As excited as we were to pull into the Buffalo Harbor, there was no rest for the weary. We immediately had to prepare for our first set of lift bridges and our first lock, the Black Rock Lock (we had to practice that tongue twister a few times before hailing them on the radio). We nervously tackled these new obstacles and motored the rest of the way to our stop for the night – Wardell’s Marina, at the entrance to the Erie Canal.
After tying up to a rough steel wall, we were greeted by Dan and Peg from SV Dauntless, who we had met a few weeks prior at Toledo Beach. Our first mission was biking the 3 miles to a UPS Store to pick up our autopilot computer. It was a beautiful ride down trails next to the canal and our first introduction to the wonderful non-motorized facilities in New York. Our next mission was to prepare for our mast removal. Sailboat masts must be removed prior to traveling the Erie Canal in order to make it under the many low-clearance bridges. Once removed, the mast could be shipped to the end of the canal but that is very expensive, so most boats, including us, opt to strap it to the top on a homemade, and often sketchy, cradle.
We got up early the next morning and motored across the canal to Wardell’s, luckily we were first in line for the day. It took us a few hours to pull the mast, secure everything back on deck and get fuel. Mast work is always nerve-wracking but it went pretty well. We headed into the canal just after lunch, now a 60 foot battering ram/canal boat instead of a 43 foot sailboat.
It was a beautiful day to start canal life. We motored without incident to Lockport, our first stop for the night. Lucas even got the autopilot working while we were underway. Once we got to Lockport, we knew we had to get through a set of back-to-back locks (Locks #35 and #34) and a lift bridge before finding a spot to tie up for the night. This is where the hot mess began.
First, Lucas decided to fiddle with our already set-up fenders about a mile away from the lock entrance. Second, while informing the lock master of our arrival, he asked us to “sit tight” until he could bring a tour boat up in the lock and then we could enter. So, I was at the helm while we quickly approached the lock. I tried to slow us down but Alaya gets a little squirrely going slow. “Sitting tight” is very hard for a boat like ours especially when there is a current and a 60 foot mast strapped to our top. Before we knew it, we were getting close to the lock and it wasn’t ready for us…we were going to have to make a u turn. But we were under a huge railroad bridge with a wide barge looming in the shadows parked along the side wall . The tour boat is slowly rising in the lock, its top deck, filled with tourists, now with a great view of us. Lucas pulled off a miraculous u turn without hitting the barge. But now we were going in the wrong direction, away from the lock. Lucas goes into another rapid u turn but Alaya wasn’t happy and let’s just say, we didn’t make that turn. “PING!” We rammed the front of the mast into the railroad bridge wall (Lucas wants me to clarify “rammed at very low speed”), luckily no damage to the boat, our marriage or the concrete wall. I didn’t even swear, my mom would be proud. Lucas then got us turned around and sitting still, waiting for the lock to open. The lock opened and the tour boat passed by, this was the first time they saw us under control.
Once the lock was ready, we got our flustered selves into the first lock with a lot of help from the lockmaster. After witnessing our bridge incident, he made some (rightful) assumptions that we were total newbies. After giving us his spiel he told us to sit tight, the tour boat was making its return trip and would join us in the locks…great.
We somehow made it through the two locks ok, tour boat right behind us and motored down the canal. Our end goal, a small marina, was only a mile down the canal. When we arrived the office was closed and only pontoon boats were docked, so we chose a dock and started slowly heading for it. It wasn’t until the tour bout witnessed us gently run aground at the “marina” did they finally leave us and return to their dock. After gunning it out of the mud, we turned around and found a free wall to tie up to for the night. We needed a little time off the boat to regroup, so we walked into town to tour the locks and got some delicious ice cream. First day complete!
What followed were 10 lovely days in an absolutely beautiful part of New York. The western section of the canal from Buffalo to just outside of Syracuse is rural and woodsy, spotted with historic towns every 10-15 miles with really cool, nearly identical lift bridges. You could feel and see the history of this amazing corridor everywhere. We spent nights in Holley, Fairport, Newark and Baldwinsville. There are only nine locks along this section, which we handled much better than our first one (thank goodness!). It’s impossible to pick a favorite town, each one was so unique and wonderful. Holley was very cool with its “hidden waterfall” and beautiful town free wall. In Fairport, a really nice employee at the local ice cream shop baked us fresh chocolate cookies. Newark amazingly had free laundry, nearby grocery and a gas station at their municipal wall.
We officially crossed into the eastern section of the Erie Canal once we arrived in Brewerton, just outside of Syracuse. This section of the canal follows natural rivers and lakes much more than the western section. Oneida Lake is the largest lake in the canal at 20 miles across. We started crossing it on a day with some wind. We were used to the very protected canal waters and quickly realized it was not the day to cross when we watched our mast bouncing a couple inches off its stand at the bow as we beat into waves. We turned around (no bridges to run into here) and docked in the canal for the night to wait for better weather. We met up with our friends Adam, Haley and their two kiddos who live near Brewerton. Thanks to our u turn, we even had enough time left in the day to go on a quick boat ride, going through Lock #23 three times that day, twice with our passengers. We had a lovely grown-up dinner with Adam and Haley after the kids went to bed, so fun to catch up! We successfully made it across Oneida Lake the next day in much calmer conditions. We heard later that there are multiple masts laying at the bottom of Oneida Lake. I was glad to have that lake in our rearview mirror.
The eastern section was beautiful as well. There were some shallow sections that we had to carefully navigate, which was a little nerve-wracking. Thankfully, fellow Michigander cruisers, Ryan and Erika on SV Resande, were a couple of days ahead of us and sent us coordinates of a couple of spots where they had touched the bottom, super helpful! There were very few lift bridges in this section and a lot more locks. The largest lock, #17, dropped us 40 feet. It was a wild but surprisingly smooth ride. We spent most of our nights tied on the free walls located at each lock. We had to plan our travel each day based on the lock schedule, this time of year the locks operate seven days a week from 7 a.m. – 5 p.m.
It wouldn’t be an Emily and Lucas adventure without some boat work. We prepped all of our new stainless steel rigging as we traveled, working on a few pieces in the evenings if we had time before the mosquitos arrived. More on this project later!
Our last day in the canal was certainly our busiest, we navigated through seven locks over about 25 miles. Locks 2 – 6 were all back-to-back. We had to wait each time for the massive barge ahead of us to finish the lock, I think we docked and undocked at least 14 times that day – exhausting! We arrived in Waterford, the town at the end of the canal on September 28, 11 days after we started. To celebrate, we met our friend Kaitlin for dinner, which was a special treat since she just happened to be in upstate NY for a work conference.
In total, we traveled 340 miles, going under approximately 250 bridges, traversing 34 locks and staying in 10 new towns. We learned to be more creative with our docking, tying up to trees, bollards, huge cleats and metal rings. The scenery changed every day, we never quite knew what would be around the next bend. We met some fantastic people along the way as well, from the quirky lockmasters to fellow cruisers and tourists. I was really impressed with the bicycling opportunities along the canal, there were days where we saw more bikes traveling along the canal paths than boats. We also saw so many cool birds, tons of blue herons and seven bald eagles, including a nesting pair and one that dove for a fish right in front of us.
I’m really proud of how we rebounded after our first day’s hot mess, we didn’t hit any other bridges the entire time (victory!) and we kept our cool in front of numerous other tour boats we encountered along the way. We both loved traveling the canal way more than we thought we would, NY is a very special place indeed. We will be back.
Next, we head into the Hudson River where we will get our mast up and continue our journey south. Time to become a sailboat again!
