gulfcoast john
New member
Greetings from the Historic Canals of New York and Canada mini-loop adventure! (Assuming 1,200 water miles and 160 locks is a mini-anything).
We put in at Pirates Cove Marina on the Erie Canal. Good ramp for a TC255 (those can be hard to very hard to find), $5/day for truck and trailer parking. Beautiful scenery, surprisingly un-developed shores. No tides, no wakes at night as the locks close at 5pm and 5 or 10MPH speed limits. Most Loopers (those poor souls who didn’t buy a trailer boat) are out of this section weeks ago.
Mostly straightforward navigation with the exception of Oswego Lock 1, where the new Garmin G3 ‘preferred route’ dashed line goes right over the dam and over the waterfall, rather than into the lock. I would not advise that as it would not end up being a good boating day. We say, ‘if total damages after deductibles are under $1,000 and no one is seriously injured or killed, then it was a good boating day!’
Today we had a unique experience in Oswego Lock 7. Before I could secure the boat to a cable at the stern or Eileen could grab the ‘rope’ at the bow, the lockmaster yelled ‘hey, would you like to ride down free floating’? (if it’s not on a boat, it’s OK to call a rope a rope, but if it’s on a boat and you call a rope a rope rather than a ‘line’ and it hears you, it will part just when you need it most. I like to try to throw in a little free nautical education whenever I can, even though mine might not be as technically accurate as Bob’s).
Eileen and I looked at each other and said, “SURE....what could POSSIBLY go wrong?” Are we the only C-Dory to ride a lock totally free-floating? If not, sing out, otherwise we WILL claim this new title.
At one lock on the Tennessee/Cumberland river adventure last year we had serious gouging of an engine cowling scraping up a rough lock wall despite 2 lines and 5 fenders in a lock. A single F150 cowling is $1,200 and the decals are another $300. Yamaha is very proud of these cowlings.
We are holding at Oswego, NY today for severe thunderstorm warnings and will cross Lake Ontario tomorrow. (More specifically, we INTEND to cross Lake Ontario tomorrow. They don’t call them the Great Lakes for nuttin, and we should all respect that).
Then we’ll head into the the 1000 Islands. The area was named that because there are 1800 islands, but an ancient Indian tribe had the foresight to buy the 1-800-Islands.com domain back in the 1700’s, so New York couldn’t use that one. (Is this too much nautical education in one post?). Bob might dicker about this history.
The new F250 diesel 4WD Lariat Moby Dick III is an awesome, smooth and (dare I say?) comfortable and luxurious towing machine for a TC255. Buy two if you can can find them on a big sale.
Will add pics when this laptop starts accepting an SD card from either camera, in the interim be patient and silently wish us safe travels on this adventure!
Cheers, and stop planning and just do it!
John
We put in at Pirates Cove Marina on the Erie Canal. Good ramp for a TC255 (those can be hard to very hard to find), $5/day for truck and trailer parking. Beautiful scenery, surprisingly un-developed shores. No tides, no wakes at night as the locks close at 5pm and 5 or 10MPH speed limits. Most Loopers (those poor souls who didn’t buy a trailer boat) are out of this section weeks ago.
Mostly straightforward navigation with the exception of Oswego Lock 1, where the new Garmin G3 ‘preferred route’ dashed line goes right over the dam and over the waterfall, rather than into the lock. I would not advise that as it would not end up being a good boating day. We say, ‘if total damages after deductibles are under $1,000 and no one is seriously injured or killed, then it was a good boating day!’
Today we had a unique experience in Oswego Lock 7. Before I could secure the boat to a cable at the stern or Eileen could grab the ‘rope’ at the bow, the lockmaster yelled ‘hey, would you like to ride down free floating’? (if it’s not on a boat, it’s OK to call a rope a rope, but if it’s on a boat and you call a rope a rope rather than a ‘line’ and it hears you, it will part just when you need it most. I like to try to throw in a little free nautical education whenever I can, even though mine might not be as technically accurate as Bob’s).
Eileen and I looked at each other and said, “SURE....what could POSSIBLY go wrong?” Are we the only C-Dory to ride a lock totally free-floating? If not, sing out, otherwise we WILL claim this new title.
At one lock on the Tennessee/Cumberland river adventure last year we had serious gouging of an engine cowling scraping up a rough lock wall despite 2 lines and 5 fenders in a lock. A single F150 cowling is $1,200 and the decals are another $300. Yamaha is very proud of these cowlings.
We are holding at Oswego, NY today for severe thunderstorm warnings and will cross Lake Ontario tomorrow. (More specifically, we INTEND to cross Lake Ontario tomorrow. They don’t call them the Great Lakes for nuttin, and we should all respect that).
Then we’ll head into the the 1000 Islands. The area was named that because there are 1800 islands, but an ancient Indian tribe had the foresight to buy the 1-800-Islands.com domain back in the 1700’s, so New York couldn’t use that one. (Is this too much nautical education in one post?). Bob might dicker about this history.
The new F250 diesel 4WD Lariat Moby Dick III is an awesome, smooth and (dare I say?) comfortable and luxurious towing machine for a TC255. Buy two if you can can find them on a big sale.
Will add pics when this laptop starts accepting an SD card from either camera, in the interim be patient and silently wish us safe travels on this adventure!
Cheers, and stop planning and just do it!
John
)
Colby