N43° 11.697', W75° 43.773'
Tonight finds us tied to the city free dock wall in Sylvan Beach NY.
The Erie Canal opened for it's 190th season on schedule on Monday at 0700. Six of the boats that had been at the Waterford docks lined up for the first lock. We decided to wait for about an hour before heading out, rather than joining with the crowd. That worked out pretty well for us, and we ended up locking up the Waterford flight of locks on our own.
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| S/V Vita heading into Lock 2 |
We had wanted to make it to the top of lock 11 by the end of the day, but we found out that the wall at the top of lock 11 was full with construction barges. The NY Canal Corp is hard at work completing the repairs of the damage from last summer's severe storms that caused extensive flooding as well as the damage that closed Lock 13. Many of the locks on the lower stretch of the Mohawk River have a lot of work being done.
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| Lock 10 work |
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| Lock 12 work |
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| Lock 13 work |
With our plans to stay at the top of lock 11 scuttled, we went for our plan B and tied up at the Riverlink Park wall in Amsterdam, the same place we stayed in the fall. As the facility was not fully up and running, the manager allowed us to tie up and hook up to shore power while only charging us half the usual price.
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| Riverlink Park in Amsterdam NY |
We continued our trek up the Erie Canal early Tuesday morning. It had been quite breezy on Monday, and the winds continued to blow strongly on Tuesday.
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| Lock 17 at Little Falls - largest lift on the Erie - 40.5' |
We made good time on Tuesday, and by the end of the day we were tied up to the wall above Lock 18 for the night. The winds finally dropped off by sunset and we had a nice calm but cold night. The temperature was forecast to be down to freezing overnight, but our Mr Heater got the boat nice and warm this morning when we got up.
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| Tied to the upper wall at Lock 18 |
This morning was a much calmer day, with much lighter winds. By midday the temperature had warmed up nicely to be quite comfortable.
By noon we had arrived at Lock 20. This is the spot we waited for three days in the fall for the weekend opening of Lock 13. This is also the peak of the eastern Erie Canal, and we will be now locking down from here on to the junction with the Oswego Canal.
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| Lock 20 - A very nice spot |
By 1500 we had reached Sylvan Beach NY, and stopped for the night. There is a very nice free dock/wall to tie up to here which we had wanted to visit.
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| Sylvan Beach NY |
Tomorrow morning we'll continue on. First we will cross Oneida Lake after which we'll stop to top up our fuel tanks in Brewerton. Our destination for tomorrow is the free dock at Phoenix NY, at the top of the Oswego Canal spur.
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