Love at second storm. The weather gods smiled upon us afterwards and gave us two weeks of perfect sunshine. We had an excellent trip and we had some interesting adventures.

In October of 2005, we took time to go down the Erie Barge Canal with our friends in their 42 foot sail boat. They had no experience going through the canal locks and we had done the Trent-Severn system in Ontario a couple of times, so we offered to crew for them. They were going south for the winter. They took a year from their jobs to see if the vagabond life style is for them.

(You can click on any image to see larger picture)

Everyone is excited for cruiser leaving on their journey, so we had a small crowd seeing us off.

Our friends pressured by the oncoming fall weather, left before the boat was fully tested and not totally ready for their long journey. We only got to Cobourg before discovering that the boat batteries are not holding their charge. Luckily Kathy knew someone in a Retirement Home in Cobourg, so we were able to borrow a car to go and test the batteries. They tested dead and we had to order new ones through a very busy local NAPA Auto Parts store.

Boat batteries are not something that the NAPA store had in stock, but they were willing to order them for us for the next day delivery. This would have taken too much time from our trip. Luckily, the battery supplier was only in Mississauga, an hour and half away by car. Unfortunately it took until 3:30 pm to learn of this. We quickly opted to jump into the browed car and at 3:35 pm started the drive to Mississauga. We had to get there before 5:00 pm, the closing time of the battery distributor. I bet that this 80 year old ladies’ car had not gone so fast for many years, I think I averaged 150km/h. Anyway, we came back unscathed, with the new batteries by 7:45 pm. The ladies returned the car, while we muscled in the huge 8D batteries.

We left for Oswego, NY by 10:15 pm. Weather forecast was not bad, 1 meter waves, winds from NW at 15 km gusting to 20 km an hour. Unfortunately, this forecast was old and not very accurate. By 11:30 pm the waves were hitting 3 m and winds were gusting to 35 km from the west. That’s still OK for a 42 foot boat, but very uncomfortable. Waves on the Lakes are very close to each other, maybe 35 feet a part, and they have a different motion. Unlike the ocean waves, waves on the Great Lakes are much sharper; they jump and tumble rather than roll and swell. The waves of the Great Lakes strike faster in comparison to the more lethargic ocean waves because they are less dense. Also every four waves, they would bunch up with the returning waves from one of the shores, the bathtub effect in the Lakes. This would create three waves that were about 3.5 meters.

I did all the boat handling, as my friend had no experience in this type of weather and I have been in this situation before on Georgian Bay and on Lake Ontario in our 37 foot boat, so I felt less threatened by the stormy lake.

At 2:30 am the winds shifted to SW and intensified to 43 km with gusts hitting 60 km. Now, every four waves, two would come up at 4 meters. This was supper uncomfortable. Kathy started getting seasick and our friend’s wife did not let go of the stainless steel pipes around the consol all night. She did not move from her spot for 12 hours. I swear she left permanent finger prints in the stainless steel.

We were traveling NW to SE and almost parallel to the waves. We fell off the wave more than few times. That is when you have the wheel cranked over as far as you can to escape the on coming wave and to prevent being knocked down, but the boat is not turning it is just falling down the side of the wave. This was exhilarating fun for the guys, but the ladies hated it. Forget about sleeping. No one slept for the entire journey of 13 hours. We arrived in Oswego around 11:35 am, tired, blood shut eyes, but in one piece.

We spent the rest of the day sleeping and resting.

Next day we prepared the boat for dismasting. You can’t go through the canal system with your masts up as the bridges are only 23 feet above the water and the mast is 56 feet high. This took most of the day so we did not leave Oswego until 11:30 am the next day.

On our first leg of the journey up the Eire Barge Canal, we discovered that the engine pulleys were badly corroded and they were eating up the fan belts. Every time we stopped in a town, we had to find an auto parts store to get some new belts. This is a 20 year old boat so it uses parts form twenty years ago. The auto parts stores typically had only one belt and we needed two. So we had to find another store which was often many kilometers away. Since we are on foot, all this walking takes a lot of time. This became the theme of the trip, every town we pulled into we had to find an auto parts store to get belts. Each one had only one or two, so we had to do this over and over again. In some towns we had to walk 20 km. The good part in all of this was that we got a lot of exercise.

There was another reason for extra exercise. Upon arrival in Oswego, we learned from our friends that there was a problem with the heads (bathroom toilets on the boat). One had to be disconnected as it was connected directly to the outside seacock and this is not allowed on the inland waters, while the other head sprung a leak during our rough crossing. The upshot was that we could not use the head until it could be fixed or replaced.

To our surprise, the worlds most advanced nation, the United States of America has no public facilities along the entire canal system. We can only assume that in America you go in the bush, if you can find one. Since the canal system meanders through areas that were developed years ago, finding bushes was difficult. So naturally we were forced to walk long distances into towns to find restaurants and other facilities. Once again, although very healthy, this was very time consuming, and it made our progress very slow.

Normally you can be in the Hudson River in four to five days, and in two weeks you can make it into New York City. We only made it to lock seven before we had to start our trip home. We disembarked six locks away from the Hudson River. We completed our trip into New York by car. Our German guests were back visiting Canada with their mother, so they came in our car to pick us up and we drove into New York City.

Despite our escapade to the bowels of New York, the New York subway system, we arrived back home in one piece. While in New York City we got around using the subway and on foot. The roads are just too congested and confusing.

We enjoyed our visit to North America’s largest city and were pleasantly surprised how clean it was. Mayor Julliani really cleaned it up. New York City appeared to be safe and felt no more dangerous than Young Street, in the downtown area of Toronto.

On a less cheerful note, the Homeland Security folks are putting on a big show for the US citizens. To visit Liberty Island and Ellis Island you have to go through Airport type security where everything is x-rayed and contents examined. Getting onto the ferry takes hours of waiting in the lineup, as every one is searched. Our German friend had a small pocket knife and was refused passage to Liberty Island. This is a sad state of affairs as this is intended to make the US public feel protected, and in fact their cherished liberties are being taken away with very little practical effect. I am sure that there are thousands of punks running the streets of New York City carrying guns and they are potentially more dangerous than any pocket knife carrying tourist could be.

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