June 29, 2024 We finally pushed away from the dock!
After spending two days in a hotel waiting for Kittiwake to be splashed, then 8 days working on her, making provisioning runs, relearning how to live on a boat – we are finally off! First day was beautiful, nice and cool, sunny, a little breezy. We got a late start, having waited around to get this year’s Coast Guard’s safety inspection. We pushed away from the dock around 1:00 on Friday, June 28. The marina is right on the Erie Canal, about half way across, near Oneida Lake.
We cruised about 31 miles, across Oneida Lake and through two locks, before picking a spot after Lock 20. Nice and quiet, beautiful, birds providing a cacophony of song. We turned in early, and during the night a huge rain storm came in. We left during a lull in the rain, on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, our second day of cruising was even shorter than the first day – it’s very tiring cruising along with limited visibility, and having to be very vigilant for floating logs which could do some real damage. After 18 miles and one lock in the rain, we pulled off once again on a lock wall for the rest of the day and night. Tomorrow may be a cruising day – we’ll decide that when we get up in the morning.
On Sunday, we decided to continue on. From Lock 20, where we spent the night, we proceeded through 19, 18, and 17 uneventfully. After lock 17, we had to wait quite a while to get into lock 16. While waiting, Dan took the boat around, backed up, forward, and on one of those maneuvers, we ended up on a mud bank. Yikes. We were able to get off by gunning the engines, but after going through Lock 16, we got alarms from the port engine and the exhaust system. We were able to tie up on the wall at Lock 16, where they even had power we could use! Nothing much we could do that evening, since the engine room was very hot. Plus, we were both exhausted!
Next morning, we took out the strainer for the port engine. It was completely packed with black fine-grained mud. What a mess. We cleaned it out, replaced the impeller. Off we went, hoping the mud bank problem was behind us. Unfortunately, we right away got the port engine and exhaust alarms again. Dan was sure, then that the mud had gotten past the strainer, meaning we were now talking about some fairly major disassembling of the engine to resolve the issue. It was work that Dan felt he could do, but it wasn’t going to be quick or easy. We decided to proceed to Schenectady Yacht club where we had friends who might be able to help. Going through six locks with only one engine was not fun. But we stopped at Amsterdam, NY, where there was a city dock with electricity.
Best news of the day – when Dan next went into the engine room to start the dreaded job, he saw that he had forgotten to open the sea cock after changing the impeller. Wow! No cooling water can go to the engine with that closed – so, that was the only fix needed. What a relief!! We changed the impeller again (I had inadvertently handed him an old impeller and it came apart). We ran the engines for a bit, saw that more mud came out with the water – and, the port engine ran fine! So, off we went with lighter hearts at our near miss!
We went through locks 10, 9, 8, and 7, and found another free wall just before lock 6 for the night. Also docked there was another boat, with Liz and Steve Kemper, who we had met in the past. We enjoyed the evening with them, and then traveled together the next day.
We decided to alter our plans somewhat in order to spend the 4th of July with the Kempers. Instead of turning north on the Hudson after the eastern end of the Erie at Waterford, we turned south and cruised the 20 miles to the Shady Harbor Marina. There, we enjoyed a nice dinner at the restaurant, and then a small Independence Day celebration with them. Hot dogs, potato salad, slaw, and all the fixin’s!
Next, we resume our plans and turn around to go north on the Hudson to Lake Champlain!
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