Adventures (and Misadventures) of Elliott and Mary
Issue 15 - June 2005: New York City, Hudson River travels, the New York
State Canal System and the Trent-Severn Waterway.
The cruising life, especially when you are covering lots of miles
in very interesting territory, certainly takes a toll on getting other
things done….such as keeping current with our MisAdventures stories. In
Issue 14 we gave very little space to our adventures in New York state
and now that we have a couple of days of “down time due to weather”, I
hope I can catch up a bit. We are currently in the North Channel, Ontario
Canada. But our Canadian adventures are for another issue! Back to New
York City….
New York City
Having grown up on Long Island, I thought I’d be less than enthusiastic
about visiting the “Big Apple”…and I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Apparently I had never taken the time to see NYC through the eyes of a
tourist. And now, after having spent a full week in the heart of the city,
I can’t wait to go back. We took a slip at the 79th Street Marina…a NYC
Parks marina run by a great dockmaster, located within 3 blocks of the
subway, which was exactly what we needed since we had four days of rehearsals
for
our Verdi “Requiem” performance on June 5th.
Anyhow,
we and our boat were in the heart of upper West Side of New York. Full
of “mom and pop” stores, groceries, meat markets, bakeries, restaurants….what
a wonderful place to find terrific and unusual foods. We had a wonderful
time stocking up on homemade breads, unusual salads and fresh produce.
We didn’t have time to do half of the “tourist” places we wanted to see
but we did have a good look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wall Street
(though it’s totally gated off now and there are no tours of the stock
market), Ground Zero, Grand Central Station and the Battery. Didn’t get
to do the Ellis Island tour but will definitely do that next go ‘round.
Walked everywhere, began to understand the subway system, and were completely
impressed by the friendliness of the New Yorkers we met. Not at all
like I had expected…and this is a New Yorker talking here.
The choral group we sang with came well prepared to work hard and produced
a terrific performance. We had sung the Verdi with Bob McBain, the conductor,
when we lived in Jackson MS. So we were ready for, and got, a wonderful
musical and personal experience during all the rehearsals and it was sheer
pleasure to see him take his bows to a standing ovation, full house attendance,
at Carnegie Hall. What a thrill for all of us. Wouldn’t have missed
this experience for anything.
Hudson River travels and the New York State Canal System
When we left NYC, we headed up the Hudson and it was a beautiful cruise.
The river is wide, scenery full of trees, landmark buildings, commercial
enterprises (we’ve decided that NY State must be the US heart of concrete
plants) and every once in a while we’d meet up with a barge in tow.
We anchored out a couple of times in lovely secluded creeks just off the
Hudson pathway, frequently right next to a railway line. But that was fun
too…every once in a while the train would toot at us and we could blow
our horn back!
We arrived in Albany on June 9th and I immediately took off for Austin.
Daughter Kati and husband Tim had a new baby girl and they were due a bit
of R&R…plus 3 year old Gabriel needed a bit of 1-on-1 time from them.
Elliott stayed in NY with the boat and cats…got to know all the good folks
of Albany and then moved the boat to the beautiful little town of Waterford.
When I returned from Texas I was really sorry to have missed my days in
Waterford…next time.
We left Waterford, with an extra, and most pleasant, crew member Chris
Noyaert – a good and long-time friend of Elliott’s from his College Station
days. Chris was with us for the Erie Canal trip to Oswego. We learned
all the fine points of “locking through” and were terrifically impressed
with the NY Canal System.
The locks are kept immaculately, the lockmasters and staff are pleasant
and very helpful, the lockwalls are frequently wonderful places to tie
up for the evening and we are only sorry that we didn’t have more time
along the way to go more slowly. We both would like to come back
to NY again, in a smaller boat than Letitia, so we can explore some of
the out of the way places that our draft, both below the water and air
draft above the boat, simply won’t allow this time around.
Got to Oswego, an active, medium sized town with a town dock right
in the middle of everything. Got Chris off for his return trip to College
Station and sent me down to visit my mother in Lexington VA. Elliott
made lots of new friends in Oswego while I was gone and got us all ready
for launching into our Canadian adventures.
Into Canada
We left from Oswego, crossing Lake Ontario, on July 9th….in a thunderstorm
no less. But that didn’t turn out to be a bad omen, just provided a sort
of lumpy send-off. We arrived in Kingston Ontario, checked into customs
via telephone, hung our Canadian visitors flag, and posted our customs
number. Then spent two days exploring the historic town of Kingston.
It was a most auspicious start to our summer in the north.
We left Kingston on July 11th and headed west to the small town of Trenton,
which is the beginning of the Trent-Severn Canal / Waterway. Met up with
our good friends, Ted and Helen Brown, at Frasers Marina in Trenton and
spent two days enjoying their company. Then we took off for Lock #1….of
45
total. Locking is made easy for us because there are usually cables
hanging down the lock walls, you just catch one with your boathook, loop
a line around it and secure the boat to the wall. By about lock #5
or so, Elliott and I had a two-person system down pat. The locking
was “up” for locks #1-30 or so. We were gradually getting higher and higher
(supposedly cooler and cooler, even though we were having intermittent
heat waves even this far north!). Your boat enters the cavernous
lock, ties up to the wall, they close the lock gates, the water slowly
begins to fill the lock you are in, and sooner or later you are up to the
next level of the waterway. It’s usually a very simple procedure.
A couple of the locks are extraordinary however. The Peterborough
and the Kirkfield locks are hydrolift locks. You drive your boat
into what is simply an enclosed, water-filled bucket. There is a
bucket at the top and a bucket at the bottom. The top bucket will
be given just a little bit more water than the lower one, and voila…gravity
pulls the top bucket down and raises the lower bucket up. All without
electricity!! The Peterborough lift was 57’ high…quite a ride to
say the least.
The other unique lock was the “Big Chute” lock…#44, almost at the end
of the Trent-Severn waterway. This lock acts like a travel lift…you drive
your boat into the enclosure, stabilizing straps go under the boat and
actually lift it out of the way.Once the boat is in the straps, the “lift”
(which is actually a train-like mechanism on wheels) rides over the land
between the high water where you came in and the lower waterway where you
resume your travels. An amazing ride….
Then we came
to Port Severn, the last town on our journey on the Trent-Severn…one last
lock (#45) to take pictures of, a last time to bid farewell to all the
boats that have been on your same path for several days…and time to begin
our adventures on Georgian Bay.
Next issue….Georgian Bay and North Channel, Ontario Canada
Meanwhile,
Hope your summer is as full of interesting and challenging activities
as is ours,
Till Later!!
The Captain and Mary
August 10, 2005
