We closed up Orion on a rainy Saturday morning and hooked up Jr behind the truck to make our way north for our mid-summer cruise on the Erie Canal. After a stop in Reston for annual physicals and some time with friends, we finally arrived in New York in time to launch Orion Jr just a few days before June came to an end. However, we didn't set any records for long days, since our first 3 days of cruising only had us 8 miles west of where we started. 

Splashing Orion Jr

Jr's trip north on the trailer from Hampton was pretty uneventful. We were pleased to find an inexpensive and easy-to-get-to storage lot at Bull Run Regional Park in Centerville, not far from where we were staying in Reston. Another pleasant surprise was the small Mid-Lakes Marina on the canal in Macedon, just a short distance from Dave's parents. They were very accommodating, even letting us stay on the boat on the trailer for a night while we readied her for launching. It took us about a half a day to rig the new mast, put the canvas back up, mount the rudder, tiller, outboard, anchors, fenders, etc. Just after lunch the next day, we were ready to launch. However, we weren't ready to use the truck to do it.  

Just before our trip, we had a sudden epiphany about using the extended tongue. We needed another, lower ball mount or a trailer jack that would lift the tongue up high enough for our existing ball mount. Both options had us asking a lot of questions about which was best, with no obvious direction to take. Thankfully, Mid-Lakes offered us an out. They would launch the boat with a backhoe. This would give us time to figure out the extended tongue. It turned out to be a very good thing. We learned that the brake controller and battery are mounted too low on the trailer to effectively launch the boat using the extended tongue. So, before we do that, we'll stop by Magic Tilt and have them move them up higher. In the meantime, the backhoe with a skilled operator worked like a charm.

While we were waiting for launch, we managed to squeeze in a Vessel Safety Inspection. Although Orion Jr had been inspected in January, the sticker was sitting on her mast back in Virginia. So, we got a new sticker from an inspector in NY to put on the "little" mast that we'll use for the canal. As usual, we learned something new from the inspection. NY doesn't allow the flare guns, which are considered concealed weapons. So, we had to rely on our handheld flares to pass.

Once in the water, there were only a few tasks left to get going. We wanted to take the bikes with us, so Dave lashed 2 x 2's on the foredeck to support the bikes on either side of the deck. We topped off the water, and got the refrigeration going so we could stock with food. That was pretty much it. Ready to go.

Getting Underway

For such a momentous occasion as our first trip on the canal, we needed crew to witness it. So, we recruited Dave's dad to join us for the first leg. It was going to be a marathon trip from Macedon to Fairport – all of about an hour and a half, with no opening bridges and no locks. Pretty mild stuff. If it weren't for the withering heat, it would have been a nearly perfect run. We knew our speed wasn't exceeding the canal's 10mph speed limit, when we saw runners on the canal path pass us easily. This part of the canal is very green, with trees on either side. There is not a lot of boat traffic, since this is now a recreational waterway, so our fellow cruisers were mostly local boaters or the popular canal boats that are available for rent – many of them from Mid-Lakes Marina.  

Fairport is one of many small towns in Rochester's eastern suburbs. But its popularity on the canal is much larger than some of its bigger, wealthier neighbors. We've passed through the town many times while living in the area, but didn't know about this other identity. The port is centered around the 100-year old Main St lift bridge, which is unique, since it is not level, but on a slight rise as Main St heads south across it. There are no right angles on the bridge, causing many challenges for its engineers back in the early 1900's. There is dockage on both the north and south walls of the canal, which include power, water, and showers for only $7/night. Pretty amazing for us southern cruisers.

After a couple of nights in Fairport, we made our 2nd big hop from Fairport to Bushnell's Basin. This was an exhausting 45 minute run. However, it was definitely worth it, since we were docked within a few feet of an Abbott's Custard store. Given the continuing heat of the late June days, the ice cream was a welcome treat. And we were greeted with a generous welcome packet from the dockmaster, including a very nice Bushnell's Basin T-shirt and a free frosted mug of root beer at Tom Wahl's across the street. Wow!

The next day we were off to Pittsford, Rochester's weathiest suburb -- another run of under an hour. It's just a grind! The free docks here were in a beautiful setting, once again with power and water. It was disappointing that there were no showers, but we made do. And they came with the benefit of a natural alarm clock. The Pittsford crew goes by shortly after 6 in the morning with bullhorns to coach the rowers. Hello there!

But we have no complaints. This waterway is absolutely beautiful and its towns are welcoming to us at every stop. We've met locals and other boaters with lots of their own stories. The family from South Africa who were escaping the heat by jumping in the canal. The local boater who docked his boat near work during this July 4th week, so within a few minutes of leaving work, he was on vacation. You get the idea.  

Getting to Know the Erie Canal

Since we used to live along the canal, we always had an awareness of its importance in forming the towns and cities in upstate New York. However, what we started to learn in the process of reading about it, was its wider influence on regional and national events. The Erie Canal made New York City a major city, as it became a hub for imports and exports. It was the first time America's frontier became easily reachable and the idea of further expansion took hold throughout the country, as the canal's success was studied and envied. Not only did the region flourish economically, the canal corridor became the engine of ideas as well, with social, religious and progressive movements sprouting in the towns along its banks. Abolition, Women's Rights, utopian communities were ideas that were formed and incubated here. Although the canal's critics were many as New York's Governor DeWitt Clinton promoted and obtained funding for this grand engineering feat, they were eventually silenced by its stunning success.

The canal rises 568 feet from the Hudson River to Lake Erie over 400 miles from Albany to Buffalo. The original canal, opened in 1825 was dug to avoid the natural waterways and was only 4 feet deep and 40 feet wide. It was the engineering marvel of its day, with aqueducts and locks carrying the canal up and over existing natural terrain and waterways. By the early 1900's,it was enlarged and re-routed to "canalize" more natural waterways, with an average depth of 12ft and width of 45 feet. However, its commercial use declined in the1960's with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway for much larger cargo vessels. Within the years since, the canal has become a recreational waterway and in 2005 was designated a National Heritage Corridor. Tourism and community revitalization along the canal has benefitted in the intervening years. Many of the docks that are recently installed are result of state and federal funds made available through this initiative.

Almost every day we encounter some new or interesting feature. On our second day of travel, we learned that our stop in Bushnell's Basin was actually the original western terminus of the canal. The reason? They needed to devise a strategy for crossing Irondequoit Creek, as much as 70 feet below the canal. The solution was the "Great Embankment", which apparently is unequalled even today for its height. Understandably, since the embankment had a breach in the not too distant past and flooded the surrounding land, there are guard guates that close off the rest of the canal's waters. One to the east and one to the west of the embankment. We had always wondered why they were here. Mystery solved.

There will be more discoveries as we travel, if our first 3 days are any indication. We're looking forward to it.

Family and Friends

Since arriving in New York, we've had the chance to visit with Dave's parents living nearby in Victor, NY. However, that will not be true for much longer, since they are moving to Pennsylvania at the end of July. Our travels on the canal have been split between time with them, some just visiting and some to help with pre-move tasks. We also worked in our dentist visit as well.

We enjoyed some time visiting our friend Cookie in Reston, as we visited our doctor for another physical and maybe the best report of our overall health we've had. Guess all that swimming helped. This was also the first time in years we've had a chance to visit our church in Reston, which has a newly remodeled facility including a beautiful sanctuary. It was great to see it and catch up with several friends there. There was a lot of buzz as the long-awaited Metro station is completed and the date of the first run was set for late July. If we had stayed, our house would have been a short walk from the Metro. Maybe we should have waited for it . . . Don't think so!

With the Pirate Festival behind us, we turned our attention to getting Orion Jr ready to travel north to the Erie Canal. In between boat projects, we managed to do some volunteering, enjoy some family time , do a little racing on Steve's boat, and put the sewing machine to some good use. Soon, we'll be underway again. 

Turning Orion Jr into a power boat

A sailboat without her mast and sails is kind of a sad thing to look at. But we didn't have to go farther than the familiar refrain from the Erie Canal song ("Low bridge, everybody down") to know we wouldn't do any sailing on this waterway. As a matter of fact, the bridges on the western part of the canal are so low, that many power boats have to strip their upper decks and flybridges to make it under. So, rather than haul a 25 ft aluminum albatross along with us, we wisely decided to leave it behind in Va. With no mast, there were other things Jr no longer needs. Certainly don't need a boom. Or sails. We could offload the stackpack and gin pole. And traveling down a narrow canal, there isn't much need for a dinghy. So the Portabote got jettisoned, along with its outboard. The boat should certainly be lighter now.

Even a sailboat turned power boat can't completely abandon the need for a mast. The mast holds up some important stuff – like a VHF antenna and an anchor/steaming light. What to do about those?  

We had a little experience with this in Marathon when the mast came down. Using some PVC, some other plumbing fixtures and a sour cream container, Dave jury-rigged an anchor light for the couple of days before we hauled out. However, we plan to do some more exploring that will require the mast down, so he wanted a more re-usable solution. The masthead light and Wind Indicator (aka Windex) were mounted together on a bracket that was attached at the top of Jr's mast. The regular VHF antenna is mounted directly to the mast, but on its own bracket. Ideally, we wanted to simply unplug the light from the top of the mast and move it on the bracket with the Windex from one mast to the other. Since the VHF antenna unplugs at the base of the mast, it made more sense to buy another antenna for the shorter mast.  

0751 New mast mount with light 
Unfortunately, the bracket for the light did not survive the road trip north. And the Windex had fallen off over a year ago. So, we needed a new solution. Using some 1" aluminum stock from the hardware store, Dave bent it to fashion a new mount that would fit either mast, supporting the all-around light and our new Windex. He decided to stick with the 2" PVC for the support, capping the top to prevent water intrusion and adding a T at the bottom and eye-bolts for shrouds at the top to give it some stability fore and aft and side-to-side. With the wires running down the inside and out one of the legs, the antenna and light would simply plug into the sockets already in place in the deck. Pretty slick.

Our "power boat" was getting pretty close to ready. But given the amount of motoring we faced, it was time to do something about a persistent problem with the outboard's throttle control. It no longer stayed put at the rpm's the helmsman chose. This made docking and un-docking frustrating, since it was necessary to ensure your hand was always on the throttle if the speed was to remain constant. Although our electrical tape fix worked better than nothing, it was time to address the root cause, which was a bad friction block in the throttle arm. When we first had Blake look at this a year ago, the throttle arm wasn't able to be disassembled, meaning an expensive replacement of the whole thing. But on our latest visit, he was able to free the components, making the repair much less expensive and easy enough that we decided to tackle it ourselves. Blake gave us guidance on the parts to order and some tips about approaching it. Sure enough, it was a pretty straightforward fix. Hopefully, it will do the job and the throttle will stay put when we want it to.

And, after all, every power boat needs a reliable engine. 

More Boat Stuff

To get back on the road, we needed to get the trailer licensed and inspected in Virginia, which required moving it for the first time in 6 weeks. To travel on the canal, we needed to write to NY State to get a canal permit, which added to the colorful range of stickers on Orion Jr's bow. (This one's blue.) Can't forget the truck, which also needed its annual inspection. We ordered canal guides, subscribed to the NY State Canal authority's notice to mariners and plotted lots of routes. Dave discovered that many sections that don't follow a natural waterway ( and therefore have no marks) aren't even charted.

We managed to get one project done that had been put on hold until Jr was out of the water. The sink drain was leaking with some regularity. However, the combination of a very small access door, some pretty complex plumbing and the risk of breaking a thru-hull had us putting off addressing it until we were safely on the hard. Once Dave removed the old fittings, he wanted to simplify the run, removing the 3 90 degree fittings to one or 2 connections. Thanks to some creative problem-solving from a local plumbing supply store, he was able to transition from the 1-1/2 drain opening to the 3/4" sea cock with only 1 piece of hose. It looks much simpler and doesn't appear to be leaking. Of course, we can only be sure about the thru-hull when we get back in the water. 

Cleaning The Bay

We volunteered to be zone captains for a small section of the Hampton River near Joy's Marina. Leading a small crew of boaters from the marina, we hauled out bits of trash and managed to accumulate 12 bags of garbage. There was a lot of debris we could see, but not get to, but we managed to get quite a bit out of the water. As an unexpected treat, Taylor and Troy stayed with us the night before and were able to join us and do their bit in the clean-up. Afterwards, we celebrated with other volunteers with some good food and good company at one of the one leader's home.

Fun Times

We met up with Bonnie and the kids at Busch Gardens for a beautiful day that let us explore the park with few lines and cooler weather. The kids came back to the boat with us and spent their first night on the boat, which was a treat for all of us. As we enjoyed the party after the bay clean-up, they were surprised to look up and see mom and dad in their fishing boat pull up to the dock at the house. By the time the day was over, kids and grandparents were ready to crash, but it was a happy exhaustion.

Later that same week, we traveled to Jarratt and joined Taylor's class for 2 days of field trips -- first to the zoo and next to the beach. The zoo was lots of fun and kids loved feeding the animals – except the giraffe. They weren't too sure about having that big, black tongue lick their hands, so grandma and grandpa got the honors there. As for the beach, it was a lot of bus riding for very little beach time, but Taylor had a blast letting the waves chase her. Fun to see.    

We returned from Jarratt in time to join Steve for the Cock Island race. There was more wind than last year, so we actually managed to do the whole circuit and finish the race by noon. That was a big improvement for this crew's performance. As for our standing, let's just say we didn't come in first, but we were in the top 10 of our class.


Ready to Move

So, we're just about ready to head out. We just need to pack our stuff up from Orion and get it ready to put on Jr. Just before leaving, Cathy managed, with Dave's help, to squeeze in the construction of a stackpack for another friend on the dock . There's more work when she returns, but for now that's on hold as we travel.