Through the Eye of the Needle

We made it! The distance we covered in no way reflects the monumental advance we made; we are finally on our way to the Great Lakes!

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A beautiful, benign summer morning on the Erie Canal…. in some places.

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Less than 35 miles from the devastating flooding we saw between locks 24 and 26, this section of the canal is starved for water. These embankments would normally be under water. These water levels are high compared to where we are headed…

The Gates of Hell😏

This is Lock 29 being prepared for our tow boat which is on the other side of the lock gate. The lock itself was one of the cleanest, easiest we have transited.

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With our fellow intrepid travelers inside the lock; we ALL had our fingers crossed…

The water level in this section of the canal is so low that only boats with up to 5′ (1.52m) draft (Tiefgang) can pass. All the other boats in the lock had a draft of 5′ or less and they were still anxious. Aurora has a draft of 5’9″ (1.75m) so we were only allowed through with the tow boat.

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And this is why… These are the heat maps the Canal Authority provided to assist transiting this section of the canal. Red is bad.

The image on the left is the approach east of Lock 29. The water line photos above were taken along this stretch. The image on the right is the section west of Lock 29, the section between the two locks. At the very left edge of this image you can see the entrance to Lock 30.

Immediately after exiting Lock 29, you could see the dam construction that needs to be completed to remove this hazard. (See Stuck? No, we are on vacation …)

Hooked up and ready to go!

I won’t bore you with pictures of us being towed but will share what we saw…

First, a snapshot of our chart plotter on a happy day on the canal… What you want to pay attention to is the 2nd number in the list on the right hand side, the depth gauge reading. We like more than 10′ (~3m). We need at least 4’2” (1.26m) of water under the depth gauge.

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Yikes! Our keel was dragged through about 8″ (20 cm) of mud in the last 950′ (200m) of the passage. The tow boat had to work heavily; we would not have made it without their help.

Happily, everyone made it without issue. This is the flotilla heading into Lock 30.

Everyone VERY happy to be done with that passage.

Back to inviting and benign…

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So, we probably lost a bit of bottom paint but nothing worse. And we only made 14 miles (22.5km), but Fairport, NY was a nice stop. Fairport also introduced us to the NEXT canal infrastructure we will need to deal with: lift bridges!

And last but certainly not least, a shout out and a HUGE thank you to the NY State Canal Authority engineers and lock masters who went above and beyond the call of duty to help us. We are forever grateful and will make sure to pass this kindness on.