A Change in Plans - To the Finger Lakes!

The standoff.

Across the canal in Seneca Falls, NY, were two separate gaggles(or is it flocks?) of geese, each with what appeared to be the king goose.  The kings faced off as the gaggle with larger geese wanted to have the spot occupied by the gaggle with smaller geese.  We were prepared to see our first goose fight, but soon the smaller king backed down and his gaggle began to concede their territory.  At that point a man and his dog approached and the larger geese in the triumphant gaggle all proceeded to jump in the water, leaving the prime real estate to the gaggle of smaller geese.  

Birds have regular come up to our boat.
Perhaps, they are used to getting handouts.

Mother duck is keeping
a close eye

 Wildlife has been abundant on the New York canals.  We have seen blue heron, ducks, swans, seagulls, cormorants and way too many geese, who can leave excrement that looks like a dog’s.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of the deer we saw swimming across the canal.  From a distance it looked like a duck swimming backwards.

We weren’t supposed to be in Seneca Falls, but while in Little Falls a Canadian couple at the dock suggested that we skip some of our Lake Ontario plans because of record high water.  Instead, they said we should go to Seneca Falls and the Finger Lakes.  So okay, off we went.

Like most towns along the canals, Seneca Falls is a former
mill town fueled by immigrants.  This former mill is slated
to become the new home for the Women's Hall of Fame.

Seneca Falls is a nice town on the Cayuga-Seneca Canal between the north ends of Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake.  We spent two days there, tied up to their town dock wall with free electricity as well as a free concert with a fantastic band, Destination, on Thursday night (7/25).  The local high school is called the Blue Devils, as is Lewiston High School in my former district.

Seneca Falls is where the women’s right movement started with a convention in 1848 and that history is honored with a National Park there as well as the Women’s Hall of Fame.  Molly and I read each of the plaques in honor of the 100 or so inductees that include two with Maine connections - Rachel Carsen, author of Silent Spring, and U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith.  I was particularly moved by the story of Ann Sullivan, who brought out the genius in Helen Keller.

Taughannock Falls.

5 miles into our hike at the Falls.

Cayuga Lake is one of the largest Finger Lakes, 35 miles long, with the college town of Ithaca at its southern end.  We cruised down the Lake and anchored off Taughannock Falls State Park.  After taking our dinghy ashore we hiked each of the trails that go to and from the Falls, which has a height that exceeds Niagara Falls, getting in 6 miles.  

Aurora greeted us with flags.

After a refreshing swim and night at anchor, we headed back up the Lake to the pretty town of Aurora, home of Wells College (sorry that I had never heard of this school).  We visited a

farmers market, purchased supplies and then got back on the boat to travel due west across the Lake to visit Goose Watch Winery.  The Finger Lakes region is the heart of NY wine country, and a few like Goose Watch have their own docks for boaters.  We weren’t disappointed, particularly as our wine stores were empty!

One of the 1925 tugs still in operation.

The wall in Baldwinsville, NY

Now we are back on the canals, taking the Erie to the Oswego where we are now tied up with just one more lock separating us from Lake Ontario  Many times we are the only boat going through a lock, and it as if this multi-million dollar system was built just for us  Other interesting artifacts along the canals include remnants of earlier, smaller canals, aqueducts that actually moved boats over rivers and 1925 tug boats still in operation.

Remains of the old aqueduct that carried boats over the
Oneida River.  The present Erie Canal opened in 1918 and
has  fewer locks and makes more extensive use of Rivers
because barges no longer needed to be pulled by mules on
the canal sides.

We are beginning to use an App
called NEBO that tracks our route.
We will write further about this
as we learn more.

Here kayaks are excited a lock.  Note that the large raised
gate is not the lock but a guard gate that can be closed
when the lock needs servicing or protection from winter
ice flows. 

Official Start of the Great Loop

Salty Paws at the 79th Street Boat Basin.

I (Molly) arrived at the 79th St Boat Basin on the Hudson in NYC on Saturday, July 13 with our friends, Stephen and Martha, and I replaced Bob and Danny on Salty Paws as our friends took the subway to Queens to spend the weekend with family. Early evening there was a massive blackout which affected midtown Manhattan to 72^nd Street, including the Broadway district. Fortunately, we were not affected and Bill had been able to get our boat A/C running. The Boat Basin has some transient boats, but is mostly live-aboard boats. This would not be for me, as the boats rock wildly after a barge or ferry goes by on the Hudson. 

We love this 3rd row, 1/2-price
"restricted-view" seats!

On Sunday, Bill and I took a cab, (yes, they still exist!), down to Broadway to see Dear Evan Hansen. Before the show, we had a light lunch at a pub near the theater. When we got to the long line at the theater, Bill realized that the envelope with the tickets was no longer in his pocket. I wish I had a pic of the look on his face. He ran back to the restaurant and spent 15 minutes asking the staff if they had found them and searching wildly. No luck and then he started making plans about the story he would tell the box office. When he came out of the restaurant, he happened to look down at a grate on the sidewalk and saw the envelope with the tickets! I hope this is an omen for the good luck we will experience on our long journey. Anyway, the show was superb! One of our top 3 and we have seen many over the years. 

Our expected Great Loop route.  Among our
expected stops are the 1000 Islands, Chicago,
Nashville. Key West, the Bahamas and
Washington, D. C.

Stephen and Martha.

Stephen and Martha joined us early the next morning and we set off up the Hudson River, bound for Poughkeepsie where they had left their car. This was also the official start of our Great Loop adventure that will take consume most of the next 11 months or so.

The new Tappan Zee Bridge.

The deep Hudson was first thought by
British explorers to be the Northwest
Passage to the Orient.  

We had a relaxing day on the beautiful Hudson, going through Martha's home territory, she having grown up in Nyack, just under the new, beautiful Tappan Zee Bridge (I am not sure if anyone really wants to call it by its official name – The Mario Cuomo Bridge.). That afternoon we arrived at a marina in Newburgh (home for Washington during some of the Revolution War) for the night. Our ukulele singalong was a hit with the neighboring boat.

West Point.

A NYC business owner built this for
his wife over 100 years ago, and
construction stopped the day she died.
It lay dormant for decades before
being mostly destroyed by fire.

CIA -  The Culinary Institute of America.

The next day brought us by West Point (ugly) and Bannerman Castle (never finished as his wife died) on our way to Poughkeepsie where we drove a few miles to the Culinary Institute of America for dinner. We ate in the French restaurant, Bocuse. 

Splendid campus and wonderful experience watching the soon to graduate students prepare and serve a delicious prix fixe dinner. CIA has admitted many students who have gone through the culinary program at Lewiston High School, and their graduates go on to impressive careers in the hospitality industry. 

I won't talk too much about the heat, since we have all been going through it. We do have AC on the boat if we are at a marina with power or we use our generator. It works some times!!! That night, Bill woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and realized that the AC was sending out hot air, not cold, and our cabin was 90 degrees. (Now fixed!) Today is Sunday, 7/21, and we seem to have pushed past the heat spell. 

We stayed at the dock in Waterford and looked right at the first
of now 35 locks on the Erie Canal.  The original canal had
over 100 locks.

After Poughkeepsie, we thought we would move along toward cool air and a swimming hole. We spent the next night in Waterford, which is where the Erie Canal starts and the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers meet. The Erie Canal was designed by Mr. Canvass White and completed in 1825 allowing transport around such impediments as Cohoes Falls, which we walked to near the beginning of the Mohawk River in Cohoes, across the River from Waterford.  

Cohoes Falls.

The Canal's completion spurned much industry to spring up along it's route and many upstate New York cities flourished for over a century. The canal was expanded and upgraded 3 times up until 1918. Trouble came with the modern industry not needing water power, the growth of the trucking and rail transportation and ultimately the growth of imports from Asia.

Lock operations are similar at each lock with boaters holding on to long hanging ropes on the sides.

By the time the lock fills, one can almost step
off the boat at the top of the lock.

Here I am holding on to the loop with my
great gloves that Bill bought me.  What a
thoughtful gift!

Bill seems to have it
easier than me!

Lock 17 has the highest rise -40 feet. It is also
the only lock with a lift lock; all the others
have gates that open left and right.
.

We have stopped in Waterford, Amsterdam and Little Falls, all largely built by immigrants.  All the cities along the Canal have been struggling with how to have a viable economy in today's world. The State of NY and private organizations have been trying to encourage tourism and development along the cities' waterfronts with some limited success.

The park on the Amsterdam bridge.

This park plaque notes "the mosiac
of nations that pulled together to
transform a village into a city."

Amsterdam has built a stunning park on its new pedestrian bridge across the Mohawk. Little Falls, which is lovely and our favorite community so far, had had a pop. of 18,000 and is now around 4500. The staff person at the little marina will drive boaters to the store or restaurants and an employee of these establishments will drive you back to your boat.

Bill pulls our little wagon filled with groceries
from Price Chopper in Little Falls.

Some of the old mills in Little Falls.

Tomorrow we continue our journey!

Boat Problems from Maine to New York

Dawn departure from Robinhood Marina.

Salty Paws going by our home.

Our original AGLCA Burgee off Portland Head Light.

 Fifteen minutes into the “trip of the lifetime” the motor overheating alarm went off.  Would our adventure end here in front of our Georgetown, Maine home?  Other first week challenges included losing the boarding ladder (we forgot to take it in after a swim), the motor stopping while anchoring near the shore (the propeller was wrapped with a dock line that fell overboard), our America's Great Loop Cruising Association (AGLCA) burgee flying away from the bowsprit during a fast run from Block Island to Long Island and almost running aground when we swung at anchor in Plymouth Harbor.  Fortunately, everything was dealt with successfully, and the new stern ladder and AGLCA burgee are due to arrive at a marina that we’ll be staying at in a few days.



And we still had our burgee in the
Cape Cod Canal.

Then, while crossing the Great Salt Bay in southern Long Island, our motor overheated again, only this time the alarm kept sounding even after shutting the motor off.  A call to a local boat yard was met with the response “don’t you know it’s Friday afternoon?”  He did suggest, however, that we be patient and let the motor cool down.  After 90 minutes, however, the alarm continued to sound, and now I am thinking that the motor and our trip are cooked.  I go back to see how hot the motor still is, and I realize that the alarm is coming from the bilge.  As it turns out, my bilge alarm malfunctioned at the same time that the motor overheated alarm when on.  Once we stopped the motor, I mistook the bilge alarm for the motor alarm.  The motor is fine!

Let’s end the problems there, except that I should mention that I had back spasms on Monday, July 8^th(was this from helping my daughter and fiancé move last week?).  I called my PCP in Maine for a prescription that I have had before to be sent to a pharmacy in Newport, RI.  As it turned out it my PCP was on vacation, and by 5 pm Tuesday the prescription hadn’t been called in.  Uber brought me to an urgent care facility outside of Newport and I had my prescription for Flexiril by 8 pm Tuesday.  What a difference!  I am almost back to normal in two days.  So, I think that is enough of the problems for this post.

Cruising team of Bob, Danny and me.

My brother Bob, his son, Danny, and I left Georgetown at 5:30 am on Sunday, July 7^th bound for New York City where Molly will be joining me and Bob and Danny will use her car to go home to D. C.  Our July 7^th cruise took us past our Georgetown house, Pond Island at the mouth of the Kennebec, round Cape Small and into Casco Bay.  We motored past Eagle Island with the old Admiral Perry house (of Arctic fame), through many islands, past famous Portland Head Light and then a beeline to Isles of Shoals, 15 miles off the NH-Maine border. 

Gosport Harbor, Isle of Shoals..

Danny on the lookout for diving gulls.

Isles of Shoals has been a port of refuge for 400 years, and cruisers are welcome to pick up a mooring in the harbor at no charge.   The nine islands that make up the Isles are all private, but two islands are now inviting, rather than just tolerating of guests.  We first took our dinghy to Smuttynose Island, home to the Haley family for over a century.  We walked the trails, went by grave sites for various Haleys, as well as 

Apocryphal?

the crew of the shipwrecked Spanish ship (research suggests it never happened!) and fended off diving sea gulls who were protecting their young (I was surprised that the caretaker even allowed us on the trails).  We then attempted to dinghy to Star Island until being told that they would pick us up at our boat in their free launch.  
Star Island includes an old large wooden hotel that has served as a religious retreat for years, jointly used by the Unitarian Universalist Church and the United Church of Christ.  (My cousin Nancy Buell has been there.)  We mingled among the hundreds of guests and enjoyed the first of our almost daily ice cream cones.   

Our 2^nd day found us anchoring in front of Plymouth, MA.  We decided not to go ashore as Plymouth Rock is no longer the attraction it was once (too small, and likely placed as a publicity stunt).  Other stops and passages included the Cape Cod Canal, ritzy Newport, RI, Block Island, RI, Shelter Island, NY and off the inside of Jones Beach, NY, before going on to the 79^th Street Boat Basin in NYC.

Block Island has the best dinghy dock!

I have always wanted to visit Block Island as the marine weather forecast for my formative years was always for “Eastport (ME) to Block Island (RI).”  The island is roughly 20 miles off the RI coast and has a year-round population of 1,000 and a summer population of 15,000 to 20,000. There are many salt water ponds on the 5-mile long island, and the largest one, the Great Salt Pond, was finally opened up to the ocean in 1895, after many ill-fated attempts.  

The Pond can accommodate over 1,000 boats, mostly anchored, and probably had 500 or so during our visit. 


Our new motorcycle gang with the
Great Salt Pond in the background.

Settlers' Rock

We rented mopeds one morning and went out to Settlers' Rock, placed in 1911 as a tribute the 20 original settlers that purchased the island in 1661 from the King of England.  While there I talked with one woman who was in tears as she finally was on Block Island to find her ancestor, Trustrum Dodge, Sen., 12 generations back.  

The Shinnecock Canal.


We passed through the Shinnecock Canal without needing the lock but did have to deal with the current running 6 knots.  Then Salty Paws entered Long Island's own little Intracoastal waterway, but really only good for boats with drafts of 3 feet or less.  Water temperatures, which were as low as 49 degrees in Maine reached 80 degrees for some great swimming off the boat (followed by our new sun shower), and the scenery ranged from house-lined canals to marsh grass. 


Entering New York Harbor is always exciting, even if this is my third time. Boats are coming in all directions and it takes a diligent eye to weave through the chaos. We are now at the 79th Street Boat Basin on New York’s West Side, where we and then our youngest daughter lived at one time. Hello, Molly, and goodbye Bob and Danny, who have be great crew and card players.  

79th Street Boat Basin

Rats, I just learned that my boat air conditioning isn't working and temperatures are hitting 90+ degrees this weekend.  One bit of good news is that today's (Saturday, 7/13) blackout in Manhattan went up to 72nd street, but not where we are off 79th Street.  Stay tuned!