Wednesday June 8: Pirate's Cove

So for a quick catch-up of the last week! We have moved from Waterford on the Eastern end of the Erie Canal to Pirate's Cove Marina near Syracuse.

The weather has been very pleasant for the most part but having electric every night has been great as we were running the air conditioner most days in the afternoon.

Locks have been numerous (10 the first day, 7 the second day - with a total of 23 so far!).

I have learned to LOVE the locks that have a fixed pipe or cable because Steve uses a single line around the pipe or cable and from mid-ship he can keep us next to the wall. So it is VERY relaxing for me :-) Get the boat close enough for him to loop the pipe or cable and I'm done!!

I did look over one time to check on him - nowhere in sight. Then I noticed the line running into the cabin! He was just sitting inside holding on. Great idea since it was quite hot in the sun.

If there is no fixed pipe or cable then we each have to man a rope that is attached just at the top of the lock. Makes it very easy for the boat to swing away from the wall - plus the lines are pretty slimy as they are just sitting in the water anytime the lock is filled. Yuck.

Above is a typical dam and lock (left side of picture) on the Eastern end of the canal. This portion follows the Mohawk River so the dams can be quite wide. We were fortunate there wasn't much rain when we were on this part of the canal as the river floods quite easily. Three years ago the canal was closed for several weeks - stranding boaters who were unable to move either direction. A number of dams were severely damaged.

Little Falls was a nice stop as there was a car show the evening we stayed. Fun to walk around and check them out. This picture is for my brother Pat. He has an old truck or I should say he has the pieces of an old truck :-) One of these days it may get put back together!!

The marina there is really a nice one. It's an old refurbished canal terminal with very well landscaped grounds. I suspect it is a gathering place for the locals for various events.

Once past the head of the Mohawk River, the Erie Canal becomes much more of just a straight man-made waterway.

So easy to travel along but not a great deal of wildlife along the way. Two turtles, one osprey and one muskrat was the sum total of what we saw (other than small birds flying around) and half a dozen cranes.

To spice up one of the really long travel days (I think it was the one where we went through 10 locks), Steve brought out the secret surprise lunch: minion mac and cheese!!!


How fun they were! But we both agreed that the regular macaronis are better. The minions required so much extra pasta to make the figures that it as almost too much!

However it still made for a fun lunch :-)  Bonus was a finger puppet that could be made from the box. Steve did most of the cutting and I did the final arm :-)



And we're not the only ones going north - lots of flocks of Canadian geese going that way as well. It's so fun to watch them fly as the V shifts left and right as the lead birds change their flight.

Several days of low or no winds made for some really pretty views down the canal....

The last travel day wasn't so nice. We decided to cross Lake Oneida a day earlier than planned due to the change in weather. It's a lake that is 20 miles long and not very deep - which is the perfect recipe for not very fun waves - up to 6 feet at the end of the lake if the wind is blowing the whole length.

So we scooted across (at our usual high speed of 8 miles an hour :-)  ) and did fine. Rain on and off until we were within 4 miles of the entrance back to the canal. This is when the two weather fronts decided to come together.  The result was probably the worst rain/wind combination we've been in for quite a while. It didn't last but 10 minutes or so and then it was gone!

That was a couple of days ago. We're been here at Pirate's Cove for two days now getting a few things done before we head over to Canada.

After dinner with Jim and Linda from Edisto Island, we were rewarded with a very cool sunset and rainbow. Difficult to see in the picture but a very vibrant colored rainbow in the center of the picture.

Murray's stored their boat nearby here for the winter and will be traveling to Montreal and Quebec this summer. It was, as always, great to see them.

More on the project at a later date!