Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Quebec City

Yesterday we departed Montreal and traveled to Trois Rivieres.  As we get further out on the St Lawrence, there are increasingly few places to stop, so each day needs to be planned a bit more carefully.  In addition, we have transitioned from straight outgoing current and steady water levels, to a combination of river current plus tide ebb and flood, and increasingly large tidal water levels.  Because of the tidal currents, travel time needs to be aligned with the tides so you are going with the current, not against it.  Not only does it make for faster travel, but it avoids a nasty situation where opposing river and tidal currents make for an uncomfortable chop in the water.  But enough of that....

We arrived at Trois Rivieres late yesterday afternoon, and because of the tides didn't leave until noon today, finally arriving in Quebec City around 7pm.  The marina here is really cool, with an enclosed basin that you enter to get our of the river current, followed by a lock into the marina basin.  Quebec has a 14-16' tide, and to shield the marina from that, there is a lock.  At high water they leave it open to flood and flush the marina basin, then over the course of the low tide cycle people can enter and leave via the lock.

Here's an updated map showing incremental progress (green) since Montebello.  We've covered another 250 miles for a total of almost 1200 miles so far.


At this point daily mileage will be much higher overall - probably in the 60-100 miles per day range.  This is partly because we no longer have any locks to slow us down, but also because there just aren't any stops closer together.

That said, I think we are going to stay in Quebec for about a week.  Right now to catch the tides to our next location would mean leaving mid/late afternoon and arriving at 8-9pm, or leaving around 2am and arriving at 8-9am.  Neither of these is appealing, so we are going to wait for the tide cycle to come around to a more favorable time of the day.  It will also give us a a chance to do some broader exploration of the greater Quebec City area.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Montreal

We've had two days in Montreal and enjoyed some great sights and great food.  Sunday was a Quebec National Holiday so it's a 3 day weekend, and with beautiful weather, everybody is out on the streets, in their boats, and walking about.  It's quite the sight.

Saturday we wandered around town for a while (we are in Old-Port Montreal which is the old part of the city) and toured Notre Dame.  Unlike most European cathedrals, the interior is all wood giving it a much warmer feel than stone.  It's also quite the sight to behold.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Notre Dame
The waterfront in this part of Montreal consists of a number of old shipping piers, several of which have been re-purposed for tourism and recreational boating.  Marina Port L'Escale sits in the basin between two of these renovated piers with shops on one side, a park on the other, and the Old City along the waterfront.  When we pulled up to dock on arrival, we happened to be right next to a twin of our boat.

Marina Port D'Escale

In the park on the other side was Cirque de Soleil with their latest show, Amaluna.  On a whim, we walked in a few hours before show time and were able to get outstanding seats right down in front.  What a show!  If you have never seen one of their productions, you should make a point of going.  There's nothing else like it.  I'm not a big "shows" person, but I would go see them anytime, anyplace.

Cirque de Soleil

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Good Morning Montreal

After a good night's sleep we are ready to enjoy Montreal.  We'll be here at least one more night, and might stay a third depending on how today goes.  The weather has cooled off, so death from heat stroke is much less likely.  Oh, and we appear to be back "on the grid".  Here's a link to our location

Tanglewood II last known location

I suspect we'll be on through Quebec, but will drop off again after that.

Friday, June 22, 2012

St Anne de Bellevue

Yesterday we left Montebello and went to St Anne de Bellevue which is where the Ottawa river rejoins the St Lawrence.  Along the way we went through two more locks including the Carillon Lock which is whopping 65' drop in one lock.  Being inside of it at low water is intimidating to say the least.

Carillon Lock, About 2/3 Empty

Carillon Lock - See the attendant on the dock up towards the gate?

The lock at St Anne de Bellevue is the last one on the Ottawa River, and after locking though there is 1/2 mile or so of promenade where you can tie up on either side.  It's a very cute college town (part of McGill is there) with all sorts of pubs and restaurants, and best of all, ice cream!

It's a pretty small group of people doing the various "loops" by boat, and you tend to keep running into the same people along the way.  Sometimes you are heading in the same direction, and sometimes in opposite directions.  Yesterday, tied up across from use were three boats that we ran into back in Croton-on-Hudson in NY.  They are all doing the Great Loop but took the route up through Lake Champlain and were now heading up the Ottawa River and down the Rideau, just the opposite of how we came.  We swapped stories about where to stay and what we liked, and this morning we all continued on in our respective directions.

Today we covered the remaining portion of lock-controlled waterway, but this time is was part of the main St Lawrence Seaway.  Wow, what a difference, and not for the better.  If we've had a crappy day, this was it.  We had about 25 miles and two locks to transit; St Cathrine and St Lambert, which drop the river around Montreal and finally leave you back in tidal (sort of) water.  These locks are all business, and pleasure craft take a far back seat to commercial traffic.  Each morning the Seaway Authority posts a schedule for pleasure craft lock times, which after about 5 minutes is completely blown to hell.  We were too far away to make the first lock time, so we went for the second at 2:00pm.

Passing Tanker in Canal

We arrived early, and the holding pen where pleasure boats wait doesn't have much dock space and you are expected to raft up with other boats.  As we approached, some other boaters very nicely untied their boat and moved it down the dock to make room for us.  It was a short space and we were going to have our butt hanging off the end of the dock, but what the heck.

Then came the fun.  As I was approaching the dock, the back of the boat (the part out past the dock started getting pulled sideways towards a roped off area that's some sort of overflow intake.   For those of you who haven't operated boats before, you can aim them and make them go forward and backwards, but you can't make them go sideways.  So here we are getting sucked sideways into this overflow and a dock and other boats blocking the front of us.  Yikes!

Lots of people advocate boats with a single engine for better efficiency.  And lots of people advocate lightly powered boats and look down on faster boats.  All I can say is Screw That!  I'd be a drain plug in the St Lawrence right now if it weren't for over-powered twin engines.  We aborted the landing and it was peddle to the metal in reverse on one engine, and forward on the other to get the boat pulled and spun away from that whirlpool we were heading down.

Well, after that we just rafted up next to another boat well away from the danger zone, and the good news is that we only had to wait for one tanker to go ahead of us and we actually locked through about an hour early.  But, we made up for all gained time at St Lambert where we had to sit and wait for 4 tankers.  It was like weather delays at an airport, but all in slow motion.  My God these tankers CRAWL into and out of the locks.  We had to wait for about 4 hrs before locking through, and by the time we did finally get to go there were about 12 boats to pack in.

And then came the Nantucket Sleigh Ride.  When you finally come out of the canal and rejoin the river, the current is cranking - 6kts or so.  To get to the marina we first ran with the current for a 1/2 mile or so, then pulled a 180 and ran against it for about a mile or two.  If I recall my geography correctly, Niagara falls is basically Lake Erie dumping into Lake Ontario.  And Ontario is the headwaters for the St Lawrence, so all that water flows out the St Lawrence.  So our little up-stream swim was basically running up against all the water that comes over Niagara falls.  Did I mention that I'm glad to have an over-powered boat.  But once you get through the mayhem, you turn into an old ship basin that's now a very nice marina right in the middle of Old City Montreal.

So anyway, it was a long and stressful day for the captain, but we made it.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Map Time

I've been playing around with mapping our route using Google Earth.  In between all the crashes of that program (Google makes a great search engine, but all else is garbage from what I've seen), I've managed to map it out.

Progress as of June 20, 2012





So far we have traveled 933 miles in just under a month.  It's definitely Wagon-Train speed, but we're having a great time and that's what matters.

Tomorrow we head out towards Montreal.  We've had two down-days doing laundry, paying bills, doing boat maintenance, and generally relaxing.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Ottawa Locks and Montebello

Being on a boat in downtown Ottawa wasn't really working for us, so we departed today and moved down the Ottawa River to Montebello.  Departing Ottawa was pretty cool because you descend the 8 lock Ottawa Stair Step.  It's a flight of 8 locks that run right down through the middle of the city between the Fairmont Chateau and the Canadian Parliament Building.  Here are a couple of pictures of the waterfront above the locks where we were tied up last night, yet another time-lapse of the descent, then a couple of pictures looking back where we came.

 
Waterfront Above Locks
Parliament Building and "Tunnel" to first Lock
View Down The Stair Steps Towards Ottawa Bay
Time-lapse Video of Stair Step Decent

Looking Up Stair Steps Towards Chateau

Parliament Building
It took about 1-1/2 hrs to go through the locks so we didn't really get going until 2:00.  Montebello is about 40 miles away, so we took advantage of the significantly more open water of the Ottawa River to make time like we haven't in a couple of weeks.  Around 4:30 we pulled up to Montebello which is a log Chateau.  It's apparently the largest log structure in the world.  Somebody didn't get to play with their Lincoln Logs as much as they wanted when they were a kid, I suspect.  There's a nice marina that's part of the property and the boat house is made from - you guessed it - logs.  We plan to stay here for two nights to get caught up on laundry and other chores, and of course to tour the log chateau.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Ottawa

We spent the last two nights at Lock 17 just hanging out.  We haven't quite figured out when to expect the public docking spaces to get filled up, and when they are likely to be free.  We arrived at Lock 17 early on Friday and got space with no problem, but by dinner time the place was completely packed.  We figured heading closer to Ottawa for Saturday night would be even worse, so we just stayed put where we were.  To our surprise, everyone else cleared out and we had the whole place to ourselves on the second night.  Go figure.  This morning I awoke to this wonderful sunrise.  Not a bad way to start the day.

Sunrise at Burritts Rapids

By staying another night, it meant we had a long day today with about 45 miles to cover and another 7 locks, but around 3:30 we pulled along side the pier in Ottawa.  The tail end of the Rideau River runs right through downtown Ottawa and culminates with an 8 step flight of locks.  Just before the locks is a long embankment where you can tie up right in the heart of the city, and that's where we are staying.  Tonight we are off to dinner in the big city, and a desert of Beaver's Tail which sounds like a cross between fried dough and a crepe.  Some local boaters that we shared a couple of locks with said we can't visit Ottawa without sampling them.

Approaching Ottawa

Friday, June 15, 2012

Rideau, and More Rideau

We've spent the past several days on the Rideau, and will be here for another two before arriving at Ottawa.  Although there are sections where the channels are very narrow and shallow, it's been worth every white-knuckle event.  The lower part of the Rideau is basically a dozen or more interconnected lakes.  It's like the New Hampshire Lakes Region, except all the lakes are interconnected and it's 10 times as big.  It just goes on and on.

Our friend Deb has spent her summer vacations at Chaffey's Lock for her whole life, and still comes up every year, so we managed to coordinate timing and she joined us for a few days.  Chaffey's is right about in the middle of the lakes section of the Rideau, so it made for a good place to spend a little extra time.

On the way up the river, we hit Jones Falls (a series of 4 locks) only to find it closed for some unexpected repairs.  A large sinkhole had developed in the ground next to one of the lock chambers and they were worried about the wall collapsing.  And the same day, routine inspection revealed a crack in one of the main timbers of one lock door, so they were busy filling in the hole and adding a sister timber to the lock door when we arrived.  So we just tied up and hung out until they were done.

Awaiting Lock Repairs at Jones Falls

Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long and still made it to Chaffey's.  All the locks are incredibly picturesque, but I think Chaffey's wins the prize with it's adjacent mill building.

Tied up Below Chaffey's Lock

Chaffey's Lock Mill Building
 The next day we went through Newboro Lock which brings us up to the Upper Rideau Lake and marks the summit of the Rideau, and the highest elevation of our trip - 407'.  We were running low on water, and when I asked if they had any at Newboro, the lock crew offered to run a hose over to the boat so we could fill up.  The Rideau is spectacular scenery, and it's matched by the staff who run the place. They are the best.  Friendly, energetic, and helpful.  There wasn't any traffic, so we just sat in the lock for 20 minutes or so while it filled.

Watering Up In Newboro Lock

That afternoon we arrived at Westport which is a real village (population 300) with a bunch of shops including ice cream and cinnamon buns - all the major food groups.  We also found pickled Canadian bacon - the other major food group.

Westport "Harbor"

Laurie Catches Some Weeds

The next morning something had to be done about the Canadian Bacon, so Deb set about making a lavish breakfast.

Lavish Breakfast Featuring Pickled Canadian Bacon

After leaving Westport, our next stop was Smith Falls which is a full-scale town, but we just hung out on the boat without exploring much.

Tonight we are at Burritts Rapids where there is a lock and a nice tie-up dock.  And look what's for dinner tonight!

Deb Catches Dinner

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Thousand Islands and the Rideau

Ok, ok, I'm suffering from Bloggeritis and haven't posted for a while.  Time to catch up.

After hanging out in Kingston for a few days we went for an overnight around the Thousand Islands Region.  The headwaters of the St Lawrence is scattered with (you guessed it) thousands of islands and is a beautiful spot.  We first went up the north-most channel and stopped at an island that's a National Park and has a handful of moorings.  Our canal and parks pass lets us stay at any of these locations for free, along with the rest of Canada.  The first few places we checked out were already filled, but this spot in Endymion Island had all the moorings free except one so we stopped for the night.  Within a few hours all the moorings were taken and two additional boats anchored.  Clearly this is a popular weekend pass-time for the locals

Endymion Island

View from Endymion Island
After mooring, Laurie found a comfortable spot for some fishing.

Fishing in Style
The next day we continued out the St Lawrence and passed under the Thousand Islands Bridge which is the primary land boarder crossing (I-81).  Along the way are lots of cute lake houses.

All House, No Island

Drive-under Boat House

Thousand Island Bridge over North Channel

Just a few miles further we pulled a 180 and started heading back up river, but this time taking the south channel on the US side.  After just a mile or so we came to Boldt Castle which is perched on Heart Island and was partially built, then abandoned by George Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC.  After 70 years of abandonment, the parks service took it over, finished it, and made it a park.  Boldt may not have finished the castle, but he sure knew how to build a boat house!
Boldt Castle

Boldt Boat House

The south channel is where all the big shipping traffic is, and we passed this outbound tanker in what fortunately was a wide part of the channel.



After our Thousand Island tour we returned to Kingston for one more night before heading up the Rideau yesterday morning.  The first flight of locks (4 of them) is the Kingston flight.  Unlike the Erie, these locks are pretty much unchanged since the day they were built.  The lock chambers are stone blocks and much smaller than the Erie, and the controlling depth is only 5' which is about what the very first incarnation of the Erie was.  The gates are all wooden and everything is manually operated.  There are big crank wheels to open the flood gates, and open the doors.  No radios, no red and green lights.

At the Kingston flight, there was a huge cruise boat that we had to wait for coming down.  It filled the entire lock chamber, and only fit because it had a bow that lifted up like a draw bridge.  Below is another time-lapse video of them coming through the last chamber, then us going up.  We locked through with one sail boat and three or four kayakers and collectively we filed the lock.

Bottom of Kingston Flight

TangleWood II Waiting to Lock Through

Big Bertha Coming Down


Last night we anchored in Cranberry Lake just outside of Brewers Mill.  It's a beautify lake that goes on and on and is virtually deserted.  We saw one boat off in the distance for a few seconds, and that's it.  This morning we woke up to rain, but decided to continue on and are now at Jones waiting for the lock.  They are doing some repairs because of a sinkhole that developed in one of the chambers.  I've been able to tap into a local WiFi signal to do this post.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Hello Canada, and my Disappearing Charts

Yesterday we had a pleasant and uneventful trip across Lake Ontario, and aside from passing one boat as we left Oswego, didn't see another the whole trip.  That's confirmation that it's still early in the season, especially up here.  Oh, and I suppose the 52 degree water temp might have something to do with it as well.

We arrived in Kingston, ON right around noon and got tied up at the city marina, then went through the Customs drill which I was needlessly fretting about.  Right at the pier there's a pay phone and you just call an 800 number.  They ask you a bunch of name, rank, and serial number info about the boat and passengers, whether you have any guns, tobacco, or booze with you, and that's about it.  They give you a report number and off you go.

When you first come into a foreign port, you fly a yellow quarantine flag until you clear customs, then raise a courtesy flag of the country you are visiting.  Notice anything wrong in this picture?

Oops, Sorry Canada
Don't worry, it was quickly corrected to honor our fine hosts.  Speaking of which, Kingston is a really nice town.  Downtowns are essentially all dead in the US, but not elsewhere, including Canada.  We were very struck by this when visiting New Zealand where every town has a vibrant downtown with shops and businesses and activity.  The same is true for Kingston with block after block of shops, food, bars, businesses, etc.  Who needs those shopping malls anyway?

Here are a few pictures from where we are tied up. 

Royal Military College

Kingston City Hall

Shoal Tower Surrounded by Water

Harbor Light and Wind Farm of Wolfe Island

Rainbow over Royal Military College

We are staying in Kingston for a couple of days and I started looking ahead on the chart plotter to scope out the Rideau Canal, and what a surprise I found.  For those not familiar with marine chart plotters, it's basically a real-life Marauder's Map showing a map, your location and heading, and all the other boats around you.  In the US all the charts are available for free, but you need to buy the Canadian charts, so I did.  It cost $300 which I though was a pretty handsome price, but you gotta have them.

Well, they turn out to be the magic, disappearing charts.  When you are zoomed out you can see the narrow, 5' deep Rideau Canal, but as soon as you zoom in, the chart vanishes.  Yikes, that's a problem when trying to navigate 20 miles of narrow, shallow canal.  The manufacturer was able to reproduce the problem, but no solution is available so it looks like I'll need to buy yet another set of charts from a different vendor.  I'm sure glad I found this in advance rather than while underway as the boat passes into the invisible zone.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Bye, Bye, Canals, Hello Ontario

After a down-day that was both productive and very lazy, we set out again this morning to reach Lake Ontario.  As you depart the west end of Lake Oneida via the Oneida River, the man-made Erie Canal branches off.  Here's the sign post directing you towards the canal and lock #23.


Although at this point we are only about half way through the Erie, Lock #23 will be our last lock.  A few miles later we come to Three Rivers where the Oswego Canal joins the Erie Canal and Lake Ontario, and emerges in Oswego, NY.  We took this cutoff and traveled the 25 miles and 7 locks to Lake Ontario.  By the way, if you continue on the Erie it parallels the entire length of Lake Ontario passing just south of Rochester and emerging into Lake Erie around Buffalo and just a bit upstream of Niagara Falls.

Shortly after turning into the Oswego Canal, we came across this large canal maintenance facility with all sorts of barges and work boats.  It must be quite the chore to keep the canals cleared of debris and running properly.

Syracuse Canal Maintenance Facility

Syracuse Canal Maintenance Facility

Throughout the Oswego we continue to lock down to Ontario's elevation of about 250'.  I tried a couple of other video's of locking which are below.  Let me know when you get sick of them.....


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Over The Top

Today we crested the top of the "hill" and started back down.  But picking up where we left off, yesterday morning we departed Fonda and kept heading west.  At Lock #16, the Mohawk River splits off and you enter the purely man-made part of the canal.  The picture below is the approach to Lock #16, and you can see the river forking off to the right.

Divergence of Canal and Mohawk River
There are one or two scattered placed where they rejoin briefly, but for the most part the river is just a side body of water feeding the canal.

Along this section, there are also a number of Guard Gates.  They are partly about flood control, and partly about traffic control, but most of them are left open all the time.  The picture below shows a typical gate consisting of two side-by-side lift gates.  In this case, the right gate is closed.

Pair of Guard Gates
A large part of the canal parallels I-90 and there are a number of stretches where the boats can see the cars and the cars can see the boats.   I know this because I've driven I-90 a number of times and seen the canal.  I also know this because I got a call from sister-in-law Deb saying "hey, I just passed you!"  What a hoot.  She was driving out to see her mother and just happened to be driving by as we passed one of these mutual-visibility regions.  We made an attempts to coordinate a stop for lunch, but by the time we figured it out she was already too far down the road and would have had to backtrack quite a bit.

Speaking of cars zipping by, even the freight trains are going faster that us.  Boats give a whole new meaning to slow.  We figure a wagon train would be slower, but that's about it.

After a long day, we cleared Lock #18 and a few miles stopped at the town marina in Ilion.  It's the town's old barge terminal which has been turned into a marina and RV park and isn't a bad place to overnight, except the train traffic is pretty loud.  Anyone who thought railroads are dead should think again.  There was a freight train every 30 minutes on this line from dawn to dusk.

This morning, we set out for Lake Oneida with plans to stop at one end or the other.

Yesterday I was playing around with making a time-lapse video of a lock-through and quickly discovered that I didn't know how my camera worked for video.  The unfortunate outcome is that I can't show the highest lock (50'), but today I got it figured out so here's a video of us locking up in #19.

 

Lock #20 takes us to the highest elevation on the Erie Canal - 420 ft - then we start locking down towards Lake Oneida and Lake Ontario.  Here's the sign post at Lock #20 marking the "pass".

Lock #20, Highest Elevation On Erie Canal

We finally arrived at Sylvan Beach at the east end of Oneida around 3:30 and decided to go ahead and cross since the marinas on the other side are more attractive.  The skies were looking a bit menacing at the time so we took the opportunity to run the engines up for an hour and scoot across to the other side.  By 4:30 we were tucked into a slip in Brewerton and ready to fire up the grill.

Tomorrow we plan to take the day off, sleep in a bit, and catch up on a few little projects on the boat.  It's lots of fun being underway, but surprisingly tiring, and a day off every now and then is definitely needed.

Friday, June 1, 2012

250' Above Sea Level

I'll bet our boat never thought it would be up in the air like this!  We have now come through 12 locks and climbed 250', and I must say I think we've got the hang of it.  There were a few blunder moves by yours truly, but stainless rub rails have so far saved the day.  There is widely varying amounts of turbulence in the locks when they are filling, and you are never sure where it will come in relative to where you stop.  Some locks are easy, and others are a real chore to keep the boat from getting away.

Two days ago we tied up over night at the Waterford Pier right where the Erie Canal begins.  In this picture you can see the boats tied up, and the first lock door just to the left of the line of boats.  That's the first of 5 locks in a row known as the Waterford Flight.  Each one lifts the boat about 34' and collectively they are the highest lift over the shortest distance in the world.
Waterford Pier and Flight

In the same picture all the way to the left you can see one channel of the Mohawk River where it empties into the Hudson.  Back when all the canal traffic was pulled by mule the entire canal was a dedicated ditch with tow path.  But as mechanized propulsion evolved, it became possible to push/pull barges in the river and the "canal" started moving over to use the Mohawk River.  Now pretty much the whole stretch we are traveling is the Mohawk, with remnants of the old canal visible here and there.

When I awoke in the morning at Waterford, this family of geese were hanging out near by.  Fortunately they were not THAT close, and all their mess was in front of the boat ahead of us.

Family of Canada Geese

The next series of pictures show us working our way through the Waterford Flight.  In one picture, you can see the next lock gate up ahead in the distance.  The lock operators are all very friendly and helpful, and will let the next lock know you are coming so they can be ready for you.

Waterford Flight, E2

Waterford Flight, Approaching E4

Waterford Flight, E4 looking ahead to E5

Many of you know that I went to Union College in Schenectady, NY, but you might not know that it's also where the idea of this trip was born.  Being the heavy machinery junkie that I am, I used to go hang out at Lock #7 to watch the barges and boats lock through, and that's when I first realized that not only was the Mohawk navigable, but that it ultimately tied the Great Lakes, NYC, the St Lawrence, and Champlain all together.  I brought our Boston Whaler to Schenectady and did a little cruising up and down the river and through a couple of locks, and thought how cool it would be to do a northeast circumnavigation.  30 years later, here we are approaching Lock #7, finally doing the Downeast Loop.  Thankfully, the part of the original plan to do the trip in the 17' Whaler did not survive.  Tanglewood II is a tad more comfy.

 
Lock #7, Birthplace of this Trip

Last night we stayed at the Schenectady Yacht Club which isn't in Schenectady, but is adjacent to the remains of an aqueduct that was part of the original canal.  It was a stone and wood "bridge" that carrier the original canal across the Mohawk.  SYC's club house is one of the original houses used for canal operations.  The next morning brought a nice mist rising off the river.

Schenectady Yacht Club
 Beyond Schenectady, the Mohawk passes through mostly rural settings with an occasional boat club or house, but all along you are not far away from two rail lines and I-90.

Around Rotterdam, NY


To many, Irene was a big-nothing of a storm, but the Mohawk Valley and upper Hudson really got the crap knocked out of them.  I previously described some of the damage along the Hudson and in Waterford, but the stretch that spans locks #8 through #12 is astonishing.  Lock #9 probably got hit the worst with all the land to the north of the dam and lock having been completely taken away.  The pictures show the approach and you can see how the entire right side has been rebuilt.

Lock #9
 The next picture is closer, and you can see the new concrete embankment about in the center of the photo.  There used to be a significant gate house there which was completely swept away.

Lock #9
Up above from in the lock, you can see how the land has been refilled to force the river back over and through the dam.  One of those ponds is where the lock house used to stand.

Lock #9

Lock #9, Pond where Gate House Used to be.

Lock #10 was a similar scene.

Lock #10
About half way between locks 12 and 13 are Fonda and Fultonville on opposite sides of the river.  On the Fonda side is an old barge terminal where you can tie up for the night, so that's what we did.  Most of the locks have long approach walls on one or both sides where you can also tie up, but in this stretch many of the walls are either gone or have been so badly damaged that they can't be used, so we decided to grab this spot for the night.  It now appears to be a work yard for the State, but there is an old crane for loading barges and a canal work boat tied up with us.  Interestingly, there are a couple of power posts available for transients, but we aren't going to bother hooking up.

Not Much Action at The Fonda Terminal

Canal Work Boat Keeping Us Company

Fonda Terminal

Itty Bitty Work Boat




Stay tuned for the next exciting installment......