Thursday, May 22, 2014 Playing the Waiting Game Again...

Bob Stopper sent this site to me last night.  It's an article he wrote last September about a sailboat that sunk on the Erie Canal, near Lyons last September. Who would have thought this could happen on the Erie Canal!! (This didn't create a link, so copy and paste it to read.)

http://www.waynecountylife.com/2013/09/eerie-on-erie-canal-by-robert-stopper.html

Well, we're still in Fairport and playing the waiting game again.  We decided to stay here today instead of moving on to PIttsford, NY.  The canal alert openings that came  through around noon, are on the east end of the canal.  As for the Gennesse River, they are still saying 2 more days....
So, we decided to do what everyone else does in a canal town, walk the canal path.   What a nice path Fairport has to the east and the west.  They have just black topped it, put light posts along the trail, and today the workers are busy landscaping.   The birds are tweeting and flying around and we even came upon a female mallard with her babies.  They must be so use to humans because they let me get very close to let.  All the while, daddy watched from the canal.  There are so many people out and about of all ages!

The rest of the day is to stick close to the boat.  Chuck has taken on the role of the 'Fairport Greeter'!  LOL I'm down in the boat, and I keep hearing  'hello', 'hi', 'hi there', 'hello', 'hello', 'hello'.  Hey maybe if he gets tired of retirement when we get home, he can become a Wal-Mart greeter.....

Wednesday, May 21, 2014 We Got the Word This Morning!

Finally!

Finally!  We got an alert saying lock 29 & 30 are open as of this morning!  About the same time, the canal superintendent came to our boat to give us the okay also.  That means we can move west about 21 miles to Fairport, NY.  any distance is welcome at this point.  We walked to Sav-a-Lot for a few items and were quickly back to the boat to prepare to leave.  Bob Stopper stopped by just before we were ready to leave and suggested we stop at Fairport  instead of Pittsford.  He also encouraged us to eat at Donnelly's.  These people are so nice...

It seemed a bit strange to be moving on the water and we were very cautious about passing under the first 15 foot bridges.  Walkers and bicyclists on the canal path seemed to be excited to see a boat on the canal...it's been 6 days.  They are waving and shouting out to get our attention...cool!  As we approached lock 29, Chuck hailed the lock tender and he said he'd have the gates open.  Everything was going along smoothly, I got up on the bow of the boat because we were getting close to the lock, when we came to a  screeching halt!  Hold on.....Oh no, this definitely  wasn't expected.  Chuck backed us off the sand, silt, or mud...it was a soft bump!  He tried to motor through at 5 different locations and all had the same results!!  A creek flows into the canal from the south and apparently had deposited the mud and formed a shoal after last weeks rains.  So....Chuck had one more spot to try....next to the north bank.   Surely it's deep enough for us there.  We hit again and this time, we couldn't back off.  We're stuck!  Do you think there is TowBoat US on the Erie Canal?  Our only recourse is to try to plow through this shoal.  Yeah, it worked!  There for a moment, we both thought we were going to have to turn around and tie up back at Newark!  :(

It was easy locking through both 29 & 30 today because the winds were light.
 Four hours later, we pulled over and tied up to the north bank bulkhead in Fairport.  Before our final stop for the day, we took advantage of the free pumpout on the south bank, just after the Turk Bridge.  The rest of the afternoon was spent walking the streets to become familiar with this canal town.  We found a great ice cream shop close to our boat, the shower facility on the south side of the canal and various stores.  We ate dinner at Donnelly's...outside...very close to our boat. The food was even better than we were promised.  On the negative side, the train tracks...3 of them...are very close to the canal.  We listened to them whistled all night long!!  Rita, you would appreciate the trains....

Chuck walking to the lift bridge.

small fire stataion

main drag in Fairport

I've got a mule and her name is Sal....

...fifteen miles on the Erie Canal!

Tuesday, May 20, 2014 Things are Looking Up!

I want to wish a Happy Birthday to our wonderful daughter-in-law, Tiffany!

Not much is happening at Newark today...until the supervisor of our section of the Erie Canal stopped to talk to us this afternoon. He told us that he was going to approve the opening of the canal for tomorrow from lock 28A through lock 30. Yes!! That means we can move tomorrow but only as far as Fairfield or Pittsford. Everything looks good in this part of the canal but they were still moving daymarkers back where they belong. The super said that they are still waiting for the waters on the Genessee River to subside. At least this a great start

look at how much wall we have-facing locks

We also had a visit form Bob Stopper. This was a pleasant surprise! He is a greeter from the town of Lyons and drove the 5 miles to chat and get our email. The short time we spent at Lyons last Wednesday night, Bob took a picture of Happy Hours II tied up to the town's bulkhead. When he came to welcome us, we must have been out walking around Lyons. So, he hunted us down to tell us that we made a smart decision when we moved from the bottom of the 2 dams up to Newark before the storm hit the area. He was going to send pictures to prove it! Such a great guy.  The next 5 pictures were taken by Bob showing the flooding below the dams at Lyons!

We were tied up along this wall the day before!  Look at the power pedestals!! Lock 27 in the background.





We needed to get away from the boat, so at 8:30 we walked to Parker's Bar and Grill to watch LeBron play the Pacers!

Monday, May 19, 2014 Still Tied Up at Newark,NY

Parts of the Erie Canal are opening a little at a time...sections from lock to lock.  Hopefully our stay won't be as long as they first anticipated!  On a positive note, the people have been wonderful and we're reatding an awful lot of books!

Sunday, May 18, 2014 Day 8 Closure on our Section of the Erie Canal will be 7-10 Days!!

We had this early morning notification from the NY Canal System:  Closure in the Erie Canal from Lock 24 to lock 30 in Macedon for 7-10 days!!  And that's if we don't get any more rain.  Yikes, that's  our section.
We are safely tied up between locks 28B and 29.  My  questions:  is it 7-10 more days or since we've been stuck here for 3, only 4-7 days?

After that bit of news, we needed to walk to Dunkin' Donuts and eat some sweet, sugary donuts!  That will definitely make me feel better.  Boy are they busy...people were mainly buying their flavored coffee and by-passing the donuts...not us!!   From there we walked east, crossed the bridge that spanned lock 28B, along the canal, and back to our boat.  I guess we'll be here for a while and just have to enjoy the down time on the Erie Canal!

remains of lock 59 near lock 28B

lock 28B- walls are rough

#59 lock tenders house mover to lock 28B

Saturday, May 17, 2014 Day 7 and Still in Newark, NY

We woke up hoping the NY Canal System would have an alert on my phone saying the canal is reopened...no such luck!  We are so disappointed and anxious to get moving. So, I guess we'll just have to make the most of our time in Newark, NY.

Chuck went for a walk and ended up at lock 28B.  He spoke to the lock tender. The tender had heard that the canal is 2 feet above norm because of  Thursday night's rain.  Boulders had fallen into the water somewhere, a hazard to boats,  and supposedly the level of the water was above the bulkhead in Fairport...a town west of us. We just have to wait until the water level drops and pray it doesn't rain again until we get out of the Erie Canal.

Once Chuck came back from his walk to the lock, we both went for a walk to find the Burger King and a hardware store.  We walked along the canal path which is on the north side.  It led to a bridge.  When we crossed over the canal, we ended up on the west side of town where we found plazas and eateries.  The bridge looked to originally be for vehicles but has since been blocked off for walkers or bikes...a definite short cut.. and very scenic.  Gee whiz, we know we've been too long in one place when we know where everything is located in the town!

replica of a covered bridge beside HHII

viiew across the canal from HHII

Friday, May 16, 2014 Day 6 The Rains Came and the Canal is Closed

Yes the rains came at 7 pm last night and didn't stop until 10:30 am this morning!  In fact, the rain quit sooner than what was originally forecasted.  We thought we were going to have heavy rains all day...it misted and the skies are gloomy but that's it.  We actually thought we might leave Newark today because even though they predicted rain, the winds were to be light.  So what's a little bit of rain?  Our cockpit is enclosed.  We would just get wet when going through a lock!  That's not going to happen!! My phone beeped this morning signaling a message.  It actually was an alert from the NY Canal System at 9:19 am. They were announcing the closure of sections of the canal:  Cayuga-Seneca section, Oswego section, and the Erie section from E23-E30(locks) NOW!  Erie section E7-E22 at 3 pm.   Well, our next lock is E29 so we're not going anywhere!!

Happy Hours II is so lonesome for other boats!

Today is only good for walking!

Staying put is for the best because my Weather Channel has two alert banners that have been scrolling across my phone all day.  Alert #1 is for a flood warning until 4:15 and Alert #2 is for a flood watch until 8 pm and then moved to 5:15.  Now when I looked, the second alert has been discontinued!   Yeah, that makes me feel better about being tied up here on the Erie Canal.  The canal warned about flooding, swift currents, and more debris than normal.  Hopefully the canal will reopen tomorrow!!  We are getting so anxious to get home since we're so close!!