Closing the Loop
July 24, 2024
I was happy to put the Jersey Shore behind me. My early morning exit required a bumpy northbound ride before turning NW into the Hudson-Raritan Estuary en route to New York City. The low clouds kept visibility at <2 NM and I was about to traverse the busiest harbour of my journey. Fortunately, an early Monday morning had all the large ships and tugboats at dock and the ferry traffic was light. I stayed close to the west shore, took the requisite Statue of Liberty and Manhattan photos, and made my way north without any real desire to hang out in the Big Apple.
The sun broke through, but the S wind picked up to make a bumpy ride into Haverstraw, NY where I stopped because, you can guess it, another thunderstorm was ready to strike. I had another day on the Hudson River travelling up to Albany, NY. The river’s natural environment was impressive, and not something you fully appreciate from the highways. You could spend some time exploring these waters, e.g., the Palisades, train rides along the shoreline, the unexpected collection of castles, Sleepy Hollow, and West Point.
Not so wonderful was the tree branch I picked up in my propeller and rudder. My early start on day two was calm waters and a lovely sunrise. I could see a big, northbound tanker downriver. I cut a turn through a big river bend too narrow while gazing around sipping coffee and couldn’t avoid the back eddy’s flotsam. It was small floating bits and pieces (leaves, twigs, and plastics) and I cut the throttle to slide over it – the standard operating procedure for foolish helmsmen. On the other side I pushed the throttle forward to idle speed and heard a tick from the rear, reverse throttle, same noise. I was shocked to see a tree limb about 5m long wedged in my rear gear. It had been hidden under that debris pile and witchingly found its way into my gear. It was jammed in firmly, so with that big tanker approaching I quickly donned a mask and snorkel, jumped in with WW drifting (the depth was over 150’ = no anchoring), and worked feverishly to free that tree. Once free, I put it on a rope and dragged it as close to shore as possible. Luckily the big tanker was advancing at a dead slow pace around the big bends. Two disasters avoided and my morning swim all by 0700hrs.
The rest of the day was uneventful. I had planned on anchoring out, but couldn’t find a decent spot and unsurprisingly, there were more thunderstorms in my future. I decided I would carry on to Waterford’s Free Dock at the entrance to the Erie Canal. It was a long day, 100 NM over 8 hours, and included a lock passage at Albany. It was a good decision because that approaching storm became the tornado that struck Rome, NY just west of Waterford. It was quite a violent albeit a short event and I was glad to have averted a third disaster that day with my extra lines keeping WW secure at the dock.
I met some bikers camped out and preparing to ride the Erie Canal Trail to Buffalo, the Blue Sky heading north through the Champlain Canal, a local boat crew arriving because their dock had just been ripped out by the storm, and two buddy boats I would hang with for couple of days on the Erie Canal – the Toot Toot with Captain Fred and Tiki with Captain Casey. Every dock has its own little transient community.
The Erie Canal has an intriguing history, often described as critical to building today’s United States of America. The canal has been enlarged several times and today it is primarily the haunt of recreational boaters. It is narrow and shallow, similarly so in the Oswego Canal portion, and I was happy to put these waterways and behind me – tricky helm times, slow moving - rarely >8 kts, 30 locks in total, the dangerous cross-flow exiting Fulton’s O3 lock, and two deadhead strikes.
Our first day of six locks was cut short by another doozy of a thunderstorm. Our three-boat flotilla took refuge tying up at Lock E7’s concrete wall and Toot Toot at the floating dock, which slid off its moorings and parked Toot Toot in the weeds during the storm. We decided to spend the night at Schenectady Yacht Club, or more accurately the docks at the campground. It was a nice place, and I got a pool-swim during a break in the thunderstorms. Dockmaster Linda was a longtime and proud local who had a collection of stories about Schenectady from its Indigenous roots to Dutch settlers, warring Europeans, and a big industrial boom which included a collection of aqueducts (one remnant beside the dock), the first TV broadcast, and nuclear submarines. She didn’t mention the city’s industrial legacy of highly contaminated sites which are sadly, the repeated landscape created by invading humans and their industry. I am accumulating a chapter of stories about industry’s legacy of destruction, taxpayer bailouts, and its future regulation challenges: there is a cost of doing industrial business that we don’t pay for today and didn’t pay for originally but still shows as a debt on our real-life, cost of living ledger.
I left my buddy boats the next day and “sped” west as fast as possible. I had an interesting overnight at Little Falls, NY where I learned about its importance for waterway travel since before Europeans arrived. I was planning for a free dock in Sylvan Beach, NY, but it was another crazy-town, Friday night of boaters enjoying their Pirate Festival. Instead, I crossed Oneida Lake to the free dock at Brewerton, NY. I buddied up with two boats the next day to complete the Oswego Canal, spending the night at the Oswego Marina in preparation for Lake Ontario. It is quite a charter fishing town and multiple boats came in with full stringers of big Chinook salmon and Rainbow trout – about 200,000 of these fish are stocked here every year. These may not be native fishes, but they are getting people on the water where they enjoy the natural environment and a healthy meal while following the consumption advice (almost every waterbody has one), and the local economy is boosted. I think this is a good thing and I support this type of fisheries management. I will take on the issue in greater detail at a later date. I chatted with a couple of Captains about the lake, which I had gone out to see and check on conditions (modelling my wind and wave apps). They were confident the conditions would be good tomorrow morning, but also ended our conversations with warnings that this part of the eastern Lake Ontario basin was unpredictable, and conditions change quickly.
I walked into town to grab some dinner after another long day on the water. For only the second time in America, I order their all-American food, a hamburger. When you ask American’s about local cuisine, their rating system is measured by the burger. It could be a seafood restaurant and still the quality is assessed as, “they have a great burger” or not. Choosing a burger is followed by, “Would you like your burger cooked rare?” or, would you like the Russian roulette option of eating undercooked, commercially-ground meat from a commercial kitchen staffed by teenagers. I gambled that night ordering a well-cooked burger, and it was, but lost later in the evening with my first case of food poisoning. Enough said.
At the crack of dawn, I was heading out with a bevy of charter fishing boats. They headed north and I turned west where, for the next 4.5 hours, I fought Lake Ontario: 3-4’ rollers that were swells developed from a few days of west winds, topped with 2-3’ waves on a period of 2-3 seconds, water over the bow, and a digestive system that hadn’t fully recovered from its burger nightmares. I was done after 45 NM and headed towards Rochester to bail out, but then the lake settled down to very calm conditions I kept going, finally grabbing a dock at the Oak Orchard Yacht Club. It was a unique club up the Oak Orchard River, but it was quiet, and the members were very friendly and helpful.
July 21, 2024 and Day 371 – Today I closed the Loop. Entering onto a glassy Lake Ontario, the sunrise was amazing and WW had a straight shot to Stoney Creek, ON where Poseidon guards my Loop’s originating port, the Newport Yacht Club. The final crossing was uneventful, although my Canadian custom’s officer took a bit of time to revel in my big moment. I arrived and grabbed a few photos off Stoney Creek, headed back offshore for a swim because the lake had an algal bloom that stretched out 1 NM offshore, went a bit farther out to swim when I spied the third discarded balloon of the day – this one was a condom, then headed into Hamilton Harbour and my dock at Harbour West. I was ready to take a few days to rest and recover before I set off for the Maritimes.
Here endeth The Great Loop, done and dusted. You have read my stories and more will follow. I’m still well-short of my final port, Fredericton, NB and I am certain my eastbound travels will bring more exciting adventures for me and stories for you.
That is all for now,
Allen
Hamilton, ON
