We Are Through!

 (And UP YOURS, Justin Trudeau)

•  Through Canada’s Welland Canal between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. 
• Through with delivery captains. 
• Through with death trap loaner Jeep’s
• Through with crapy marinas in New York
• Through with partial air-conditioning.
• Through waiting for PW Trudeau to wake/wise/sober up.

 Our voyage along Lake Ontario’s southern shore was wet but peaceful.    After departing Oswego, we made stops in Sodus Bay and Rochester.    Sodus Bay is a well-protected and picturesque harbor, and we found a delightful little marina where Dockmaster Rick made us (and especially  Admiral Maggie) feel right at home.  (His was the best equipped and maintained marina shower/bathroom accommodations on our Loop so far.  Tell all your friends.)
  Our accommodations on Rochester were not so nice, with a persistent north wind pushing waves up the river mouth that rocked and rolled us all night. But we were able to trek to a nearby shopping center for groceries, adding to our growing collection of tote bags, as we once again forgot to take our own bags. (Need to work on that.)

Commodore Kathleen had finalized plans for a delivery captain to meet us in Youngstown, NY (on the Niagara River) to take possession of Irish Lass and pilot her thru the Welland Canal on our behalf.  (See our June 19 post for a description of this COVID-paranoid requirement for the Canuk border. )   At his request, we headed for the Youngtown Yacht Club.   It’s a nice place but caters to sail boaters and proved to have a hyper-sensitive  shore power system that the Lass could not connect to.  So we were doomed to spend two days running our generator a lot and feeling like the big out-of-place country cousin.  Youngstown, NY, however, proved to be a charming town with a great community vibe.   Admiral Maggie enjoyed their park, and we found some live music, a Rite Aid, and a nice Presbyterian Church.

Captain Dave and his crewman arrived about 7:00 PM on Sunday.   They were to sleep aboard for a 6:00 am departure in order to be cleared into Canada and first in line when the Canal opened on Monday.   He had promised us the use of his car to make the drive to Dunkirk, NY 0n Lake Erie, where he would deliver the Lass to us.   Turns out his car was in the shop and in its place he brought his crewman’s 200,000-mile soft-top Jeep YJ Wrangler, complete with rust holes, dangling wires, and an interior that looked like the aftermath of a Hezbollah rocket barrage.   Plus, it had a Millennial Anti-Theft device (i.e., a manual transmission) and a custom sponge for soaking up the rainwater that tended to accumulate under the driver’s feet.   

Wanting to keep our schedule (and a bit against our better judgment), we turned the Lass over to Captain Dave, loaded up The Admiral and our gear and headed out on the 80-ish mile drive south thru Buffalo and west to Dunkirk.

The term “death-trap” only begins to describe our trip.   It was raining.  Night was falling.  The jeep was uncontrollable at anything over 55 MPH.  And so noisy, Kathleen had to shout navigation instructions to me, when she wasn’t praying or wiping the inside of the windshield for me.   The outside mirrors were useless.  The front-end hopped sideways with every significant bump and we were never quite sure what gear we were in until I let the clutch out.  (I finally solved this last issue by resurrecting my long-dormant clutch-less shifting skills).   What a nightmare.

Welland Lock #4

Proving that the Lord looks out for fools, we arrived at our Dunkirk hotel about 10:00 PM, thankful to be alive.  On Monday, we stayed in touch with Captain Dave by text and phone as he took the Lass thru Canadian Customs, navigated the 8 locks of the Welland, cleared Customs back into the US, and crossed Lake Erie to Dunkirk.  With waits for bureaucrats, border guards,  and commercial lock traffic, the transit time was over 18 hours and the Lass arrived in Dunkirk just after midnight.

While we waited on Monday, we took the Death Trap Jeep to a grocery store near the hotel.  After loading for more tote bags (yes, we forgot, again), a case of water, and a case of pop aboard,  the Jeep refused to start.  A call to Capt. Dave’s crewman revealed we may have upset the wiring for the fuel pump by doing something unusual, like maybe setting the parking brake.  Fiddling with loose wires got us nowhere, so we stuffed the keys under the sponge, told Capt. Dave’s crewman where he could find the Jeep and humped our groceries back to the hotel aboard shank’s mare.  Here endeth the lesson….

Tuesday found us back aboard Irish Lass at the (crapy) marina in Dunkirk, arguing with the marina staff about broken shore power connections (which they fixed) and our missing mail (which they finally located stuffed behind a file cabinet), and retrieving the new AC units we had delivered there.  After cleaning up the mess left by the Welland transit (and by Capt. Dave and crew),  We met for Docktails with a group of Loopers that Commadore Kathleen had rounded up.  An enjoyable evening of sharing and Loop stories, (and a uniform opinion that this was a CRAPY marina.  Tell all your friends.).

Out with the old!

On Wednesday, we awoke early  to wait for our newest BFF, Riley from TMS Thermo Mechanical, who was coming to install the AC unit in our main cabin.  Riley proved to be very young, rail-thin (a good thing for a boat tech), and supremely competent.  He had the old Cruisair unit out and the new Marinaire unit installed in a matter of a few hours.   We have reveled in cool comfort ever since.  Thanks, Riley.  You’re the best!

In with the new!

On Thursday, Commadore Kathleen proclaimed a “vacation day”.  With a car from Enterprise, we backtracked toward Buffalo intent on seeing Niagara Falls.   Niagara Falls State Park is beautiful, and the falls are truly awe-inspiring.  (75,000 gallons per second X 1 million years = more zeroes that I want to think about.)   The US side was moderately crowded, the Canadian side sparsely attended from what we could see.  And their side seems to have more of the big hotels and tourist infrastructure.  (Frankly, outside the Park, the US side feels a bit like the Fremont St district in Vegas.)  Still, a great day with another bucket list item checked off.   

Thursday night we were “entertained” by a Randy Bachman-wannabe fronting an adequate rock band on the adjacent Dunkirk city pier.  Nice for a while, but never were we so happy for a thunderstorm that cut them off before it got ugly.

Thursday morning, we made an early departure, shaking the dust of Dunkirk, New York, Canada, and canals off our sandals and heading west.  This writing finds us waiting  out a storm front at the Wolverine Marina in Erie, PA,   a place that is thankfully everything that  Dunkirk was not and chock full of fellow Loopers "in the same boat" (so to speak).

 
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Canada Has a Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve

 But New York Has Secret Reserves of Milfoil, Quagga Mussels, and Lily Pads

Crossing Lake Oneida was an exercise in FREEDOM.  20 miles of smooth clean water, no Mayflies, 

Sylvan Beach, Lake Oneida

and a chance to “open her up” and blow out the turbochargers.   Our next stop was the Ess Kay Yards Marina in Brewerton, NY.  There we topped up with another 310 gallons of diesel and met with a marine HVAC tech.

 The AC unit for our main cabin started blowing breakers a week or two ago and we have been weathering the heatwave with the AC in the fore and aft staterooms and three fans.  Sadly, the tech pronounced the AC unit DOA after almost 18 years of dedicated service.   With parts unavailable, we shopped around and ordered a more modern replacement unit to be delivered to us in Buffalo. 

We also took the time (an entire day, actually) at Ess Kay to scrub Irish Lass from stem to stern, keel to truck, port and starboard, inside and out.   Locking up and down in those big concrete boxes is a dirty business, as is fighting off the insect hordes.  Not to mention living aboard through days too hot and days too rainy.  It took us the best part of a day to get things spruced up to Commadore Kathleen’s standards.  Admiral Maggie supervised from the shade of a nearby picnic table.   Dinner followed with new Looper friends from Orion and Adventure Awaits

From Brewerton, we headed west on the Erie for Pirates Cove Marina, where we spent the Independence Day weekend with Living the Dream and Orion. While there, launched our auxiliary fleet for the first time.  First, we christened our rehabilitated dingy (Woo Hoo) with an hour-long cruise to inspect canal-side homes, both palatial and Deliverance-ish.  We also launched our two new 

Babes in Kayak

inflatable kayaks, including the 13’ Admiral's Barge, which Maggie took to, well, like an Admiral to her barge.   Finally, we unlimbered our folding bicycles and spent a few hours getting them ready for use.   Guess we are READY!

A word about invasive species……

The waters of the Erie west of Lake Oneida are CHOKED with underwater flora of the worst kind.   Instead of dodging crab pots or timber, we found ourselves maneuvering around endless mats of 

NY's new export crop?

 Eurasian Milfoil.  And any detour out of the main channel risks terminal entanglement in acre-sized Lilypad groves. (After our dingy cruise, we could barely tip up our little outboard for all the weeds wrapped around the prop.)  And the locals don’t seem to care.  We saw no sign of eradication attempts, legal or otherwise.  And they seem content to clear their props every time they exit their marina.  Instead, you see beautiful canal-front homes with waterfronts chocked with aquatic growth almost to the point of uselessness.  

  All we can conclude is that they are under some gov’t mandate to grow and nurture these vile weeds for some ultra-secret purpose.   Maybe for export to Canada?  (Hey, now THERE”S and idea!)  

Departing Pirate’s Cove on the 6^th, we made our way thru our final Erie Canal lock (#23) to

the confluence of the Oneida, Seneca, and Oswego Rivers. (Hence, Three Rivers.)   Turning north on the Oswego, we began our descent to Lake Ontario via the Oswego Canal, transiting seven locks spread over 25 miles. 

AND WE TAKE BACK ALL THE GOOD THINGS WE SAID ABOUT LOCKING DOWN!

These locks were q different animal.   The stiff river currents on approach and departure were bad enough, but a stout north wind swirling into the lock chambers made controlling the boat feel like “2.7  seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu” (as the song says).  With Commodore Kathleen wrestling mightily with a lock line, Wade was forced to abandon his post on the swim step and retreat to the helm and to use engines and bow thruster to keep the boat under some semblance of control.  Locks are hard.  Locks are easy.  It all depends.  Sheesh.

And another word about invasive species….

The lock walls on the Oswego canal are COATED with Quagga mussels, an aggressive, invasive 

Vermin on mollusk form

species wreaking havoc in America’s waterways.  Most states have taken an aggressive stance against these nasty little mollusks (See all those boat check stations along the highway?).  Bur New York appears to be ignoring, if not cultivating, them.  They ought to be killing them on sight daily. (Or maybe stripping hem off the lock walls and shipping them north for insertion into PW Trudeau’s koi pond.)

Needless to say, we were thankful to arrive safely at our Marina in Oswego, NY.  We are looking forward to a day of rest and an open water cruise west.  The Lass is ready to get out of the Lake and RUN a bit. (And no more locks for a while.)  

Locked Up on the Erie. Locked Down on the Erie.

 (Psst! Down is better.)

"I got an old mule, her name is Sal"

We’ve spent the last week slowly progressing westward on the Erie Canal.  Opened in 1825 and enlarged and expanded several times, It now stretches 338  miles from Waterford, NY on the Hudson to Buffalo, NY on the eastern shore of Lake Erie.  Once a vital commercial arterial, it now hosts only recreational traffic, rising (and falling)  571 feet above sea level thru 57 locks.  Its eastern portion makes heavy use of the (dredged) Mohawk River and man-made canal portions for its course.  West of Lake Oneida (between locks 22 and 23, it begins tracing the  courses of the carefully managed Oneida and Seneca Rivers, again with man-made lengths where required.  

Off we go!

 Our journey began at Waterford, where we made for the first “flight”   of  locks 2-6. This group must be run end-to-end before traffic coming    the other direction can be allowed.  Together they comprise the largest   lift in the shortest distance of any canal system in the world    A   6:30   am departure ensured we were first in line for westbound traffic.   We traveled with Florida friends Larry and Mary on Living the   Dream.   Building on  our rookie experience with Lock #1 at Troy, NY,   we refined our technique as we went.  The basic process we followed for locking is as follows:

• Notify the Lockmaster via VHF radio of your desire to lock thru
• Watch for the traffic light on the lock gates to turn green
• Enter the lock slowly and move to the prescribed sidewall as the massive lock doors close behind you.
• Have your beautiful, talented,  and understanding deckhand grab one of the  slimy weighted line (gloves required) provided along the lock wall.
• Leaving the boat idling in neutral, scramble to the side deck or swim step to grab a second slimy weighted line. 
• Forget your gloves, life jacket, or both
• Inadvertently leave the boat in gear, terrifying your beautiful, talented, and understanding deckhand as the boat backs toward the closed massive lock doors.
• Trip over the dog.  Maybe twice.
• Be reminded that everything you say, whisper, or mutter goes directly to the ears of your beautiful, talented, and understanding deckhand via your “marriage saver” headset.
• Sing sea chanteys to your beautiful, talented, and understanding deckhand as you both work to hold the boat on the wall amid the turbulence created by the filing of the lock and any swirling winds.
• Ride the rising water up out of the concrete canyon back into the sunshine.
• As the exit gates open, release the slimy weighted lines and motor slowly out of the lock into the next section of the canal. 
• Give your beautiful, talented, and understanding deckhand a high five or a kiss (or both)
• Get ready to do it all over again. Amen.

 So, off we went up thru Lock 2, Lock 3, Lock 4, Lock 5, Loc……not so fast…….why is lock 6 not opening?   A radio call to Lock 6 brought a response from Lock 5 that Lock 6 was experiencing a “computer problem” and the opening would be delayed “about 15 minutes”.   So we began to hover in the short pool between 5 and 6.   After 20 minutes, we called again to learn that they were “working on it”.  In another 20 minutes, we again hear it would be “about 15 minutes”.    (By this time, Wade is having flashbacks to network outages at work.  Ugh!)

After an hour, we learned the “engineer was on his way.”, at which point we decided to tie off to the canal wall and shut down our en

gines.  Admiral Maggie enjoyed a nice walk in the grass and we settled in for a long wait.

Waiting for the engineer.

The young captain of Sea Fever, the large sailboat behind us hiked up the road to Lock 6 and came back to report that the engineer had the panels off the control board and was testing circuits with a multi-meter.  (Not a good sign).   Finally, after a   delay of almost three hours,  Lock 6 called us and said they could only open one door at each end of the lock and could we squeeze thru.   Heck Yes! we could and it’s a good thing because Lock 6 subsequently remained closed for three days!  We ended our first day after Lock 7, tired but proud, at Mowhawk Harbor in Schenectady NY.

Day 2 on the Erie took us to a riverside park at Amsterdam, NY, passing (uneventfully) thru Locks 8, 9, and 10.    Day 3 was a longer day, involving seven locks, taking us to the picturesque community of Little Falls.   This is where we encountered the infamous Lock 17.   This lock is unique in that its eastern door is a giant steel guillotine-style structure, rather than the usual swing gates.  With a 40+ foot lift and a narrow entrance, it is a bit intimidating to navigate.

Lock 17: Abandon hope, ye who enter....

(You may also recall recent news reports of the mechanical failure that closed Lock 17 for almost a week in early June.  Happy to have missed THAT drama.) But on the other side of scary lock 17, we discovered a wonderful riverside park operated by the Little Falls Rotary with inexpensive full-service moorage.   A short walk into town took us to a nice Mexican diner. 

Guard Gates of Doom?

A word about Guard Gates:   Guard Gates are massive steel doors that can be lowered to isolate sections of the canal for drainage and maintenance.  We have passed thru several of these industrial-looking structures along our course.  Each one is uniquely intimidating.

Peace on the Mohawk

 On day 4, we got an early start to make the 50-mile,   five-lock run to Sylvan Beach, on the eastern shore of Lake Oneida.  This part of the Erie starts to feel like an extended version of the Thorofare between   Priest Lake and  Upper Priest Lake.    Quiet waters between heavily wooded shores, no-wake speeds, and lots of wildlife.  But the day’s highlight was our first DOWN lock as we passed over the “hump” out of the Mohawk River drainage and entered a manmade stretch of canal descending to Lake Oneida.   Locking DOWN is SO more pleasant that locking up, with no turbulence as the water in the lock simply drains away.   Relative bliss for line handlers.

In command!

Sylvan Beach is a pleasant lakeside, resort-y town with free no-services moorage at the mouth of the canal.  Despite the rain, easy access to town gave us the opportunity to “ice-up” our big cooler so that we could defrost our fridge and freezer.  We enjoyed a quiet dinner aboard and settled in for……

BUT, THEN THE HORDES DESCENDED! 

A corps of a bazillion and a half mayflies attacked from all points of the compass, covering the boat from stem to stern.  For Commodore Kathleen (already disturbed by the increasing lock wall stains on the boat) this was the last straw.  She sprang into action with brush, rag, and vacuum,  sending thousands of the little creatures to their doom. 

YET ON THEY CAME!

At the peak, she was shoveling their winged carcasses off the swim step with a dustpan.  (Our boat neighbor used a cordless leaf blower to great advantage.)  It was an EPIC battle, lasting thru at least three glasses of wine.

BUT WE PREVAILED!  BE GONE, PROTO-DRAGON FLIES!  GO FIND SOME OVER-POWERED, WAKE-MAKING  SEA RAY TO LIGHT UPON.  BE GONE, I SAY!!!!!!

(Deep breath)

OK.

Where were we?

Oh yes,

Lake Oneida. 

Let save that for our next post, shall we?

 

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Special Update: You Can Track Us in (Semi) Real Time with NEBO!

 Yet Another Reason to be Shackled to Your Smart(?) Phone!  😁

We have installed a NEBOLink tracking device on Irish Lass.

Using a combination of web and GPS technology, NEBO can track our position, course, and speed in near real-time.   NEBO is a product of an Australian company (https://nebo.global/) that the AGLCA has adopted as its official automated boat logging tool.  Good on ya, mate!

For us, this gives us automated logging of our voyage and the ability to track and communicate with other NEBO-equipped Loopers.   For you, it means you can use the free NEBO app to track and message us.  You can find the app for free in the Google Play Store or in the Apple App Store.  (Beware of a note-taking app of a similar name!) 

You need not register to use the search feature.  Just search on "Irish Lass" and TaDa! there we are.  

Pretty cool, huh?

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