Captain's Choice blog: The Erie Canal, dodging rain drops

When we were kids we use to sing a song about the Erie Canal:

   I've got a mule and her name is Sal
   Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
   .....
   We know every inch of the way
   From Albany to Buffalo

   Low bridge ev'rybody down
   Low bridge, we're coming to a town

It's amazing how so much of what we learned in school has been reinforced on this trip, the learning and recollection is endless.
The Erie Canal spans 337 miles from Albany to Tonawanda, 36 locks and an elevation of 571 feet. Construction began on the canal in 1817, the date it was first used was May 1821 and completed October 1825. Such a marvel to think about undertaking something of this size and magnitude back then.
We ended up only staying Monday night at the Waterford Lock instead of 2 nights. We met up with a couple of Mark's former colleagues, Jim and John for dinner and a drink at McGreivey's restaurant. The rain did materialize overnight and although the original forecast was for rain Tuesday morning, that had been changed to only a 20 percent chance. We locked through at 7 a.m. Tuesday and headed 43 miles, completing 11 locks and tied to the wall at the top of Lock 12, Fort Hunter. It was very peaceful and picturesque looking out over the Mohawk Valley.
This part of the Erie Canal is stunning, we can see how high the water was during flood stage just a few weeks ago as the leaves on the trees are muddy from the water level to about 3'.
The canal runs along side the NYS thruway and as we were traveling Wednesday it reminded me of when I was driving along the 90, I would always look and see if there were any boats traveling...wondering where they had come from and where they were going. This time it's us traveling and we received a few honks as we made our way to Ilion Marina, 45 miles and 6 locks from Fort Hunter.
The Remington Arms Museum is the big draw in Ilion and Mark has been there several times. He always recommends it to everyone traveling through and many people have told us they really enjoyed it.
More rain was in the forecast for overnight, Thursday and beyond. We got up early Thursday, the rain had stopped, our mission was to get to Sylvan Beach, 40 miles west and 4 locks without getting rained on. We got through all the locks and with 15 minutes left to go the rain started...nice try...so close. Oh well, it's in the 70's, a little rain never hurt anyone. We tied up at the free wall at Sylvan Beach and watched the rain come down for hours. Once the rain finally cleared we walked over to town and the Thursday night car show with Grand Baron and Tug LeeLoo.

More rain overnight (Thursday/Friday)...I think we are starting to grow feathers and webbed feet...the rain stopped just after we got up and we headed across Oneida Lake, 22 miles to Ess-Kay Marina in Brewerton. A short day miles wise as the rain started up again mid-afternoon. They have a courtesy car and with only a few weeks left on the loop we decided to stock up at Wal-Mart...other than perishables we should be good now until we get home. We went to dinner at Barado's, I had crab cakes and I don't know that they will ever compare to those in the Chesapeake. Mark had a fish fry, they just don't compare to what you get in Buffalo!

When you get up and it's raining, suppose to stop, wait for the break, disconnect the electric and water, dark clouds come rolling through and only a 20% chance of more showers what do you do? That was our Saturday morning...we decided to just go for it, try to dodge the raindrops. Did we get wet? Yes a little. Did the sun come out? Yes eventually. It was a sunglasses on, sunglasses off, raingear on, raingear off kind of day. We traveled 32 miles and 7 locks going from Brewerton to Oswego. Hey wait, Oswego is not on the Erie Canal...oops...we took a detour at three rivers and headed up the Oswego Canal. We love the 1,000 Islands and had decided since we are so close we would go there for 7-10 days before heading back to Buffalo. When we turned north at three rivers (Oswego, Seneca, Oneida) we also completed part 2 of going for the gold. We bought our current Captain's Choice (400 Sea Ray Sedan Bridge) in Alexandria Bay and brought it back to Buffalo on it's own bottom, our boat has now crossed it's wake. One more part to the puzzle before we can put our gold looper flag up!
We tied to the free wall in Oswego along with at least 11 other looper boats. We thought we wouldn't see anyone, we've met new loopers and caught up with some we met back at the rendezvous (Robin's Nest, Somewhere In Time).
Oswego is the staging area to cross Lake Ontario, we are hopeful we will be able to cross Sunday but it may be Monday...we will see what mother nature has in store.