Western Erie Canal: Medina to Buffalo

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

042-52.620 N
078-52.860 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

We're currently in Buffalo, NY, which is the at the western end of the Erie canal. We've made it through 34 locks on the Erie Canal, 6 locks on the Cayuga/Seneca canal, and a final lock on the Niagara river. During that time we've risen 570 feet, which is definitely much higher than we've even been before. Our locking days are almost over, other than a few between the Great Lakes.

I got mail from someone who basically questioned why I enjoyed this inland cruising. Well, it gives you a different view of America than you get from any other source. How else can you drift along the backyards of the rich and the poor at 7 MPH, viewing a slice of this country that isn't visible to most people? If you like nature, you're up close and personal with it in some pretty remote areas. And when you pull into these small towns, people will come up to you commenting on your boat, but quite often the conversations turn to what they do and where they live and generally you can find out a lot about a community. That normally doesn't happen when you're driving on a highway and sleeping in a hotel. But I digress...

On my last log we were in Brockport, NY and were headed to Medina, NY. Along the way we did something that we've never done before...We crossed an aqueduct, which is a section of the canal that's suspended in the air. In this case, we were about 75' above a river which was running below us. While it's nothing to drive a car across a bridge, it's something else when you're on a boat.

Anyhow, we made it to Medina without falling off the aqueduct and found a delightful city. Medina is also known as the sandstone capitol of NY and they have a tremendous number of wonderful buildings constructed out of sandstone. The majority of their downtown was carved out of sandstone and is a joy to look at. They also have a railroad museum which includes a 204' long HO scale (small) railroad that's unbelievable. The amount of detail in this model world is amazing. The owner even let us crawl into the middle of it to see the inner workings. I had expected to spend an hour or two (at the most) there, and instead we were there for 3 hours and they closed. For anyone in the area, this should be a must-see.

From Medina we moved to Tonawanda, which is just to the east of Buffalo. We rented a car so that we could explore the area and the next day we headed to Niagara Falls. The heat wave that had been gripping the east coast had just broken and we had a stellar day, with crisp blue skies and temps in the low 80s. After doing some research, we decided to visit the Canadian side as the grounds were supposed to be much prettier and the falls are larger. Once again I was expecting to spend a few hours there, but instead we ended up spending almost an entire day. I was last at Niagara Falls as a child and really didn't have any memory of the falls, so I was awe struck when we got there. The shear size and power of the falls is astounding. During the summer, 13.4 million gallons of water flow over the falls per minute! One of the areas that we went to had viewing portals located right at the base of the falls and the thundering roar, wind and spray generated by the falling water is amazing. We also took the Maid of the Mist into the falls, and let me tell you, it's pretty impressive to be up close to the falls in a boat. Later we toured the class 6 rapids which are down from the falls, and it's astounding to see the water rushing by you at 25-30 MPH.

The next day we headed into Buffalo to experience their 27'th Taste of Buffalo. It was only OK, as most of the food wasn't very impressive and it was expensive. But we also took a tour of City Hall, which included going to the 28'th floor observation deck and getting a great view of the area. We also took a walking tour of downtown which was guided by someone really into the architecture and history of the building, which made the tour very interesting. The downtown area has a lot of fantastic buildings, but is clearly struggling in the economy and as a result there are lots of vacant store fronts. As the guide said, don't look at the street level, look up instead to see what's here.

On Monday we spent a couple of hours at Immigrations getting our I-68 form which will allow us to check into the US via telephone when returning from Canada. Then we moved the boat to RCR Yachts in Buffalo to have the mast stepped. I had been struggling to figure out where to have this done, and based upon a recommendation from a sailboat owners forum, I picked RCR and man was that a good choice! They were highly professional and knew what they were doing. We had 3 guys on board plus a crane operator and within a couple of hours the mast was in and the boom was on. Then came the hard part which was re-rigging all of the lines and installing the sails. We finished that task at around 8 PM and the next day we moved to the Buffalo public docks which is located right next to their Naval park, which we visited the following day. I like going through old navy ships and they had the only Guided Missile Cruiser on display in the US, so that was pretty cool to see.

Today we're departing Buffalo and are headed to Erie, PA. I have my fingers crossed that we'll be able to sail, but the forecast is for light winds from behind. We'll see...

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser:

Medina: The docks and power were free. We can highly recommend Zam Bistro for dinner. Don't miss the train museum! Also, there's a Napa auto parts store right next to the docks.

Towanda: The docks and power were $20/night for a 40' boat. See ActiveCaptain.com for a detailed description of the docks, fees and facilities. Rent a car from Enterprise and explore the area.

Log ID: 1367