At Trent Port Marina!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 90 - June 29, 2017

We are all registered now to stay here through next Tuesday night and head out on the Trent-Severn Waterway on Wednesday morning! We got the weekly rate, which is basically seven days for the price of five and a half, and with the exchange rate, it is a screaming good deal, in a very nice marina, in a very interesting town, which we hope to get to see when the weather settles down!

It rained off and on all day today. It would let up for a little while, and we would get all excited and think about taking the bikes down - then it would start up raining again. It did this all day and on into the evening! 

This morning we did our laundry (it is free here, and they even provide the detergent for the washer and Bounce sheets for the dryer!), and took our showers. Honestly, I need to take pictures of the bathroom/shower pods, they are so unique - and they provide a fresh bath mat for each use that you put in a hamper in the laundry room when you are done! I think all they need is a cart that brings a morning newspaper and free coffee and croissants to each boat on the dock! 

Today during a little break in the rain we walked over to the Metro Supermarket across the street and re-provisioned a bit, we will probably go back because we were kind of limited to what we could carry!  

The rest of the day we played computer and read our Kindles, since it was raining and there was not much else we could do. Plans for when/if it stops raining include visiting the Trent Port Historical Museum, which we are told has a great little cafe, maybe biking to the Canadian Air Force Museum at the air base, and for sure biking to Lock 1 to get our free lock pass and buy our mooring permit. In the afternoon, we had ice cream - there is an ice cream shop in the marina building. They also have a Happy Hour from 5 to 8 p.m. every evening in the marina building, but we did not feel like braving the rain to go to it!

Our plans for tomorrow, Friday, are totally weather dependent, and the forecast is for more rain! Saturday, July 1, is Canada Day, and there is supposed to be a big fireworks show directly across from the marina - we might all be sitting out on our folding chairs in our raincoats with umbrellas, but we'll be there rain or shine. Actually, it probably will remind us of the typical Fourth of July weather in Birch Bay!

I think I will probably do a single blog post for the remaining marina days, since repeating "we played computer and read our Kindles" would get kind of dull after a bit! That is subject to change if the weather gets better and we can actually do something interesting! 

Trent Port Marina and Finally a Bona Fide Docktail Hour!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 89 - June 28, 2017

Canadian courtesy flag and
AGLCA burgee on Daydream

We cruised from Deseronto to Trenton today, proudly flying our new Canadian courtesy flag!  It was surprisingly choppy in the Bay of Quinte but not uncomfortable. When we arrived we called the Trent Port Marina on the VHF, and were told to stand off while the dock staff assisted a large yacht that was having trouble getting docked. Trent Port Marina has two dock staff that assist every single boat coming in, and it took more than two staff, quite a few tries, and quite a long time, to get the big boy in! Smaller boats have their advantages!

It was a bit difficult treading water in the middle of the Trent River, but it was finally our turn and the dock staff called us in. They said we were the easiest docking they had all day, and I did not do such a great job - it was a port tie approached from a left turn, and I should have gone past the slip, turned around and come at it from the other direction, i.e., a right turn in, to stay off the corner of the slip  (I knew that, oh well, next time I guess).

Trent Port Marina

What can we say about the Trent Port Marina, except "Wow"?  Everything here is brand new, and top notch.  New floating docks with 374 slips, gated entry with keycards, incredible bathroom/shower "pods" (all individual rooms with toilet facilities and shower, and lots of them), free laundry, and free WiFi, all for $1.60 a foot with 30 amp electric - and that is Canadian, before applying the exchange rate! There is a large supermarket right across the street, and lots of things to see and do, as it is very close to downtown. When (if?) it stops raining, which is forecast for Sunday, we'll take the bikes down for sure.

We originally checked in for Wednesday and Thursday, then extended for Friday and Saturday to be here for the Canada Day fireworks, and now we think we will stay here through Tuesday night and leave Wednesday, since they have a "pay for five days, stay for seven" deal".  OK, so the free hot dog and ice cream thing was last year, but honestly, this is about the nicest marina we have ever seen! We need to go to Trent-Severn Lock 1 and get our free lock pass (they require a free decal, unlike the Erie, where no pass was required), and purchase our seasonal mooring permit. The break even on that is about 10-11 days, we plan to really take our time on the Trent-Severn!

There is a Canadian Air Force base in Trenton, and just FWIW, after being in Ottawa for Canada Day, Prince Charles and Camilla will be in Trenton on Sunday at the base. 

But the big deal for us was our first bona fide "docktail hour"! Wherever Loopers are gathered at a marina, there is usually a "docktail hour" around 5 p.m. Since we anchor out more than we go to marinas, we no doubt have missed out on quite a few. We had a mini docktail hour at Oriental, N.C., which was fun, but this was the real deal! As an added bonus, the AGLCA Executive Director Kimberly Russo was here as well! Fortunately, it did not start raining until docktail hour was over! People bring appetizers to share and an adult beverage. Loopers get to meet each other face to face, exchange boat cards and compare notes on their experiences. Here are some photos from this evening.

Docktail hour at Trent Port Marina - see if you can spot Patty!
(Kimberly Russo photo)

Rip and Beth Tyler

Laurie and Ellen

Sandy and Phyllis

Deseronto

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 88 - June 27, 2017

Trenton was a bit farther from Prinyer's Cove than we wanted to travel, especially since it was raining, so we set our sights on the anchorage at Deseronto, about halfway to Trenton. We reached Deseronto about 12:30 p.m. and set the hook a short distance off Centennial Park in Deseronto.

This little Ontario town is the eastern gateway to the Bay of Quinte. It was named for a Mohawk Indian, Capt. John Deserontyon (aka Deseronto), who became a captain in the British army and led a band of Mohawk warriors who fought with the British against the Americans in the Revolutionary War.  The town was laid out by Deserontyon's grandson, John Culbertson, was incorporated as a Village named Mill Point in 1881, but  the name was changed to Deseronto in 1889.

Two dollar courtesy flag!

Patty and I paddled into Centennial Park and walked into town, with three objectives. First was to go to the grocery store, Your Town Grocery, since we had a little shopping list. Second was to go to the LCBO (liquor store), since we had pretty much taken care of any excess bar stock by the time we crossed the Canadian border - with NEXUS passes, we need to be absolutely straight arrow. Third, and perhaps most important, was to get some kind of Canadian flag we could use as a courtesy flag until we get to a chandlery to get a proper flag! We were headed for the Dollar Store, but found flags displayed in the window of the pharmacy, probably for Canada Day, July 1st, for all of $1.85. We now have a temporary courtesy flag flying on Daydream's VHF antenna! 

Your Village Grocer is a fairly small store, but has everything you need even if it doesn't have everything you want! It has an exceptional meat market, and we stocked up on fresh meat, which we re-wrapped and put in the freezer. We were looking for Tonkatsu sauce, which we thought would be a long shot, and it was, but we bought some plum-prune sauce that went very well with our panko coated port cutlets! The LCBO, we knew, would be a shock at the checkout counter, and it was! But when we checked the real cost factoring in the exchange rate with out credit union banking app, all was good again. More expensive than the U.S. for sure but the exchange rate really mitigated that!

The town has a couple of pretty impressive buildings, the Post Office and the Town Hall, but the rest of the buildings in town, not so much!

Deseranto Post Office

Deseranto Town Hall

Across the little bay, the effect of the elevated water levels was apparent, as many of the boat houses at the marina there were significantly submerged.

Submerged boat houses at marina

I also kept looking at two boats in the marina across the way. I could not tell if the red boat was a little toy boat or if the green boat was simply a giant! They certainly looked odd together!

Little boat, big boat

So now it is on to Trenton! We have reservations for two nights at the new Trent Port Marina, which by all accounts is one of the finest marinas anywhere. We are really looking forward to exploring Trenton!

Fulton to Oswego and Crossing the BIG Lake!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAYS 86 and 87  - June 25 and 26, 2017

Sunday the 25th we left our sweet little Canal Landing Marina in Fulton to simply move up to Oswego, an overwhelming distance of 12 miles. We transited Locks O-3, O-5 (there is no O-4 on the Oswego Canal), O-6 and O-7.

Our destination for the day was a place called "Between the locks" in Oswego. There is a long wall between O-7 and O-8, which is the last wall on the Oswego Canal. This is not a great distance, you can see the entrance to Lock O-8 as Part of it is a low wall with cleats, and part of it is a higher wall with rings and bollards. We, naturally, chose the lower wall with cleats!

We were originally planning to stay in Fulton another night and head to Fulton on Monday, based on what SailFlow and MarineWeather had been telling us earlier, but as we continued to consult these two vital resources, it appeared the Monday rather than Tuesday would be the day to cross Lake Ontario to Canada.

The day was spent relaxing! Baxter got quite a few nice long walks!

Monday the 26th was the big day!  Lake Ontario is the fifth of the Great Lakes, and is 193 statute miles long and 53 miles wide.  Today the winds were predicted to be light,  and switching from west (bad when you are going north!) to southwest or south through the morning.

We fueled up at Oswego Marina and headed out through the breakwaters onto Lake Ontario with some anxiety.  No matter what the forecast, cruising on the Great Lakes is a big deal. The first few miles there were some mild waves on the beam, as we would expect with a light west wind. Pretty soon though, Lake Ontario settled down and was as nearly flat as a Great Lake can be! No waves, only some very gentle low swells.

Our prop change in Fulton was now put to the test. We had not previously been able to get Daydream on plane. Patty put the throttle down, and Daydream popped right up on plane!  She then backed it off to a nice easy slow plane, about 9.5 statute miles per hour.  We ran across the lake on plane, catching and passing the big yachts that had left a bit before we did. One of them told us (facetiously, I am sure!) we had "waked" him. Although we burned some fuel, getting off the lake reasonably quickly just seemed like a good idea! 

Passing a yacht on a CALM Lake Ontario!

Running faster than our normal slow cruise turned what would have been an 8 or 9 hour day into a 4.5 hour day. Our total distance crossing the lake and then getting to our marina, Prinyer's Cove Marina, was 63 miles. We had pre-registered our passport information with the Canada Border Services Agency, we have NEXUS cards, and Prinyer's Cove is a designated NEXUS telephone reporting site, so a phone call got us checked into Canada in record time!

Tomorrow we start moving towards Trenton and the beginning of the Trent -Severn Canal!

Our Day in Fulton - Changing Props and a Chinese Dinner Out!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 85 - June 24, 2017

We will probably be staying at Canal Landing Marina in Fulton for only one more night, since it is now looking like Monday rather than Tuesday is the day to cross Lake Ontario. Tomorrow we can move up the Oswego Canal to the wall between Locks O-7 and O-8 so we will be well positioned to start across the big lake!

We have been receiving a lot of advice on C-Brats about our inability to get Daydream on the plane - crossing Oneida Lake, the best we could do was 15.5 statute miles per hour at 4200 RPM at WOT (wide open throttle), so we knew were were lugging the engine, which is not good! The range for WOT according to the BF150 manual is 5000 - 6000 RPMs. So it is evident we are over-propped for the weight of the boat, and we are loaded for bear!

The prop we have been using is a Quicksilver aluminum prop, 15.5" diameter and 15 pitch, which works great at sea level at our usual Pacific Northwest cruising weight. Our spare prop is the original Honda stainless 14.5" diameter by 15 pitch, which is probably still over-propped but going in the right direction, so I decided to change props today.

Pat changing props
from the Sea Eagle

Ordinarily, changing props is not a difficult proposition, but the Honda prop is buried deep under a hatch in the cockpit floor, so the first order of business was moving just about everything out of the cockpit and taking up enough of our nifty cockpit floor covering to access the hatch. Then I needed a platform to work from where I would not lose anything in the water, so I raised the outboard, fastened the Sea Eagle in place under it, and then lowered the outboard so the prop was directly over the center of the kayak.  

Quicksilver prop with chunk out of blade

The hardest part was, as it always seems to be, getting the cotter pin out of the shaft. Once that was done, it was an easy job of removing the Quicksilver prop. We were both shocked to see that there was a HUGE chunk missing from one of the blades of the Quicksilver prop. This probably occurred while polishing a rock, possibly as far back as Florida, but we have no way to know. What we know for sure is that the missing chunk could not have been doing anything good for performance! It remains to be seen what improvement, if any, we get from changing props, but we are hoping for the best!

We have been mostly cooking our suppers on the boat, but we decided to go out for dinner, since we needed to go up to Fulton for some shopping at Rite Aid and mailing some stuff at the Post Office. We went to a Chinese restaurant called Dragon City, which had tables but was mostly take-out! We enjoyed our meal there, and came home with some left-over hot and sour soup (which was neither very hot nor very sour, but we will fix that!), and a good part of Patty's General Tao's Chicken.  I, naturally, managed to pretty much polish off the Mongolian Beef!

After we got back,Patty read for a while, and  I shaved, showered, and had an early bed time!

Oswego Canal and Canal Landing Marina

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 84 - June 23, 2017

Because it looks like it will be next Tuesday at the earliest before conditions are favorable to cross Lake Ontario (we will be checking this day by day), I wanted to stay in Brewerton another night, while Patty wanted to push on to the Oswego Canal. We compromised and pushed on to the Oswego Canal!

We had only about 10 miles to go from Brewerton on the Erie Canal before reaching Three Rivers and the start of the Oswego Canal, which is a nice wide river. We traversed Locks O-1 and O-2, intending to stay on the west wall north of Lock O-2, where Skipper Bob recommends. The only problem was, we did not see any suitable  "west wall north of Lock O-2." There is a very short, very high concrete wall that looked very rough, with bollards only to tie to, and virtually in front of the exit doors from Lock O-2. Skipper Bob's information in "Cruising the New York Canal System" has been fairly accurate up to here, but here we have no idea what he was thinking! He missed it by a mile!

So we tied to the east wall north of Lock O-2, which runs the entire way from Lock O-2 to Lock O-3. It is a high wall, but at least it has rings as well as bollards for tying up the boat. The boat was tied up staring right into the doors of Lock O-3. We had to step off the roof to get to shore - not good!  We walked back to Lock O-2 along the Canal, intending to go to the Post Office and the Rite-Aid, but I had forgotten my wallet, so we made a big loop and walked back on Second Street toward Lock O-3. We found the Fulton Tow Path Trail that went right back down to Canal maybe 50 yards north of where our boat was tied!

Patty was not up to going back up but I wanted to get some automatic transmission fluid for our trim tab reservoir, so I went back up to the auto parts store right above where we were tied up. According to Active Captain, the Canal Landing Marina was between us and the Lock O-3 doors, but we could not see how there could possibly be a marina between us and the short distance to the lock doors. According to Active Captain and the City of Fulton web site, this was supposed to be a free municipal marina with 22 slips. 

Daydream at Canal Landing
(free) Marina

So after going to the auto parts store, I walked a bit farther north on Second Street past the Tow Path Trail, and sure enough, there was a cut in the Canal wall, and a little marina tucked in behind the Canal wall, which was completely empty, except for the City of Fulton Fire Department Rescue Boat! There were two phone numbers to call posted on the marina office, one for the marina and the other for Fulton Parks and Rec, but nobody was home at either phone number. Since the marina is free, we simply moved Daydream a couple of hundred yards into the marina into one of the empty slips. The City of Fulton Fire Rescue Boat was the only other boat there down at the far end.

Canal Landing sign

The Active Captain reviews are mostly negative because of the small size of the marina and the difficulty of maneuvering larger boats in here. Many entered, tried, failed, and turned around and left, leaving negative reviews, when in reality it was not the size of the marina but the size of their boats that caused their problems! 

Screenshot of City of Fulton webpage
about Canal Landing Marina

This marina has a pedestal above each floating dock with 30 amp power and water, and has restrooms and showers, all free. The City of Fulton website optimistically claims that the marina can accommodate boats to 42 feet. Although we had no trouble in our 25 foot boat, I can see why most of the Active Captain reviews were negative. This is a five star marina for small boats, not so good for big ones! The longest of the floating docks coming out from the walkway are perhaps 22 feet at most - Daydream is sticking out about 3 feet into the fairway, which is pretty narrow anyway. A 42 foot boat would be almost entirely blocking the fairway!

I posted a five star review "Great for Small Boats, Not so Good for Big Boats..."  This seems more objective than knocking the marina because somebody could not get their forty-two footer in here! But honestly, free moorage, free water, free power, free restrooms and showers, and free trash disposal? What more could anybody want?

We plan to stay here three nights, and tie up between Locks O-7 and O-8 Monday night, fuel up in Oswego, and if conditions are right, head for Canada!

Crossing Oneida Lake and Brewerton

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 83 - June 22, 2017

Yesterday Oneida Lake was snarly - this morning it was a pussycat! We had an easy crossing from Sylvan Beach to Brewerton. We tried once again to get Daydream on a plane, and we did - but WOT (wide open throttle) gave us nowhere near the RPMs that it should have, and the fuel burn was horrendous. We possibly could do several things, but we have decided we will just remain slow cruisers, where at 2000 RPM we go 7 statute miles per hour and burn 0.9 gallons per hour. It isn't a race, anyway!

Welcome to Brewerton banner

Kayak on bow rail so sun can get
to solar panels

We are tied up at the Brewerton Free Dock, which is actually a fairly low concrete wall with a nice rubber bumper next to Riverfront Park. None of the other boats we have been traveling with stopped here, so we are pretty much on our own today. 

I took the kayak down off the roof where it was covering the solar panels, and put it on the bow rail so sunlight could get to the solar panels, since it is a nice sunny day. At nearly nine p.m., the solar panels had kept the battery up to 97.3%, so they are doing their job! There is no electricity here, so if we wanted to stay a day or two, I feel confident that the solar panels would handle our power needs as long as the sun continues to shine!

Baxter giving us "the Look"!

Baxter jumped out of the boat and went walkabout in the park. Patty called "come" and Baxter, being the well trained Lhasa that he is, promptly sat down and gave us "the Look." That look says, you can say "come" all you want, but I am going to just sit here until I feel like going back to the boat." I eventually had to go out and put a leash on him to bring him back!

Shortly after we got here, the city parks crew arrived and erected a stage. They told us there would be a concert at 6 p.m. Before lunch, we walked down to Brewerton Boatworks and bought two new 20' lines for the locks, since our 50' lines are WAY too long! We came back and had lunch, then went to the pharmacy a few blocks away for a couple items I needed, and stopped on the way back for ice cream. We seem to be making a habit of stopping for ice cream! 

The band arrived and started setting up on the stage at about 5 p.m. They are the American Eagle Band and do country and classic rock and roll. We had our sundowners and supper, and the concert actually started before we were done with supper, but we could see and hear them from the cockpit, and after we were done eating, we went out and joined the crowd, which was kind of sparse. They were not bad for a bunch of old guys - the band leader told me the bass player (sitting in the chair in the photo) was 80 years old! I hope am still playing music at 80, but really I will be satisfied with still being vertical!

Here is a short video clip of a very sweet couple obviously enjoying the music!

Sylvan Beach and a Farewell Gift from Joanne Haley

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 82 - June 21, 2017

Shortly before we cast off our lines at Lock E-20 this morning, George came down with yet another gift from Joanne Haley - a pie plate full of stuffed shells with homemade sausage and marinara sauce! I wish we had some way to directly thank Joanne! As we cruised by her house, she was on the porch waving goodbye, and we gave her a nice salute with Daydream's horn!

We had only two locks between between Lock E-20 and our next destination, Sylvan Beach. There is a nice long floating dock at Sylvan Beach, which had nobody on it when we arrived. Even though we got there fairly early in the day, this is a necessary stop, because it is where the Erie Canal crosses Lake Oneida, and Lake Oneida was just plain snarly - big surf crashing on the beach. One of the trawlers in the Looper group we have more or less been traveling with started out across Lake Oneida, decided it was too rough and turned back!

Loopers at What's the Scoop Ice Cream Shop

Sylvan Beach is a beach resort on Lake Oneida with an amusement park, rental cabins and a lot of restaurants.  We walked a short way uptown in the afternoon for ice cream! The ice cream shop was called "What's the Scoop," and it had just about everything an ice cream shop could have, but by us, nothing beats a cup (not a cone) of hard ice cream!

I walked Baxter back down toward the beach (they don't allow dogs ON the beach), and he did the meet and sniff with quite a few other dogs!

After sundowners on the cockpit, we wandered over to Lab Partners, and shared Joanne's stuffed shells with Beth and Rip. It was wonderful! I hope we did not overstay our welcome, but we had some pretty good conversation! Back to Daydream, a little glass of St. Augustine Winery's fine port, and off to dreamland!

Lock E-20, Marcy, N.Y. and a Nice Lady, Joanne Haley!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 81 - June 20, 2017

This morning the weather was sunny, and it stayed sunny as we transited locks E-18, E-19 and E-20, but it started raining hard just as soon as we got here. That passed, though, and it has been sunny since then. We had decided to stay at the little floating dock at E-20 next to the Town of Marcy city park, but Bob and Peppe decided to push on to Rome on Again, so we are here with Rip and Beth Tyler on their Monk 36 Lab Partners and another larger boat on the other side of the Canal named Firestorm owned by Mike and Laurie Dickens, whom we just met this evening.

Lab Partners at Lock E-20 Wall

Daydream at Lock E-20 Floating Dock

Lab Partners is tied up at a short concrete wall just past Lock E-20, and Daydream is tied up on a small floating dock just a little farther on. As an extra bonus, we have electricity from a 15 amp socket just up from the floating dock! 

We are both right next to the Gruenewald and Smith Park, which is a large town park right on the Canal with a pavilion and a lot of picnic tables. People have been in the park all day, and Baxter made friends with quite a few of them! There were also many people fishing in the Canal at the park.

We had sundowners with Beth and Rip on the flybridge of Lab Partners, which I am pretty sure is larger than the entire cabin of Daydream!  I have mentioned this before, but IF we were going to get a trawler, a Monk 36 would be at the top of our list! Rip is, first, a very talented woodworker - all the teak modifications he has made to Lab Partners are indistinguishable from the factory woodwork. He is, second, a self-described geek, Everything is wirelessly networked, including two computers running Coastal Explorer, a dedicated Raymarine chartplotter, Rip's Android tablet and Beth's iPad, and quite possibly, the toaster and oven (I think that is facetious, but I cannot be certain!).

Rip and Beth have a big yellow lab name Cally (I think Lab Partners has something to do with their affinity for labs!). Their schedule revolves around Cally, much as ours does around Baxter. Baxter and Cally had some nice play time in the park!

While we were there, Mike and Laurie came over, from Firestorm and we chatted a bit with them, but talk of their air conditioners, full size refrigerators, washers and dryers, generators, and so forth had us wondering if we were in the same world. Yes, we are all on boats, and yes, we are all doing the Great Loop, but our boats seem to have very little in common except that they float! But like we say, the gin tastes just as good on our little 25 foot C-Dory as it does on their 45 foot yacht!

After we returned from Lab Partners, a couple who lived near the park came by and we started talking. The man's name is George and the lady's name is Joanne Haley (spelling?), and she told us about how the park had fallen into a sad state, with the grass not being mowed, but she went to her state representative who helped get things back on track with the city, and today the park looks great! When she left, she told us was going to bring some fresh baked cookies down to us.

Boy did she!  While I was out taking some photos, she brought down a whole plate of cookies, a huge apple turnover, a bag of vegetables, and homemade sausage! Thank you, Joanne! They say the people of Northern New York are the most friendly in the world, and you proved it today!

Here are today's pictures!

The gears that operate Lock E-20's doors

Lock E-20 chamber

Sunset over Erie Canal at Lock E-20

Sixth Day on the Erie Canal - Hanging at Canal Harbor in Little Falls

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 80 - June 19, 2017

Last night the weather forecast was ominous - thunderstorms and flash flood watch. So we decided to stay at Canal Harbor in Little Falls another day. Short version, although there was some heavy rain, none of the dangerous bad weather happened, so we had a relaxing day at Canal Harbor!

Doe and fawn across Canal

Peppe and Box Christianson from Again

After getting up later than usual and a leisurely breakfast, we had our showers and did our laundry. We exchanged boat cards with a couple we had not me before. I took a picture of a doe and fawn across the Canal. We bought Creamsicles. We relaxed and kicked back. Patty read and I played computer. We had sundowners with Peppe and Bob on Again. We had supper and went to bed.

To quote Mel Blanc, "That's all, folks!"

Fifth Day on the Erie Canal - Canal Harbor at Rotary Park, Little Falls

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 79 - June 18, 2017

We set our alarm clock for 6 a.m. so we could be in line at Lock E-14 at 7 a.m., when the lock master starts locking boats through. We picked Canal Harbor at Rotary Park in Little Falls, since it has floating docks, power, water, restrooms and showers for $1.00 a foot.  We are still traveling with our friends Bob and Peppe on their sailboat Again. The early start was dictated by our common slow cruising speed of about 6 statute miles per hour, give or take a few tenths!

There are four locks between Canajoharie and Little Falls, but one of them is really something. That is Lock E-17 at Little Falls. It is the highest lift on the Erie Canal at 40 feet. This is one of the only locks in the world that has a vertically dropping gate at the downstream end instead of two doors that swing open. This lock uses ropes (i.e., not pipes or cables) and boats are only allowed on one side of the lock. We have found that in the last couple of locks, it seems as though the ropes are farther apart than our boat is long! So I caught the first rope, held it, and let it go back to Patty just as she went back to the cockpit, and then with my arms extended as far as they can possible go and precariously leaned out over the bow rail, I was able to snag the second rope with the boat hook and pull it back to me. I hope this is not what we have to look forward to in the future! Amazingly, the guy in the boat behind us, an Albin 27, was single handing, and simply grabbed one rope, and walked back and forth on this walk-around with the other hand on his roof grab rail as needed to keep the bow and stern both in against the wall. I could see that not ending well for us if I tried that!

Little Falls is just about halfway between Waterford, where the Erie Canal starts, and Three Rivers, where we will turn up the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario. On the trip here, our trip odometer turned over 2,000 miles, so we are just about 1/3 of the way through our estimated 6,000 mile voyage! So far, we have traversed the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware River and Bay, the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway, the Atlantic Ocean from Manasquan to Sandy Hook, the Hudson River to Waterford, and some of the Erie Canal. We have enjoyed every single one of them! Most of all, we especially enjoy coffee in the morning and sundowners in the evening in the cockpit!

Fountains at Canal Harbor

Flags at Canal Harbor

After we got hooked up and settled in, we took Dave, the harbor master, up on his offer to drive us into Little Falls. Although the town sits on both sides of the Erie Canal, Canal Harbor is on the south side and the business district is on the north side. Here is a tip: be skeptical, very skeptical, of anybody who tells you it will take "about 15 minutes" to walk back - unless, of course, you can walk about two miles in 15 minutes! We went to the Price Chopper supermarket and got some needed provisions, and then had to walk back. It was extremely hot and humid, and fortunately a good Samaritan saw Patty and me resting on a guard rail, still half a mile short of Canal Harbor, and gave us a ride the rest of the way! 

Little Falls scene from bridge 

Little Falls is very scenic, with the Erie Canal and remnants of prior canals and aqueducts, and a lot of National Register buildings. It once boasted 50 manufacturing facilities and a population of 14,000, with a daytime population of up to 30,000 with all the workers who came into town for their jobs.  But like other Erie Canal towns, Little Falls lost population and businesses. There are still 10 manufacturing facilities left in town, and the population had sunk to 4,000 as recently as five years ago. It is now back up to 4,500. All statistics are per Dave, the harbor master, who was born and raised here!

The weather forecast is not good for tomorrow, so we will likely stay here another night, but it is a very pleasant place, so tomorrow we will take our showers, do laundry and relax! 

Fourth Day on the Erie Canal - Hanging in Canajoharie

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 78 - June 17, 2017

Yesterday we went to the Arkell Library and Museum, did a bit of shopping at Peruzzi's Meat Market (a very cool little store with a lot more than meats), and looked around a bit, but we decided to stay in Canajoharie for another day, and although we kind of struck out in our main objective, we had a fun day anyway!

In the morning a fireman came by our boat and told us the Erie Canal would be shut down between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., and if we wanted to leave, we needed to go before 9:30. We told him we were planning to stay, so all was good. Somebody thought it was for lock repairs, I thought he said a boat parade. Turns our it was none of the above!

We walked across the bridge over the Erie Canal to the adjoining village of Palatine Bridge to the Ace Hardware and the Rite Aide for a little shopping. Palatine Village was celebrating its 150th anniversary. The parking lot in front of the Ace Hardware was set up for a classic car show, a stage for live music, mobile food trucks, and good old fashioned chicken BBQ. It turns out the big event, the reason the Erie Canal was shut down, was for a rubber duck race down the Erie Canal! 

Rubber duck race on the Erie Canal!

We took up good viewing spots on the shore. The race was supposed to start at 11:00 a.m. It became 11:15, then 11:30, then noon...and the "race" had still not started. The man next to us told us "The race starts at 11:00 a.m., so if your watch says something different, your watch must be wrong!" We decided to go have our lunch. Our friend Bob Christianson did get a picture of the rubber ducks all bunched up at the finish line. I think they still have some details to work out for this big community event!

After lunch, we went out for our main objective, to find the "boiling pot" for which Canajoharie is named. We also wanted to go back to Peruzzi's to get some more of the sausage patties that we bought yesterday. Skipper Bob had some directions and we tried to follow them, but although we walked a mile or so, somehow we did not go quite far enough, and ended up on a dead end street. It was hot as blazes, and as usual, we had not brought water. Even though we finally realized where we needed to go, we were both too toasted to go any farther! So we went back into town and stopped at a restaurant with soft ice cream and had vanilla and chocolate swirls! Bad decision - we should have gone to Peruzzi's first, because they closed at 3:00 p.m., and by the time we had our ice cream it was 3:30!

Dummy light

West Hill School

We did see some interesting sights in Canajoharie, though. One was the historic West Hill School, where Susan B. Anthony was a teacher in 1846 (the soda jerk told us that he thought Harriet Tubman taught at the school! We straightened him out on his history!). We met a woman at the park who told us about the "dummy light," of which there are only three in the U.S., and that she went to West Hill School in kindergarten and first grade.

We got back to our boat fairly exhausted, but went out for a great dinner with Bob and Peppe to the Mercado Restaurant.  We slept well, but set our alarm for 6:00 a.m. to get an early start for our next destination, Little Falls!

Third Day on the Erie Canal - Riverlink Park to Riverfront Park, Canajoharie

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 77 - June 16, 2017

Daydream and Again at Riverfront Park

We cruised from Riverlink Park in Amsterdam to Riverfront Park in Canajoharie today with our friends Peppe and Bob Christianson and their sailboat Again. Riverlink and Riverfront Park are both great places to tie up the boat! 

Riverfront Park is a Canajoharie town park with a floating dock, with power provided by the local Chamber of Commerce. The sign asks boaters to patronize Chamber members' businesses, although the first business listed was a funeral home! I wonder if the irony was lost on the local Chamber! The dock and power are free, which is our favorite price! When we got here, the dock was empty, but it filled up in short order. Other boats that arrived later tied up to the concrete wall around the corner from the floating dock. No power there.

Beechnut Packing Co.

Beechnut Packing Co. Plant

While both places are great to tie up a boat, what a contrast in the two towns! Amsterdam was quite frankly depressed and depressing. Canajoharie is vigorous, although its principal claim to fame, the Beechnut Packing Company, famed for baby food, candy, chewing gum, and a host of other products, is but a fond memory, having gone through mergers and acquisitions that resulted in the company leaving Canajoharie. The original packing plant has quite obviously sat empty for many years. Still, there is a business in almost every storefront on the streets of the town and the lights are on! 

Canajoharie was settled in 1730 and incorporated in 1829. The name is from the Mohawk language and means a "pot that washes itself," referring to the Canajoharie "boiling pot," a circular gorge in Canajoharie Creek which is a favorite swimming hole for local residents. One of Canajoharie's 19th Century residents, James Arkell, founded Arkell and Smith in 1859, which produced flat bottomed paper bags (their claim to having "invented" flat bottom paper bags is uncertain, since according to Wikipedia, Margaret Knight was actually the inventor). One of his sons, Bartlett Arkell, was instrumental in founding and was the first president of Beechnut Packing Co.  Bartlett also, however, collected art, and donated most of it to the Canajoharie Library and Museum established in the 1920s, today known as the Arkell Library and Museum.

The Arkell Library and Museum owns 21 Winslow Homer paintings, a number of paintings by other American artists including Norman Rockwell and Gilbert Stuart, and a number of copies of European masterpieces that Arkell had collected. This is a worthwhile place to visit in Canajoharie!

Winslow Homer "Shepherdess with Sheep"

Norman Rockwell painting used in Beechnut gum advertisement

Gilbert Stuart "George Washington" (copy of his own original by Stuart)

Bartlett Arkell