June 19, 2009

Prior to arrival in Baldwinsville, NY we crossed the Oswego Canal. This is the point where many loopers exit the Erie Canal after 250 miles and take the short 24 mile trip north to Oswego NY on the south shore of Ontario. From there they either travel thru the Great Lakes or take the Trent Sovereign Canal into Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay. The route is limited to boats with 5 foot draft or less so it was not an option for us. We would have to continue on the western section of the Erie Canal for another 100 miles to Tonawanda NY where the Canal connects with the Niagara River just above the Falls

Much of the western Erie Canal still have sections from the original barge Canal. The toll path used by the mules to pull the barges has been converted to bike and hiking paths and parts of the old Canal wall are very evident.

On Thursday June 19th we arrived in Holley NY and tied up for the night on the wall right next to the lift bridge. On this section of the canal there are several lift bridges that only operate during the day so you have to plan your overnight stops based on lock and bridge schedules. Several towns have two bridges that are operated by the same bridge tender. They raise a bridge and lower it after you pass then get into their truck and drive down the canal and meet you at the next bridge where they repeat the procedure. Not a place to be in a hurry.

On Friday we passed through our last two locks of the canal at Lockport NY. At this point we had passed 34 locks and had been raised from sea level in the Hudson River to 564 feet above sea level at Lake Erie.


We arrived in Tonawanda NY Saturday June 20th. We were not scheduled to step the mast until Monday so we spent the weekend relaxing on the wall in downtown Tonawanda.

We were a bit surprised when we arrived at Wardell Boatyard on Monday morning to step the mast. The boatyard consisted of one employee, the owner, and the “crane” that he built to raise sailboat spars, hardly a full service boatyard! Quite a contrast to some of the yards we has seen a few months earlier in south Florida. Remarkable though, in a couple of hours we had the boat rigged and we were ready to sail again. By five o’clock that afternoon we had passed the Black Rock Canal on the Niagara River and were in Buffalo on the eastern end of Lake Erie