Monday, October 23, 2006

We are still waiting for the locks just east of us to open and we are watching the water level in the canal receding. We spent the day reviewing the charts and planning potential marinas as we head south along the Hudson River, passing New York City, Atlantic City and the Delaware Bay area. We will be going by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island so I am hoping we will have clear skies so we can take some good pictures as we pass the New York City. I remember all of the boat traffic we saw the last time we were in the New York City area-the ferries, cargo ships and all types of military vessels. It will feel so much different then the slow pace of the canal with very little traffic.
We had some problems with our cabin heater, Gordon started to take it apart and found a problem with a electrical connector on the fuel pump and fuel filter, after fixing that, it still did not work. Every time we started the heater, it would switch off. Then he noticed the voltage was very low- so the problem was not with the heater, it was with our batteries. Since we have been sitting here for 4 days using the heater and the refrigerator, without running our engine, the batteries were being drained, even though we have an inverter and have been using shore power. We have an electric heater and have been using that so we are not drawing so many amps from the batteries.
I am writing this blog on Tuesday morning-the good news is the lock may be open this afternoon. The lockmaster told us they need to remove a "tree that is laying against the guard gate"! This is an example of the debris we saw while we were pulling into the marina at Ilion, NY.