9th Update - On the Erie Canal

As usual, Bill and Bailey are patiently waiting for Dorthy, George and me as we do our thing!!! We are very busy checking out each town and site...

Where we are today and what are plans are.

Today is September 5, 2008 and we are sitting at Utsch's Marina in Cape May NJ. For those who are following us on Google Earth check out this connection. http://www.greatloop.org/Mapping/membermap.php?id=5752

We arrived in Cape May late afternoon on Wed, Sept. 3. This is a very safe and protected harbor on the canal between the Atlantic and Delaware Bay. Our refrigerator/freezer broke on the Erie Canal and we finally found someone to look at it. After replacing the thermostat, we were back in business again. It was sure good to get things out of the cooler and into the refrigerator before tropical storm Hannah comes our way.

Again, today is warm, sunny and beautiful and we are preparing for Hannah's arrival. We are doubling lines and putting out extra buoys. The weather predicts we will get the storm late tonight with 5-7 inches of rain and winds around 50-60 mph. It is expected to be a quick storm, but it should be quite the experience.

If the weather and winds are right, we are planning on leaving this harbor and head up the Delaware Bay/River and into the Chesapeake/Delaware Canal to Chesapeake City. Then next week we will start cruising Chesapeake Bay.

What has happened on our adventure since we restarted on August 15

This update is a little long since I am updating about 3 weeks. I will break the trip into 2 segments, starting with the Erie Canal, followed by the Hudson to Cape May. We have been very busy with the local sites and activities and I have not had a moment to spend on the PC. I wonder how one can be so busy when retired......

ERIE CANAL
After a couple of weeks at home in Hamilton, Ohio.... we restarted our adventure. Picking up the boat at Inland Harbor Marina, we meet again with friends and family in Seneca Falls on August 14...

George and Dorothy Najarian, our friends from Waukegan Harbor, IL, met us in Seneca Falls on August 15 to begin the trip. But before we could start we needed to show them around our wonderful area in upstate NY. They meet our friends and family, went to wineries, visited an art show, had great Italian dinners with friends, traveled to State Parks, and hiked the Montezuma trails to the original Erie Canal Aqueduct. Not everyone gets that kind of tour in 2 days. After we exhausted them, we started the trip down the Erie, with more visits with Bill and Barb Reigel in Baldswinsville and Jan and Brian Carey in Brewertown. Wonderful food and fun at each stop.

Once we got on the Canal, we quickly put George and Dorothy to work... Catching lock walls and holding on while we traveled through. They became very practiced after 20 locks. We stayed at many small canal towns, on lock walls and visited many museums and the Erie Canal Village, along the way. All towns and sites were very friendly and quaint, such as Rome, Little Falls, Amsterdam, and Waterford. Since the trains followed the canals, we also enjoyed the sounds of trains - commuter and commercial - during the day and night..

The Erie Canal Village in Rome depicted life in a small village along the Erie Canal. We even rode on a old packet canal boat pulled by a team of horses and visited restored homes. Very interesting to see and hear the history of the Erie Canal building. It was amazing that it took only 5 years to build the canal across NY state and then it was rebuilt 2 times. We stayed in Rome on a dock wall that night right next to a pretty dam and waterfalls. The sunset was beautiful.

As we continued down the Erie, we saw some unusual sites... a couple from New Hampshire that were rowing across the entire canal for Habitat for Humanity, unusual camps, and interesting locks, old river towns, Volkswagen on chimney tops, and tug boats.

The last town on the Erie was Waterford... It was a very pleasant village and the place where the Champlain River, the Mohawk River and the Hudson River meet. We had to go through the flight of five locks where we dropped over 160 feet. We also hiked on a trail where we saw some of the original locks, without the lock structure. What remained was the waterfalls.

After we left Waterford, we went through the last lock at Troy, NY. It was the only federal lock on the Erie and when we left that lock we entered the beautiful Hudson.

Update 10 will come next.... Hudson, the Big Apple and Cape May...

8th Update - Gillespie's Great Loop

This portion of the trip completed the Trent Severn Waterway, took us across the Bay of Quinte and then across Lake Ontario to Oswego, NY.... Back in the USA... While on the Trent, we went through 43 locks... some totally manual and others very automated. All locks were nice and clean and the lock masters were friendly and helpful. They helped with your lines and shared tips on the area. The 6 week journey through Canada was pleasant, enjoyable, and exciting.

The photos below are from the town of Picton, Ontario. This was the last night we spent in Canada.

We then traveled the Oswego Canal, then east on the Erie Canal (NY State Barge Canal) to the Cayaga/Seneca Lake access and our home town of Seneca Falls, NY.

We left Picton at 6:30 am heading to Oswego. Lake Ontario was calm and great for traveling and we arrived in Oswego Harbor at 1:00pm. After we cleared US Customs, we decided that it was such a nice day that we would start down the Oswego Canal and head towards Baldwinsville and hopefully a visit with our good friends, Bill and Barb Reigel. The day was beautiful and very warm. Seven locks later and a longer than expected trip, we arrived at Baldwinsville at 8:30 pm. Bill and Barb were waiting for us at the locks after we docked and then we went to dinner. We also had breakfast with them the next day and then continued east on the Erie Canal to Seneca Falls and family.

The following photos are of the Oswego Habor Light and the ships in the harbor entrance.



These are views on the Oswego River/Canal.





The following are photos through the Erie Canal, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, and the original Erie Canal Aquaducts. At the end of July we left our boat in Seneca Falls and headed to Hamilton, Ohio for my children fix.

The next set of photos were taken during our visit with family and friends in Seneca Falls.

Bill and I are still in Hamilton, Ohio, visiting with our children and grandchildren. We expect to
be back on the water in the middle of August.... heading to North Carolina. George and Dorothy Najarian, from Winnetka, IL, will be joining us in Seneca Falls to continue on our adventure...