Cheryl's Notes:

We pulled into the well at 8:30 to prep the boat for the mast. At 9:00 they started the process of placing the mast on the cradle. By 10:00 we had everything lashed down and we were leaving the Erie Basin heading for the Niagara River. About nine miles up the river we turned into the Erie Canal. We are finally on our way.

A short ways into the canal, we encountered our first lock. It is a double lock in Lockport. You enter the first lock and drop down about 25 feet. The gate opens and you enter the second lock. The total drop between the two locks was 49.1 feet. After the lock we came to our first set of lift bridges. The bridge operator opened the first bridge and we passed through. He closed the bridge, hopped in his car and drove to the second bridge while we waited. He opened the second bridge and we were cleared through. We don't if he stayed there waiting for a westbound boat or got in his car and drove back to the first bridge.

The canal is a real mix of small towns and rural landscapes. The small towns usually have a small lift bridge that needs to open and let us through. In the more rural areas we have seen corn and soybean fields, and nature preserves with blue herons. We eventually stopped in the small town of Medina, NY and tied up to a seawall. We had electrical hookups and the closest bridge operator came by to give us a code for the boaters restrooms. No fee to stay here for the night. I think that the services must be included in the 10 day pass that we purchases. Plus, I think that they want to draw boaters to these small towns so that we will spend our money and boost the local economies.

On a side note: John and Bob measured very carefully what the height of the mast would be off of the stern of the boat. The lowest clearance of the fixed bridges in the Erie Canal is 15 feet. When we went under our first fixed bridge we almost had to bring the captain a new pair of shorts. We assured him that we had and extra two feet of clearance, but he didn't quite believe us. The next bridge we made him stand on deck and watch overhead.

John's Notes:

Yesterday is a hard day to describe. Lots of stuff happened. Laying the mast in the crutches went better than expected. Everything lined up really well. We used the mainsheet traveler to stabilize the spreaders. That worked well. The mast seems to be rock solid. Because we had to modify our original plan, we used up several of our ratchet straps. I would recommend that anyone making this trip to bring lots of them. Ours are 15' long and if I had 20' that would be better.

Have another electrical problem. Same symptom as before but when I checked the wiring, it is still good. Kept looking and found a 25 amp fuse that is blown. Have replaced the fuse and are testing as we eat breakfast. The Napa Auto Parts store is about 30' from the boat.

We had an engine problem yesterday. At least for awhile. If we ran it over 2000 rpms it would run rough. Tom and I thought it might have been some bad fuel. What do we know. It was purely a guess. Anyway, after we went through the first set of locks, the problem simply went away.

We ate dinner last night at Rudy's Diner. If you are a local here and want to find someone, Rudy's would be a good place to start. I didn't count them up yet, but the daily special list was comprised of about 30 or more different items. They had a one pound mojo burger that if you eat it all you get a t-shirt and your name on the wall of fame. I was going to do it but Cheryl talked me out of it. Just a note. I noticed the boat was listing to port this morning. Then I realized that Rudy's menu was sitting on the port side settee.. A guy could get a double hernia carrying that thing. (We were so impressed with their great food and reasonable prices that we are sitting here eating breakfast also.)

Right after we docked last night, Ball-2 somehow disengaged itself from the boat. Luckily Cheryl noticed before we went up town or else Ball-2 may be well on it's way to Rochester by now. She made a swift catch with the boat hook and brought it back on board.

Update on the ball fenders and the use of baseball terminology when docking. I've been thinking about changing the name of the fenders to different kinds of pitches. For instance, I could call one "Fast Ball", another "Curve Ball", another "Change Up", etc. Maybe I could figure out a way to insert a 2# lead ball in one and then roll it down the dock watching it make weird gyrations. We could call that one a "Knuckle Ball". I think I need to work on this more.