The Canals -- Hudson River to Georgian Bay -- July 18, 2005 Locks: 23 on the Erie Canal, 7 on the Oswego Canal, and 43 on the Trent-Severn Waterway in Canada were the dominating feature of this section of the trip. We also came 154 miles up the Hudson River and crossed Lake Ontario. All of this and we did not get to sail a single mile! This was all accomplished in a heat wave that started as we left New York City back on June 20 and is still with us in Canada. The trip up the Hudson is through a beautiful wooded valley with hills and mountains for a backdrop. The river is broad with train tracks low near the water for much of the route, and closer to the city, they are on both sides. We were able to anchor out just once and stayed at several small marinas along the way. We passed the back side of the IBM plant at Poughkeepsie where Jim had been several times during his career; it looks completely different from the water. Getting in touch with past acquaintances as we pass by their present homes has been so much fun all along the way. At Catskill, NY Bobbie met up with the 'next-farm' neighbor boy whom she had not seen in years. John now manages an impressive farm just a few miles from there. Although this was a long way from the one-room country schoolhouse back in Iowa, it didn't seem like 40+ years have passed. It was so good to see him again. At the same location we had the mast taken out and placed on wooden supports on Reverie’s deck -- we were now a 50-foot boat. We motored one more day north and, just beyond Albany, left the six-foot tides, salt water and sea level behind by going up our first lock. We spent the night at Waterford, NY and started the 160 miles west in the fresh water of the Erie Canal on June 25. The Erie Canal has had some major changes in its history. Originally it was a ditch dug independently of the rivers and lakes so horses could pull along small barges. After steam power became available, it was rebuilt to use the rivers which provided wider and deeper channels. We followed the pleasant valley of the Mohawk River westward. The early part of the trip had train traffic and the New York Thruway close enough to provide plenty of noise -- not a hindrance to sleeping, though. A definite advantage of these rural stops is that once we were secured for the night, the boarding ladder was lowered and the swimming began! We were able to spend the nights on walls above locks or in free docks at parks provided by the small towns that the river passes. Canajoharie was one such overnight stop. And what a treat it was to use the air-conditioned Laundromat in Sylvan Beach one afternoon when it was in the mid 90's! That evening we crossed Oneida Lake and anchored at its western end. From there it was only a day till we turned north and started down the 24-mile long Oswego Canal. We took our time going down this short river to allow for favorable weather for the 50-mile, open-water crossing of Lake Ontario. We stopped for one night in Phoenix, another in Fulton where we picked up our mail, and again in Minetto. We spent our last night in the USA in Oswego on the wall between Locks #7 and #8. (This is also the last night that we were able to use our Internet Access Card in our laptops). We had a smooth and easy crossing of the Lake and anchored out for a night before getting to Trenton, Ontario which is the start of the Trent-Severn Waterway.
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