Locked Up!

Some of you probably read the title of today’s blog and thought, “Well, the law has finally caught up with Pete!” To that, I say, “not yet!”

So what does the title mean, you may ask? From the Hudson River, Brian and I have been lifted a total of 435 feet through 22 locks since Tuesday, July 2nd. Brian’s help through the locks has been invaluable. Today we are transiting Lake Oneida to the town of Brewerton where we will take on diesel and pump out our holding tank. From there it’s a relatively short 10 miles to the junction of the Oneida and Seneca Rivers where we turn north toward Oswego which is 24 miles beyond that. We should arrive on Saturday and will stop for a couple of days where Brian will depart on Sunday and Bill will arrive on Monday.

Starting our journey west on the Erie Canal

An empty lock with leaky doors

Raised 35 feet to the top of Lock 2

What much of the Erie Canal looks like

Lock 17 is one of only 2 locks in North America where the entry gate is lifted above the boater. The clearance for this lock is 20 feet.

Lock gate about half way closed. Kind of reminds me of a guillotine.

Lock gate completely closed

I always thought that the four scariest words a deck officer could hear from an engineer were, “We’ve lost the plant”. I was wrong! The four scariest words are actually, “I’ve got the conn”. I might need therapy to deal with the trauma.

We went through Amsterdam and ….

Rome. I’m glad they thought to add, “NY” to the sign to avoid confusion with the other Rome.