Chaffeys Locks Day 2

We started the day with Andre and Martine having breakfast on the aft deck and then Russ came over and lent us his '95 Chevy pickup to drive Andre and Martine back to pick up their car and head home.  The old pick up has  a bench seat and the three of us piled in and made the drive down to Kingston.  I did a little grocery shopping and then back to the boat to do a little maintenance on the shift and steering controls.  After that we went swimming.  Abby went swimming (reluctantly) and got a needed bath.  Now she is all clean and fresh smelling ready for dinner at Russ and Brenda's place.

We had another great evening with Russ and Brenda at the Freaky Tiki Resort.  We started out with taking the ski boat out and enjoying Brenda showing us how to slalom ski.  She is very good, something I think my days of doing are over with.  Dinner was a delicious and opulent lobster boil with many hours of conversation and reminiscing.  Russ and Brenda walked us back to the boat after the rain stopped and it was so good to spend time with the both.  Till we see you again in Florida

Martine manning the lines

The Captain working hard!

Drift Away at the dock in Chaffey's Locks 

Debbie enjoying lobsters at Russ and Brendas

Lobster Boil.  What a feast

Chaffeys (lock 37)

We were greeted by Russell and Brenda at Chaffeys locks.  Russ lent us his Mule to tour the newly renovated Opinicon Resort.  The new owners have spent millions renovating a very old and tired resort to a classy updated resort while still keeping the original charm. The story goes that they were past visitors and after selling their company for billions decided to invest in restoring the Opinicon to its former glory.  Nice to see people paying it back.

The last time I was here we were having water gun fights with Chuck and more.  Probably 35 years ago.

We swam for the first time and the water was great. Clear and warm with lots of little fish. The little bastards like nipples and will surprise you.  Very refreshing swim.  We washed the mustache off of the boat and made her look pretty good. We have a lovely spot tucked under the trees and plugged in too!

We were invited to the Freaky Tiki Resort for dinner and what a dinner it was.  Brenda donned her Mermaid suit and swam up and down the canal for a while.  They have a collection of boats from speed to classic cruiser and a rowing skiff too.  The decor is amazing with signs and trinkets everywhere all providing a chuckle and a great ambiance. Martine and Andre joined us and we reminisced for many hours.  Poor Debbie was lost at times but remained a good sport for the evening.  Home to the boat and Andre and Martine leave in the morning to return to Hudson.

Miss Goody Two Screws at her dock

Russell working the Margarita machine

Debbie enjoying Strawberry Margaritas at the "Freaky Tiki"

Martine in front of the Tiki Bar

Jim, Russel, Brenda and Debbie at Russ and Brenda "Freaky Tiki"Resort

Kingston To Jones Falls

We left at 8:30 and had to wait till 9:00 for the lift bridge to go up the Canal.  This part of the canal is narrow and winding and off to either side are lots of stumps as this was a man made lake.  We are paying lots of attention to our position. I had called Karen Raven and Bert Oltoff upon our arrival in Kingston but they had been unable to join us until today.  Karen called and we made arrangements to meet at Brewers lock for lunch. The last time I had seen them both was 30 or more years ago and it was fun catching up.  They stayed for a couple of hours and then we made our way up to Jones Falls for the night. My sister Prue and her husband Andre loved coming to Jones Falls and spent many nights here in the summers enjoying the peace and tranquility mixed with watching all the boats go by.  Unfortunately they have both since passed away and I walked around feeling for their ghosts.

We took Abby for walks up to the upper locks and Andre has a new friend. Nice dinner aboard with Martine and Andre then an episode of Outlanders and off to bed.

The Big Baby

Narrow channel coming out of Brewers lock

Hotel Kenney (with some slight thumb)

Bottom of Jones Falls.  We all sat on the swim platform and let the bass nibble at our toes.  The water is warm

More narrow channels.  Pretty tense in some of these places especially when you can see the rocks on the bottom off to each side

Debbie got off the boat and got some great shots of the boat going through Jones Falls

Kingston

We left early and caught the first lock at 7:00AM.  Lake Ontario was pretty calm and we had an enjoyable crossing to Kingston.  We got close to Confederation Basin and called on the radio to get a spot.  Much of the harbor and docks are underwater here and there was not a lot of open slips.  They found us a 45' T head near the tour boats and we tied up for two days. The first night Debbie and I went out for Indian food and Debbie seemed to enjoy it.  Normally this is not acceptable but some boat neighbors recommended it and we were pleased with our dinner.

 Andre and Martine joined us the next day and we had lunch at the Prince George Hotel, just across from the Marina.  Andre and I did some provisioning in the afternoon and stocked up on beer, wine and booze for our Canadian stay.  I gave my new Canadian $ MasterCard a workout.  Dinner was on-board and then off to bed for an early start up the Rideau Canal in the morning

The lighthouse at the entrance to Oswego harbor.  Bye bye USA fr a couple of months

The Sir John A MacDonald in Kingston.  Right off the aft deck of the boat with a beautiful park in front of City Hall

Abby came for a few beers with us on the terrace at Marchants

Brewerton to Oswego

We continued out the Erie Canal until we came to a cross road (cross river?) Three River Junction.   We went north to Oswego. We stopped stopped just short of the Lake Ontario between Lock 7 and 8.  We spent the night on  the lock wall between Lock 7 and the last lock, Lock 8 with Act III, Sandrobber and the Good Life.  It was good to see Gail and Bob from the Good Life again and we had docktails on the lock wall.  Quite dinner aboard and an early night to bed.  Seems like we don't have much energy left at the end of the day.  THe weather looks ify for the morning but if the winds are OK in the morning we will head to Canada and Kingston.

Three Rivers Intersection – Erie Canal to the Left (west) and Oswego Canal to the Right (north)

A

Almost our last lock of the day before Oswego

View from our overnight stop in Oswego

Drift Away at the lock wall. Lock 7 in Oswego

Abby out for her morning walk before our departure to Canada

Provisioning in Brewerton

Winter Harbor Marina is a great marina to buy fuel ($2.28 a gal) and do provisioning. They have two courtesy cars and everything is pretty close by.

Winter Harbor Marina


There were two other looper boats here today Act III and  Sandrobber. We bought 600 gallons of fuel and since Winter Harbor has a courtesy car we were able to do do some shopping.  Jim went to NAPA to pick up some oil in preparation for the next oil change. Then we went to Walmart for food, cleaning supplies, and paper goods to the tune of $350.  Jim found a place that takes used engine oil and dropped off 20 gallons of it early in the morning.  The guy uses it to heat his garage and was happy to have it.  Sure beats paying $10. a five gallon pail to get rid of it. Winter Harbor is a very nice facility and seems to do lots of work.  They have a large staff and a paint booth for large boats.  The only thing we missed was decent WiFi. The owner Tom came over and introduced himself and they have a golden-doodle too.

Debbie manning the lines as we drop down to lake Ontario on the last of the locks in the Oswego canal

Engine Room work in Brewerton

 

Sunday as we started across Lake Oneida the starboard engine had quit.  I had thought about it a lot the night before and I was pretty sure it was fuel related.  I took off the supply line to the final filters and got Debbie to turn over the engine.  No fuel came out which indicated a failed fuel pump.  The nice thing about having twin engines is you can always test your theory on the engine that works.  The port engine pumped lots of fuel proving my theory.  I found a spare fuel pump in the lazerette and stated removing hoses and pipes to get at the old fuel pump.  I had to drain about 8 gallons of antifreeze out before I could remove one of the pipes and then work in a confined area trying to get three bolts out to remove the old pump.  Once out I found the pump had seized and sheared the coupler.  All the old parts came out with no missing pieces and after about two hours of fiddling to get the three bolts back in all that was left was to hook all the hoses back up and refill the antifreeze.  The engine started right up and we were back in business.  YEAH!!

Took a picture of the old one and the new one to be sure I put the fittings in the right place and the right orientation

After lunch I took the motorcycle down and rode in to pick up prescriptions and a new microwave that we had ordered at Lowe's after we blew the old one up in Waterford.  The prescriptions fit fine, the microwave in the box was going to be a a challenge to tie onto the bike.  One guy stopped and told me he would be happy to bring it up to the canal.  Still feeling like I could make this work I told him that if when he was finished his shopping and I was still there I would take him up on his offer.  I was still trying to tie it onto the back seat and a nice lady came over and told me that she and her husband would be glad to take it wherever I was going.  I accepted and they followed me for about ten miles back up to the boat. I was pretty sure I had detected a French accent and when I asked her en Francais where she was from she said Quebec City.  SO nice of them to help me out.  They got a chuckle when I told them the microwave was for the boat. Debbie and I installed the new microwave and then celebrated our success with margaritas
We were both beat after a day of hard work and bedtime came early

Nice to have spares aboard

Little Falls to Brewerton

We left Little Falls early and when we got to the first lock Echo Beach and another sail boat were waiting for the lock to open.  We anchored in the canal for the first time of three times and waited, because the lock master had not shown up.  The lock master from Lock 17 drove over and opened the gates for us to pass.  I guess the regular lock master partied too hard last night.

We were making good time and then came up to a lock with two barges being pushed by a tug.  They took forever to clear the lock.  What was happening was they had to rejoin the tug and the two barges as the two barges wont fit in the chamber together. Once they cleared off we went through Utica and Rome then we came to three boats including Mother Ocean waiting in the canal again.  We anchored and waited for two hours while they transited another tug and two barges. Once we passed the tow there were now 7 boats wanting to lock through but only six could fit.  Echo Beach ended up waiting for the next lock.  We were now going down which is so much easier than going up the locks.  Finally we arrived in Sylvan Beach on the east side of Lake Oneida and boy was there a lot of boats out (Sunday afternoon)  We cleared the breakwater and opened up the engines to clean out all the soot from days of idling along.  The boat got up on plane and we were bogeying along at 20 knots until one engine slowed and then quit.

I checked in the engine room and there was nothing catastrophic looking but it was about 130 degrees in there so I didn't stay for long.  We motored across the lake at 9 knots and docked for the night at the Brewerton Public dock and were joined later by Echo Beach.  We all went up to the Waterfront Tavern which had a good crowd and live music.  Cheeseburgers were great and cold beers to finish the day.  The engine room will be much cooler in the morning!

Live music and a good crowd

Who knew they had palm trees in NY

Lock E-8 to Little Falls

We got underway early this morning to make as much distance as possible.  There are boats rafted along the wall at Waterford and we wanted to stay ahead of the crowd.  Travelling at 6-8 knots all day and many locks makes for a long day.  The weather has been fantastic the last couple of days and it is nice to see the sun.  The boat has been running great and with the exception of an intermittent depth sounder and the remote not working on the sound system on the bridge everything is working well.  We have really been enjoying the new ball cap brim addition to the Bimini. It shades the crew and instruments and makes travelling much more enjoyable.We ended up catching Echo Bay and we all ended up in Little Falls.  We had read there was an excellent French Restaurant in Little Falls called the Canal Street Inn. Our waitress was Katy who could not have been better as well as charming.  She told us the chef/owner had been in the same location now for 35 years.  The food was fantastic and we ended with a bourbon bread pudding and Spanish coffees.  The restaurant was a little bit away so they offered  to send a driver over to pick us up.  Tyler arrived and has the same radio as we do in his car and he had a remote that worked.  The owners wife offered to drive us back but I had already asked Tyler if we could try his remote on our radio.  We ended up with Tyler and alas the remote did not work either. Tyler was impressed with the boat and we had a great evening.

Dinner at the Canal Street Inn

Debbie manning the lines

Very calm in the canals.  We traveled most of the day with Echo Beach

Lots of debris.  Played dodgem all day.

Moving on from Waterford

We finally started moving up the Erie Canal.  We stopped over night at the free wall at Lock 8 where we met up with Gail and Bob on The Good Life. Since they ended up with all the leftovers from the potluck dinner and we had leftovers from the beef stew we made for the potluck, beef strogonof, and lasagna, we decided to share the leftovers and also invited Mike and Keron who had their sailboat Echo Bay on the free wall too.  We all gathered on Drift Away and had a very enjoyable evening getting to know each other.

Our view Thats the full moon in the center

The wall where we docked

Our view at night with the full moon

As we traveled the canal we could see the results of some of the cleanup efforts.

The water was very fast and made entering the locks very challenging.  Unfortunately we nicked the wall 

Crew member was running a chain saw under water

Lots of trains on his stretch

Stuck in Waterford

We have been stuck in Waterford for over a week due to so much rainfall that the locks have been closed. We have lots of company with boats lining the wall waiting for the locks to reopen. We originally planned on staying for three days or so as it is very nice area and free.  There is a good breakfast joint three blocks away Don and Pauls.  Groceries are good and about a half mile away.  We unloaded the bike and went to Walmart and Napa.  So we are all caught up on provisions.  The  other thing we have been working on is reducing our liquor, wine and beer supply in anticipation of crossing over into Canada.  I could ask for forgiveness but we had a lot on board.  I'm happy to report that we have been very successful in our mission for the time we have been here.

Well three days turned into five and then we were ready to go and we were told the locks were all closed due to high water and current flow.  We ended up staying here for 9 days.




The delays has given us time to finish our sewing projects.  The bimini extension has been completed and we were able to finish the covering over the cockpit.























There were some fun days too. On Sunday a Farmers Market was held at the Waterford free dock and they had live music too.




On Wednesday Gail Thomas organized a "Pot Luck" dinner and invited all the boats that were tied up along the wall.  She even put together a sing along of "15 Years on the Erie Canal" and everyone joined in.