Doing DA stuff

[tribologist]

Took Driftless up to Albany. Hoping to try Eire Canal tomorrow if weather allows. We put her in at Donovan’s Shady Harbor Marina a few miles south of the turnpike bridge. I have driven over that bridge over 100 times each direction over the last 19 years looking down on the river longing after going up it in a boat. Time to check that box!

[hetek]

Dang! I'm jealous!

But in order to be a "Swedish floating cottage" it has to have an interior, right?

I can't make that claim... yet.

Have fun!

[tribologist]

Swedes like simple interiors. IKEA!

[DesertAlbin736]

Ha, thanks for the compliment! Cool photo on the bridge with your boat behind you visible in the rear view mirror.

Well, I can tell you we had an interesting day today. Crossed the border into BC Canada, motoring over with an early morning departure from Deer Harbor on Orcas Island, WA, crossing Haro Strait over to Tsehum Harbour (pronounced 'see-um') in uptown Sidney for a landing at Van Isle Marina for check in to Canadian customs. We were in company with our Arizona sailing friends in their O'Day 25 sailboat. Calm seas & light wind, & when they were within a mile or so from port their diesel engine quit. He'd had to replace his mild steel fuel tank earlier when a rust through caused a leak. But apparently the tank vent was clogged & caused the fuel gauge to give a faulty read & he had inadvertantly run out of fuel. We were a mile or so ahead & got checked into customs first, so then went back & towed him in. We dropped him at the dock, then circled around the harbor, waiting for him to check in & refuel. Tsehum Harbour is shallow & has a crowded mooring field & no anchoring allowed. Also has rocks & reefs. We had never been to this harbor before, but went there so we could visit with the sailing club friends we met up with last year in Desolation Sound. He keeps his 44 foot sailboat in nearby Canoe Cove marina. So while I was texting him the Admiral 'had the conn' & she promptly ran us hard aground on a submerged rock less than 2 foot deep. It was just coming off low-low tide (10 foot tide swing) & rising. Didn't dare try to back off for fear of damaging the prop. Appeared we were mostly stuck on the forward part of the keel. So we waited a while & I launched our dinghy with outboard. I got in the dinghy &pulled myself all around the boat checking depths with a boat hook. Seemed like deeper water was behind us, and the boat was starting to rock some on the rising tide. So the I tied the dinghy off to the stern quarter facing it aft & fired up the 2.5 hp outboard to push the boat back. She floated off fairly easy & I hope non the worse for wear, except expect to see some scaped bottom paint when we go to haul out.

[DesertAlbin736]

Oh by the way, while at the customs dock an actual Swedish guy came up to chat and knew of Albins, having been a former owner of an Albin Vega sailboat.

[WillieC]

Ouch! La Dolce Vita will be fine! Poor Admiral, but she'll be fine, too. Another person, who shall likewise remain unnamed, in a tricky docking situation with substantial waves, "touched" the dock with its pointy, reinforced corner rather abruptly at the flat near-vertical portion of the starboard front quarter. I, who shall also remain unnamed, saw that bump from the dock and the hull indented a good six inches and I expected to see a gaping wound and was imagining a temporary repair to get home. The WillieC pushed back and leapt away from the dock and, behold!, no hole! Later I checked thoroughly inside expecting to see shards of 'glass and shredded plywood. Nuttin', honey. A mere scratch in the gelcoat that has become increasingly difficult to find. These boats are tough.

What are these trips without a little excitement. Glad it worked out.

[hetek]

Just don't do that "DA stuff"!

Enjoy your trip!

[tribologist]

Ouch! Nope, hope to stay out of that stuff. We had a pretty good trip up the very first part of the canal. Not free from excitement but no bottom contacts. I finally got to go underneath the Castleton bridge! Then we had a few hours up to the Federal locks when a thunder storm started. The lock is not running during storms so I huddled behind the lower gates. After it passed we came up to Waterford where the canal truly starts. At the welcome center was a steam boat meet with quite a few beautiful boats. After hanging out there we headed up the flight, 5 locks in short order lifting you nearly 150 ft. Half way through the next storm came through. I was sitting on the front cabin in a total downpour. Me and the boat was covered in black snot whipped off the lock wall. After that we went a few miles and stopped at Cresent boat club for the night. Wounderful place! Non profit club that was all run by the members. Also got to see first hand what the problem is with water chestnut. They had to buy a harvester to keep the place open.

[DesertAlbin736]

Well, it's been a month since we last heard from Driftless on their canal trip. Were are you now, oh one-hull-number-newer-than-La Dolce Vita sister ship? Probably far beyond Waterford by now, or are you already back home in CT? Did you make it as far as Oneida Lake? Or farther on? When you speak of that Hudson-Mohawk confluence at Waterford, the last place I lived before moving west to AZ was not far north of Schenectady in Saratoga County. My late paternal grandfather, though he was originally from NE Pennsylvania, after graduating with an EE degree from Penn State in 1915 went to work for GE in Schenectady in 1916. Though his career soon transitioned to early radio technology with RCA and did not stay in Schenectady for very long, before WW1 he joined the NY National Guard and one of their duties before being shipped off to France to the war was, according to his notes in the family tree, was assigned to "guarding the D. & H. RR bridges and barge canal locks" near Schenectady. Could one of those same locks be the one you show pictures of?

First I've heard of water chestnut, but yeah as an invasive species, apparently a big problem in NY state for a long time.

http://nyis.info/invasive_species/water-chestnut/

Water hyacinth is another invasive species causing problems elsewhere in the country. Our problem in the Colorado River system, including our home waters of Lake Pleasant (linked to the Colorado River via Lake Havasu and the non-navigable CAP canal) is Quagga mussels. We got inspected for invasives three times on the way to Washington state, upon crossing state lines of Idaho, Oregon, & Washington.

We arrived home from our cruising on Wedesday, 8/7. Tallied up 285 NM on the water in and around the San Juans & southern BC Gulf Islands from Blaine, WA from June 16 to July 28, consuming 34 gallons of diesel at a cost of $119 US.

[tribologist]

Thanks for reminder! We safely got back to Shady Harbor where we started. Last weekend we did a longer trip starting on Thursday. We towed to the ramp just above lock 6 and headed west. (funny thing is if you look on lock 5 in google earth you will find Corning Museum of Glass Glass barge that they toured the canal with last summer. Both me, my wife and our younger son blow glass so we know most of the gaffers at Corning. They were not aware of that they were on camera

First night we stopped at Mohawk Harbor.

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This marina was excavated from raw land. Must have cost a fortune. Maybe 1/5th of the slips were rented and they had 20ft bowriders and pontoon boats in them. The marina only had a trailer for bathroom.. The idea must have been that the people occupying the apartments would own fancy boats. Seems like a financial disaster to me.

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A bit up the river we found a courtesy dock in Fultonville. I had stopped there in the past for gas so I know the TA truck stop there within a short walk so we got our daily shower there instead.

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Thgis is the strech of the canal running along I-90. I have over 100 trips on that road in each direction driving to Syracuse, NY for work.

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Lock 17. The highest lift lock on the canal.

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The thing that started it all.... The canal tour boats on Herkimer. We have gone on that boat three times. Really neat. Goes a few miles down the river and they take you through a lock and back up again.

On Saturday we made it to Utica, 100 miles up the canal where we had a great dinner at Tailor and the Cook. One of my favorite restaurants in the USA. Very nice farm to table place. On Sunday morning we reversed a few miles back to a marina in Ilion that had a nice ramp and I took an Uber back to Waterford to pick up the car and trailer. Were were back in Connecticut with the boat parked at 9pm. Not a bad long weekend!

[tribologist]

So this weekend we headed back up to the same boat launch and took the 5 flight-locks down to Waterford and headed north instead. We went about 25 mile, half way to Whitehall and then we took the same way back today so I just finished unloading the boat now. The way back was shared with a nice couple in a Ranger Tug-27. They were from Rhode Island and trailered theirs to Coyemans, a bit south of Albany.

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Ranger Tug, Luna Rossa. http://tinwheel.blogspot.com/2014/09/lu ... -land.html

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Coming back to Waterford.

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The ramp above lock 6 is a bit short so the load equalizer over-centered when the rear wheels went past the ramp... Looked ok so I towed home that way. One side resettled when going up the drive way, the other needed so floor jack chiropractics...

[DesertAlbin736]

Thanks so much for the update. Looks like you had a fun trip. Great pictures! You're talking about the Flightlock Rd ramp north of Lock 6 in Waterford? We have independent torsion bar/swing arm suspension on our trailer. Wonder how it would fare in a case like that? Hmmm, the Erie Canal & Mohawk River from Tonawanda (closest point to us coming from the west) to Waterford, the Hudson River to Ft Edward, & Champlain Canal Canal up to Fort Ticonderoga? But would my 6.5 knots cruising speed be able to buck the current on the upper Hudson? Or perhaps go the other way, clockwise? Lake Ontario from Tonawanda to Kingston, ON, down the St Lawrence to the Richelieu River at Sorel, Quebec, the Richelieu to Lake Champlain, the length of Champlain (not much over 120 miles from the Quebec border to Whitehall, NY) past Ft. Ticonderoga & on to the Champlain Canal. Then down the Champlain Canal & the Hudson to Waterford & out the Mohawk & Erie Canal back to Tonawanda. That could be an all summer trip! Figuring the logistics might be the hard part, where fuel, water, pump outs, provisions, & overnight docks are available, how far between overnight stops. With favorable or no currents we can go up to miles 150 to 170 miles, half the length of the Erie Canal on 12 gallons. Could be done in 7 or 8 weeks? Between 900 & 1,000 miles total, give or take? Probably 150 to 200 engine hours, would have to do an oil change along the way. Food for thought!

One of the favourite (Canadian spelling) photos of our trip this year was this full rainbow over Port Browning, North Pender Island BC on July 10th.

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Our boat can be seen (barely, speck of blue) the left most pair of boats in this photo, rafted up with our sailing friends from Flagstaff

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[tribologist]

The trip to Utica was exactly 100 miles and that took us half of Thursday (20 miles) , Friday and Saturday 40 miles/day. We are late sleepers and tend to waste the best part of the day (7am to 9am). The minimum loop from Oswego-Sorel-Waterford-Oswego is about 700 miles. at 40 miles/day (5 hrs/day) so one can do it in 18 days of cruising then add the stops. The couple in the BoatUS magazine a few month in the loop article ago did it in a ranger tug in 28 days.
Getting from Buffalo to Syracuse is messing up navionics so I don't know how far that is but looks like about 250 miles so that adds a week each way and would make you go back the same route or take an Uber or public transportation to get the car+trailer

[DesertAlbin736]

Time is not a big issue for us, even if we did just 20 to 30 miles/day. Anything to escape the desert summer heat for as long as possible (it's supposed to hit 111 here tomorrow & Thursday). Most of our cruises in the NW have been +/-40 days afloat, our record being 46 days. We keep logs of all our travels, including engine hours & fuel usage. In 2015 we went from Seneca Lake launch point to Lyons, NY on day 1, spent day 2 staying over in Lyons due to crappy weather, day 3 was Lyons to Fairport, bypassing Newark.

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Day 4 started the return trip from Fairport to back to Seneca Lake, but had to stop first at Newark due to lock 28B closing for the night before we got there. Day 5 was Newark back to the Seneca Lake launch ramp. So if we averaged 20 miles/day the 700 mile "Triangle Loop" would take about 35 days. I'd like to time such a trip that by the time we came down through Champlain & the Hudson and back westbound on the Erie canal the fall colors were progressing, but not so late that the weather turned cold & certainly before November.

We could launch at Sheridan launch ramp in Tonawanda, the main thing being able to find long term truck & trailer storage. Then head east on the canal almost to Onieda lake where the canal joins the confluence with the Oswego River, which itself has seven locks between there & Lake Ontario. Doesn't look like there's much in the way of stopovers in the 60 plus miles of Lake Ontario between Oswego & the St. Lawrence River. Maybe Mexico Point on the Little Salmon River, Port Ontario, Henderson, and/or Sackets Harbor? We know Gananoque on the St Lawrence is a good stop near the Thousand Islands, since we've been there visiting 'Sunsetrider'. Lots more research to do, like what the protocol is with the big locks on the St. Lawrence, where can recreational boats dock in Montreal so we can lay over & do some sightseeing.

Then on the back side of the loop take the Erie the rest of the way to the end at Tonawanda. As Judy Tenuta would say, "It could happen!"

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The road trip from home to Tonawanda would be 2,240 miles each way, 650 miles longer than from home to Blaine, WA, so a extra two days or so compared to what we're used to. Seven or eight days of driving 280 to 300 miles per day. We did more than that on the 2015 trip, and more than twice that for the trip around the country we did with our camp trailer in 2017.

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[hetek]

DA - When I read about your adventures I envision that the entire lower 48 as being in your backyard. And Canada is just around the block!

You are well traveled, Sir!

I too wish to do "DA stuff", but it will have to wait a couple years.