Ilion, NY

Friday, June 25, 2010

043-1.200 N
075-1.800 W

Ahoy from Ilion, NY!

Over the past 2 days we've been moving westward on the Erie canal and have passed through 18 locks which have lifted us 383'! In the next day or two we'll reach the eastern peak of the Erie canal, which is 420' in Rome, NY. The Erie canal basically starts in Waterford which had a flight of 5 locks which raises you 169' in 1.8 miles. These are big locks which change your elevation by an average of 33' and believe me, they can be a bit intimidating the first time that you enter them.

Imagine being in a concrete room that stretches 4+ stories above you with huge steel doors at either end. The walls are covered with green slime and the doors make these amazing groaning sounds as they close with a final clang that reverberates through the chamber. Then you hear the sound of gears turning to open valves and suddenly the water around you starts to boil and your boat starts torquing around due to the turbulence. Fairly slowly you start to rise and after about 5 minutes you reach the top where you can see your new location. After a few more minutes the doors on the far end open and you drive out, only to repeat the process at the next lock.

The section of the Erie canal that we're on is actually the Mohawk river which has been dammed all along it to control the flow and height. At each dam there's a lock and there are 34 locks between Waterford and Buffalo. As rivers do, the Mohawk winds its way through the country side and passes lots of towns. Railroad tracks typically follow the same route, making it noisy to sleep. However, it's surprising how quickly you can tune out the train noise.

Many of the towns along the way provide free dockage and the really nice ones also provide free power, but those are far and few between and as you can imagine, quite popular. You can also tie up along many of the canal walls or I've seen plenty of places where you could anchor. In order to mitigate the train noise, we've pulled into docks that have power so that we can run the AC and keep the hatches closed. The first night we stopped at a free dock in Amsterdam which provided free power. Last night we stopped at a marina in Ilian which has very nice facilities and great Internet.

Today we're headed about 27 miles to Rome (you've got to love the names of the towns along here...Rome, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Roterdam, etc) where we'll pull into a free town dock and go explore a fort.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser: The free dock at Amsterdam was just after lock 11 and was quite nice. There are (3) 15A circuits, but according to what we've read, the wiring in insufficient to support all of the circuits being used at the same time. We were lucky and only had 1 other boat there which wasn't drawing much. The Ilion marina is very friendly and well run with nice bathrooms and an on-site casual restaurant. They have cable TV and great Internet for only $1/ft. Highly recommended! You can walk into town for dinner and you can also tour the Remington Arms museum.

Log ID: 1363