Finger Lakes Region of NY

Sunday, July 4, 2010

042-54.600 N
076-47.280 W

Happy 4th of July from the Finger Lakes region of NY!

It's been a while since I've written and a lot has happened since I last wrote. While we were in Brewerton, I "fixed" a problem with our hot water heater not being heated by the engine coolant. Little did I know that my fix uncovered a leak in a hose that's hidden in the back cabin. We discovered this shortly after departing the marina when I saw that the engine was running very hot and then realized that we had lost all of the coolant. So, we limped back to the marina with me continuously pouring water into the heat exchanger. I bypassed that hose and we headed off again.

A few hours later we passed through lock 24 which is located in Baldwinsville. We looked around and saw a nice free dock with power. Due to the late start and the distance to our next stop, we decided to pull into B-ville (as the locals call it) and explore the town. This is another great little town with a wonderful waterfront and a downtown area which is just blocks away. While we were exploring the town, we talked to the lockmaster and he explained that this was the first lock built in the US that used tunnels to channel the water in and out of the lock chamber. Before this, they just opened the doors. He also gave us an in depth explanation of the workings of the lock and showed us the meticulously maintained 100+ year old motors and controllers. Believe me, they don't make equipment like this any more!

The next day we headed down the Erie canal and banged a left at the junction of the Erie and Cayuga/Seneca canal and headed towards the town of Seneca Falls. On the way there we passed through a double lock, which raises you a total of 51'. The door between two locks is absolutely massive, towering 6 stories above you. What a sight! Shortly after passing though those locks we pulled into the docks at Seneca Falls, which provide free dockage and power and there's a brand new boater's facility with sparkling showers and laundry. What a find! On top of that, Seneca Falls has a variety of restaurant options and several car rental operations, making it a great place to spend some time to explore the area.

Due to the approaching 4th of July weekend and the associated madness on the water, we decided to make this our base of operations and rent a car to explore the area. That was a great idea as the Finger Lakes are beautiful there's a ton of things to see and do. I never realized how many wineries are located in this region. According to what we've read, there are over 100 wineries in the Finger Lakes, with 40 of them located on Seneca Lake. I spent a couple of hours on the Internet researching which wineries we were interested in visiting, and the following morning we headed out and spent and entire day working our way down the east coast and up the east coast. We only stopped at about 10 wineries, and quickly departed some of them, but we did find some quite good, albeit expensive, wine.

The village of Watkins Glen is located at the south end of Seneca Lake and is home to a fantastic gorge and race track. The gorge, which is extremely narrow and steep, is absolutely stunning. Please be sure to check out my photos and videos of the area which are listed below. If you're in the area, this is a must-see location. You'll also find some smaller gorges and falls in Taughannock. If you keep going south, you visit Corning which is the home of Corning Glassware and several wonderful museums. We only had time to go through Corning Museum of Art, which was enthralling and very educational with lots of demonstrations.

As the map shows, Seneca Falls is located between Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake, both of which are incredibly deep. Cayuga is 435' deep, 35 miles long and 1.75 miles wide on average. Seneca is the deepest at over 605' deep and a bit shorter. Neither lake seems to have much for dockage for larger boats as it appears that both lakes are very steep-to, not allowing docks pilings go be sunk. As a result, we didn't take the boat into the lakes. All in all there are 11 lakes which make up the Finger Lakes, but Seneca and Cayuga are by far the largest.

At the end of Cayuga you'll find the city of Ithica, which is also home to Cornel University. We spent a couple of hours walking and driving through the sprawling campus, which is packed with a combination of stately older buildings and newer architectural gems. We also visited the farmers market, which is was huge and attended by an amazing number of people.

We found out that there was going to be an Indy/Grand Prix race at Watkins Glen on the 4th. We're not race fans, but we decided that as long as we were in the area, that we should go. As it turned out, there were plenty of tickets available and we were able to get great seats overlooking pit row. It was pretty cool watching the pit crews do their magic in the blink of an eye. Team Penske took places 1 and 2.

After 5 days here, we're ready to move along and tomorrow morning we'll head back through the Cayuga/Seneca canal and resume our trip down the Erie Canal. We think that we'll end up near Newark, NY which has nothing to do with the airport.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser:

Baldwinsville is a grea place to stop. They have about 1000' of free dock space with power. The major issue that I see is the the Budwiser pavilion is directly across the canal from the docks, and it appears that the locals stake out dock spaces days in advance of concerts.

Seneca Falls: Makes a great location to explore the area from. Very nice docks and the bathroom and laundry facilities are some of the best that we've seen. Only the docks along the wall have power. The white power posts have multiple 20A outlets (some with 30A plugs but 20A breakers), but the yellowish power stands have 30A breakers. There's a pump-out that's $1. There are 3 washer/driers in the boater's facility. You can rent cars from multiple locations. Stever's is a 2 blocks away and rents for $25/day but the cars are older. Eagle is $34-39/day and has newer cars, but it's about 1.5 miles away. Enterprise rents from Geneva. There are multiple restaurants in the area. Devine was by far the best, but most expensive.

Log ID: 1365