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Hard to do the selfie reaching an arm around 😝
Photo board in Medina |
After the music and crowds died down we had a restful night of sleep in Tonawanda. The usual routine of chilling on the aft deck with coffee and a few boat chores to prepare for the days trip had us leaving the wall at about 8:30am. With a forecast of clear skies and low 80’s and the Bimini top now down, Erik got sun blocked up well before departing.
The vast majority of the western Erie Canal is no or minimum wake so we will be cruising mostly at 6-9 mph. After cruising a short way at just over idle speed on both engines Erik shut down the starboard engine to test what kind of fuel “economy” (word used lightly) we could obtain. Doing this improved our mpg at this slow speed from ~1.1 mpg to a whopping 1.6 mpg so we kept that technique going for the first couple hours until we got to areas where more maneuvering would be necessary. The landscape and houses along the canal as we headed east out of town were varied; some very nice large homes but mostly modest smaller homes. The structure of the canal walls and banks also varied throughout the cruise changing from natural stone to large stone. It was a beautiful morning for a nice float!
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| Herons, farm fields, apple orchards and golf courses lined the banks today |
#Blessed
Our wedding song
Erik MAY have gotten a little emotional when this song came on
Three hours and 17.5 miles into the day we came to Lockport which had some pretty incredible history and early 1800’s engineering feats to investigate. When we arrived the lock master instructed on the radio that we could pull up to the wall at the top of the lock to tie up. We did this but quickly realized that exiting was going to be very interesting as we were too big to turn around and the wind was coming straight at our aft at 20-30 mph. We would need to back out about 120 ft of a very narrow channel against that wind…..hmmmm. Could be dicey
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| Can’t understand why Renee wouldn’t agree to get us out of here 😜 |
We walked up into town, went down some of the main drag and then grabbed Riva off the boat to check out the Lockport Discovery Center. It was a very well done center with friendly staff to talk about the history of the locks. The original locks built in the 1820’s were aptly named ‘The Flight of Five’ because it was 5 separate lock chambers stair stepped on top of each other each raising or lowering the water by 10-12 ft for a total lift of 60 ft. The construction of this system and the canal in general in this area was quite a feat given that it was all through solid limestone. Thousands of immigrants moved to the area to accomplish this feat. In 1910-1914 a new, much larger double lock was constructed at the site but the northern original flight of five was left intact and has been placed on the national historic registry.
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| View from the top of the old ‘flight of five’ |
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| History of the locks |
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| The newer (1920’s) double lock with one of the two original flight of five locks to the right of the new one |
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Old original lock doors
They were currently working on restoring some of them |
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| Scale model of the flight of five in the Discovery Center |
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| Tribute to lock masters on one of several huge sets of limestone steps that make up the lock |
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| Picture out of the brochure does it better justice |
After spending a couple hours in Lockport we had some lunch while waiting and watching two canal tour boats come up through the double lock before it would be our turn to go down the locks. The winds had not subsided which had us nervous for our backing out exit to the lock gates. The lock hands were very helpful though and one helped us to get untied so that Renee could be on the boat as the last line was removed. It went smoother and easier than expected; within a few moments and some careful reverse throttling we were out and into the first lock chamber. The drops in both of the two locks were much quicker than any locks we’ve done previously. Within 10-15 mins we were down to the bottom(about an 24 foot drop in each lock) and out on our way continuing east.
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| Beautiful historic structures lining the canal coming into Lockport |
We had our sites set on cruising to Medina NY which has free dockage with power and water and also has a railroad museum, some water falls AND ice cream. We departed Lockport at 2:15pm and cruised another 16.8 miles to Medina where we arrived at 4:51 pm. Several lift bridges were opened for us by friendly operators who communicated ahead to the next bridges so they knew we were coming. At some point we passed another looper boat, River Song, heading west who were out of Cincinnati. We chatted with them on the VHF for a few moments about our adventures; nice to see some other Buckeyes! It was an uneventful and warm afternoon cruise with the full sun blaring down on us. Fortunately, the nice breeze continued throughout to keep us from getting too hot.
As we arrived in Medina and the final bridge was raised for us, the bridge tender came down to the wall where we would dock to greet us. He gave us his phone number and codes to get into the showers/restrooms. There was one looper boat who had arrived at the wall before us and almost immediately after we got tied up two additional looper boats came in from the east. We helped them secure lines and throughout the evening shared stories of travels and information on upcoming stops. One couple were from Key West aboard ‘Scott’s N Water’ a 45’ Greenline hybrid boat they just acquired in February. Upon investigating we found the Greenline starts at 1.3 million $. We are pretty sure this WONT be our next boat…lol. Another couple aboard a 40’ Albin trawler ‘Reenie Roo’ were from Shaker Heights Ohio. The last couple aboard a 40’ Mainship were from Utah. Two of the three had dogs which made Riva happy to have friends.
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Jerry and his wife out of Shaker Heights Ohio
They completed their first loop 4 years ago but continue cruising favorite areas |
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45’ Greenline out of Key West
They are having software issues on the new 1.3 mil yacht that is causing them to
Cruise only on diesel rather than electric motors currently… lol |
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| Mainship looper out of Utah |
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THIS IS US
🤗 |
We walked and explored the main drag of town for a while admiring the old, very well maintained buildings. Many of the buildings in the towns of this area were constructed with the limestone quarried when the canals were built. Most of the shops and businesses were closed for the day. After a quick dinner of brats and a few leftovers we unloaded and set out on bikes with Riva in her basket. We rode to the other side of the canal to view a nice waterfall; not Niagara Falls for sure but nice anyhow. Back over the bridge into town we rode a mile or so to an ice cream shop to enjoy some cool treats; us our usual coffee flavors while Riva enjoyed a pup cup. Back at the boat we chatted some more with our fellow loopers before showering and heading off to bed.
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Lots of very cool and very well restored architecture in the nice downtown
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Medina Falls
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| Isn’t she beautiful! |
All in all a very relaxing and fun first full day cruising the Erie Canal! Many more miles to travel, bridges to ride under, locks to navigate, towns to see, and people to meet are in our future.
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