Day 71...Waterford, NY to anchorage near Schenectady, New York

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2012

     We got up and went to breakfast.  You can’t beat $1.75.  We walked back a different way to see some of the other streets in this interesting small town.  Everyone was very friendly and I definitely want to come back for a few days.

     There is just too much information available about the Erie Canal.  I’m only going to give you a few more facts but please look up information about the Erie Canal if you want to know more.  The 363-mile-long Erie Canal (started in 1817 and opened to traffic in 1825) was the first all-water link between the Atlantic Seaboard and Great Lakes.  It opened vast areas of the upper Midwest to settlement and commercial agriculture because it was inexpensive and reliable.  Until 1918 horses and mules powered New York’s Canal System.  They walked on towpaths, connected to boats by a long towline.  Animals and crews worked in shifts around the clock: six hours on, six hours off, resting in bunks and stables on board between shifts.  The Erie is only one of the canals in the New York Canal System.

     Late yesterday afternoon a sailboat snuck up on us.   We didn’t even hear it come in.  Do you see the mast taken down and put on the boat? 

     The height limit of the canals we will be traveling on is between 17 and 20 feet.  Our mast is 16.5 feet so we might have to lower it for certain bridges. Sailboats have to take their masts down to fit under the bridges. When you take it down it’s called un-stepping the mast and putting it back up is called stepping the mast.  Some big boats are even too tall to go on the canals at all.

     Good-bye, Waterford!  Hello, Erie Canal!

     I’ve already explained how to lock through a lock but I want to add a few things.  These locks are either cable (The mid-ship line is slipped around the cable and held.), pipe (The pipe is thicker than the cable, but the procedure is the same.) and rope (The ropes hang from the top of the wall and one person on the bow and one person on the stern grab a wet, slimy, dirty rope and hold on.  Old gloves or rubber gloves are needed with the ropes.).  The fenders slide up or down the wall keeping the boat from rubbing the wall.  The water can come in pretty fast causing whirlpools.  

     Rick was our lockmaster for our first lock (Lock 2).

  All of the locktenders have been very nice.  Look for them in their royal blue shirts.  

     I’m going to show us locking through Lock 2.  

      All of the other ones in the first 6 will be the done the same way with cables.  The first 5 locks are called the "Waterford Flight", which will raise TRAVELLER 169 feet in elevation in less than two miles.  Each lock has an information sign.  

     Bear with me while I tell you the heights (rounded off) and show you pictures.  Lock 2…34 feet, Lock 3…35 feet, Lock 4…35 feet, Lock 5…33 feet and Lock 6…33 feet.  Those were some tall locks. Two guard gates and Lock 7 (27 feet) came next.  By each lock is a dam.

   

    Now the canal is the Mohawk River.  Later it will narrow and be more what I envisioned when I thought of the Erie Canal. 

     There was a neat looking bridge before the anchorage.

     We anchored near Schenectady, New York after going 16.9 miles in a little over six hours.  The time is not going to make any difference because of all the locking we’re having to do.  We have traveled a total of 1500 miles.