Day 358 – Waterford, NY to Riverlink Park, Amsterdam, NY - June 28, 2012

We have the first nine locks of the Erie Canal behind us.  We also passed under sixteen bridges today.  Bridges on the Erie Canal are pretty easy – none of them open and they are all have 20 feet of clearance or more.  The first five locks today are called “The Flight of Five” and raise the boat 170 feet up in just over 1.2 miles of canal.   The lockmasters for these five locks keep things pretty well coordinated so that you don’t have to wait much between locks – we probably had to wait about five minutes for the second lock to open, but after that, the lock doors were open as we approached the next three locks.  The “Flight of Five” went well and we felt confident that we could handle these Erie Canal locks.

Of course, that is when something unexpected happens.  The sixth lock of the day was our downfall.  We were the first of three boats into the chamber and we headed to the front of the lock on the starboard side.  We moved as far into the lock chamber as we could so that all three boats could tie up on the starboard side as we had done in the previous five locks.  The problem was that we had never gone this close to the lock doors in any of the previous locks.  There was tons of water movement in the end of the lock and we had trouble getting close to the wall.  I was able to grab the cable we needed to tie to with the boat hook, but I wasn’t able to pull us close enough to the wall to get the line around the cable.  Needless to say there was screaming on my part as my arm was all but ripped out of the socket trying to pull the boat to the wall to no avail.  The current was pushing too strong against the boat.  Fred came down from the helm and grabbed the boat hook from me and he tried to pull us in while I (following his instructions) used the engines to help get us tight to the wall, but nothing we did got us any closer.  We finally gave up and slid over to the port wall where we easily grabbed a cable and got Boreas secure.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any more locks after that, but we cleared the rest of them without incident – and with a bit more planning; not too close to the front of the lock and on the port side when the wind made that a better choice.  I do want to report that I like the locks with a cable or pipe to tie to versus the locks with only ropes to grab.

We are tied up tonight at Riverlink Park in Amsterdam.  This is a great place to stay with power, restrooms, laundry and wifi for only $1/foot.  The dock is managed by the people who run the Riverlink Café which is right up the hill from the dock.  We had a wonderful dinner at the café with Ivy and Bob from Karma.  Five more locks are planned for tomorrow.    

            Miles: 32.3      Bridges: 16      Locks: 9      Gates: 2

heading toward Lock #3

a momma duck with her babies - we think this is a Wood Duck, but it
is a little hard to tell

entering Lock #3

looking out of Lock #3 - the lock is almost full and the gates are about to open

we have just cleared Lock #4 and we are headed toward Lock #5

looking out of Lock #5 toward Lock #6 - these last three locks in "The
Flight of Five" are very close together

one of the guard gates we passed under today

looking at Lock #7 and the dam next to it

the lockmaster is emptying the chamber of Lock #7 (see the turbulance at
the base of the lock doors) so that he can open the lock gates and let us in

the doors of Lock #7 are beginning to open

a portion of the Rexford Historic Aqueduct that was part
of the original Erie Canal

Lock #9 and its dam

beautiful colors in the night sky