of these factors mean that the 12 mile trip will take about 3+ hours with luck. The "luck" includes properly timing the opening of the lock, which happens only once per hour. The bottom line is that once at the waterfront marina in Buffalo we will only be about a mile from where the main channel out of the harbor enters Lake Erie. So in essence, we are staging the location of the boat for what will be a fairly long 80+ mile trip to Erie, PA. The weather is supposed to quiet down to 5-8 mph winds and waves less than 1 foot. If that happens, we will be headed west on Day 2-241.
As always, stay tuned...
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