Thursday, October 26, 2006

We finally made progress. We covered 52 miles and 8 locks. Tomorrow we plan to cover 40 miles, 9 locks and proceed out of the Erie Canal to the Hudson River. Weather prediction is calm and clear. The week-end will be a weather delay as they are predicting 50 knot winds, so we will tie up in a Marina in the upper Hudson River. We have been on the Erie Canal two weeks-most of the delay was related to weather-rain, snow, high water levels, power outages for locks and bridges so it has been a challenge of patience. We are glad we waited until today to proceed because even though the winds were 10-15 knots , wind gusts were challenging. Gordon had his full body weight on one line in a deep lock and I was holding onto the forward line so our bow would not hit the lock wall. Even the locks which were only 8-12 feet proved some challenges as the water level was high, I had to extend the boat hook to its furthest reach and we had to fend the boat off the lock wall rim because of high water levels. We have docked just below Lock 11 in Amsterdam, NY.



Looking back on lock 18. The lock doors constantly leak as the water goes down. A bit scary even though the doors are designed to seal with the water pressure pushes against them. Debris gets into the structure and allows leakage. This is typical. None of these doors are water tight.














Leaving lock 17 at Little Falls which is the largest lock on the canal. This lock lowered us 40 feet.













We were glad that lock 17 was behind us.















The power station canal at Little Falls. We took this picture as we left lock 17.