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!