Oswego & Erie Canals

The trip down the Oswego and Erie Canals was beautiful! We had been told that it is an industrial canal with lots of traffic - for us this couldn't have been further from the truth - we saw no industrial activity on the banks and only one barge. Most of the time we were the only boat on the water, we only shared the locks twice during the whole trip and only saw a few boats going in the other direction. Overall it was a great trip with beautiful vistas as we motored down the canal. The one complaint we could have is that everything was closed down; we stayed at one marina that was closed for the winter. This did cause us a problem in that we couldn't buy diesel when we needed it (many of the places had gas, but not diesel). Ruth solved this for us by talking to a local woman in Schenectady about getting diesel. She was very helpful and drove Ruth to two gas stations in order to get us a jerry can of diesel - this was enough to last us until we could get some on the Hudson River.

We have now done 66 Locks : 37 on the Rideau, 7 on the Oswego, and 22 on the Erie!

A buoy on the Erie
One of the highest lift locks in the world
Guard gate on the Erie

Lake Ontario Crossing

Last week we left Kingston as planned on Tuesday and made the crossing of Lake Ontario to the US. We left Kingston around 9:30am after picking up our groceries from the marina's freezer and getting Al settled onto the boat. The crossing to Cape Vincent was fairly uneventful with waves of about 3 feet in height to bounce us around a bit. We arrived at Cape Vincent just after lunch. Check-in to the US was much easier than expected: a short walk over to the ferry dock, wait while the customs officials unloaded a few cars from an arriving ferry, then a brief conversation and check of the passports and we were good to go. Since it was still early in the day we decided to head on to Henderson Harbor where we have a reciprocal agreement with BYC to use their yacht club. This sounded great as it looked like they had a great set-up .... except they had closed down for the season! However, they still had the harbour wall - with power - for us to spend a nice night at.

Day two on Lake Ontario was the crossing from Henderson Harbor over to Oswego - a long day of motoring out on open Lake Ontario. We went through the first two locks on the Oswego before spending the night at Fulton - a little Northern New York town. The Oswego locks are quite different than the Rideau ones in that they are automated and bigger (longer and a bit wider).

Beautiful Rideau

We are now sitting in Kingston after having spent a wonderful few days going down the Rideau. The last posting covered day 1.

Day 2 saw us down the longest section of the Rideau without a lock - the Long Reach. It was very pretty yet surprisingly narrow and curvy. That night was spent at the Kilmarnock locks, this time accompanied by another boat from Ottawa which was out for the weekend. Kilmarnock is a picturesque lock and we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere with marshland behind the boat.

Day 3 brought us the largest number of locks as we passed through Smith Falls and the Rideau lakes. We had a pleasant surprise as we met Rob Hilkes (a friend from work) unexpectedly at the Newboro locks. We also saw another catamaran (not sail but power) which is also heading south, and we expect we will see again. That night was spent at a small marina just before Chaffeys lock.

Until now our friend Terry had accompanied us during the days to help navigate the boat through the locks. He came by in the morning of day 4 for a short visit to drop off some extra diesel fuel and bid us farewell - thank you for your help Terry! With a bit of trepidation we headed off on Day 4 with just the two of us to master the last 13 locks before Kingston. The day was spent threading our way through the lakes and rivers to the Kingston Mills locks. It was quite a different day than we'd had as we were navigating through small cuts between lakes with rocky shorelines and cliffs, rather than the large marshy lakes and meandering river of the upper Rideau. We didn't expect we would make it all the way through the Kingston Mills locks, however, as we found throughout the whole trip, every lock was ready and waiting for us so we could motor right in - unheard of during the high boating season in summer! We drifted off to sleep to the roar of the train on the bridge above the locks this night, having made it through the entire Rideau lock system - 37 locks in three and a half days - without incident.

Day 5 we completed the final stretch into Kingston down the River Stxy and the Cataraqui, which wind their way through flooded mash and swamp land. Again, like for most of the trip, we were alone on the water. For those of you who are interested, some photos have been posted on Flikr (click on the Flikr link on the right side of the main page).

We will be spending roughly the next two weeks in Kingston getting things further sorted out on the boat before we leave for the US. We expect to leave sometime after the 15th of October (dependent on the weather).


Below is a video of a portion of the narrow Rideau.

And we are off

We left Ottawa this past Friday, September 28th. We had a very eventful day. It all started out early at 6:30am in the morning to get to an 8am appointment with Geoff's surgeon at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital to check out his leg. Dr. Charles was happy with the progress, but he did warn against any unexpected sudden falls which would stress the tendon.

After the appointment, we went back to Britannia Yacht Club (BYC) to meet the crane and truck which were going to move the boat across town to Mooney's Bay. The crane arrived on time but the truck was a little late, so we lifted the boat out and placed in on the ground so we could start the work of getting our ceased thru-hull fixed. The valve was ceased in the closed position and our engine wasn't getting any cooling water. The photo shows Neil doing what he does best - fixing boats!

We moved the boat across town at lunchtime. At Mooneys' Bay things went smoothly and once we were back in the water, Neil and Terry got to work at getting the rest of the cooling system back together on the boat, while Geoff's mom ran off and got us lunch - thanks mom!



We left Ottawa's Mooneys Bay around 3 pm in a rush to try to make it through the first set of locks on the Rideau as the locks close at 4:30pm. We made it through the Black Rapids locks and then stopped at the Long Island locks as they were closed for the night by the time we arrived. We spent a very quiet night at the lock with barely even a sound from the nature all around us. Thank you, Scott and Luigia, for finding us in the dark and wishing us well on our trip.

Ready Set Go

After a week of crazy busy days and very late nights, we think we are ready to go. The crane and truck are booked to show up tomorrow (Friday) at 10:30 to take the boat across town to Mooney's Bay, where we will start the trip down the Rideau to Kingston. We hope to be on our way tomorrow afternoon.

Back on track

Geoff is now up and walking around. His staples came out a week ago this past Wednesday, at which point he stopped walking with crutches and started using a cane instead. This past Friday during physio (they are so great at the Queensway Carleton Hospital - thanks Raphael!), he gave up on the splint and started walking without any support. He is still a bit shaky, but getting stronger every day. He is ahead of the surgeon's "schedule" for his recovery.

Now that Geoff is mobile, we have started running around and dealing with the last few to-do items we had put on hold. We are also working on putting our mast steps on (shown in photo), so that we can climb the mast should that ever be necessary.

Our plans for leaving have just become solidified over the last few days. The date for our departure is now set for this coming Friday the 28th of September, which will leave us about 12 days to make it to Kingston before the locks on the Rideau Canal close on October 10th.

It could have been worse...

Last Friday Geoff was walking his bike up the ramp from the dock to the shore and slipped on the last step onto the shore. He fell into the water, bike and all. On the way down, he hit a sharp rock in the water (luckily this was the only thing he hit other than the water). The rock cut a 3 inch gash in his leg. Luckily Karen was just arriving (Geoff was going out to meet her at the gate) to drive us around to run errands for the day, so after getting Geoff hauled out of the water and putting some bandages on him, we went to the emergency department at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital. We spent the better part of the day waiting to been seen by a doctor. As the emergency doctor was cleaning out the wound she found bits of gravel pushed up into the wound. She was unsure whether she could get all the dirt out, so it was decided that Geoff should have surgery to open the wound up and be sure all the rocks were taken out.On Saturday morning, Geoff went in for surgery which went well - it turns out he had also cut 60% of the tendon attaching his quad muscle to his knee.

We are now staying at Geoff's mom's as he can't bend his leg while the tendon and the cut heal. His leg is supposed to be in a splint for two weeks, and then there'll be two weeks to regain movement (10% a day). After that, assuming all goes well, the surgeon says he's cleared to move back onto the boat.

Given all this, we are delayed at least 4 weeks while Geoff recovers. We will know in a couple of weeks how things are going and when we will be heading out. Given the delays, the route has changed and will no longer go via Montreal and Lake Champlain, but instead via the Oswego and Erie Canals. We wouldn't have time to get through the locks on the Chambly Canal north of Lake Champlain before they close in mid-October .