Wednesday June 30, 2021. Temp: 81/70, Humidity: 70/100%, Top Wind: W10 mph, Precip- thunderstorms, Miles Traveled: 36, #of Locks: 2
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We were up and planning to leave our fancy timber wall by 7:00 so that we could try to get across Oneida Lake before the thunderstorms arrived. But…. the guy who owns the little boat on the wall in front of us was here and having trouble with it, and asked some questions. So our mechanic talked with him for awhile, which delayed our departure. But that’s OK, because people are what this journey is all about! So in the meantime, I almost forgot to tell you that we are at the highest point of the Eastern Erie Canal. We are currently at 420’ elevation. So our locks today will drop us down to the elevation of Oneida Lake, which is at 370’. You know something else that this chart shows? Our eventual destination at the Western end of Erie Canal is Lake Erie, which has an elevation of 572’. We have a whole bunch more upping to do!
Tuesday June 29, 2021. Temp: 93 🥵/71, Humidity: 52/100%, Top Wind: W14 mph, Precip-yep:evening thunderstorm, Miles Traveled: 35, #of Locks: 3
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Another toasty day! But it started out with fog on the water, so we didn’t leave quite as early as planned. I thought we’d be off the dock by 7:00, but we couldn’t even see the nearby bend in the river, so we stayed put until it cleared up a bit. It didn’t take long – we were off by 7:30ish.
Monday June 28, 2021. Temp: 91🥵/76, Humidity: 54/79%, Top Wind: W12 mph, Precip-yep:evening thunderstorm, Miles Traveled: 16, #of Locks: 2
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We broke a distance traveled record today, baby! But it took us over four hours. This was a good little spot. On Nebo I could see Nauti Jenny, another Looper headed upstream, and I know they like to anchor out and save money. So I contacted them and let them know about this little free spot. They were excited! It’s fun to share good little finds like this!
Sunday June 27, 2021. Temp: 95🥵/72, Humidity: 44/81%, Top Wind: SW12 mph, Precip-none, Miles Traveled: 26, #of Locks: 5
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The whole plan for today was to get to a spot where we could plug the boat in so that we could have air conditioning, and get there before the wind kicked up around noon. Navigator gets a gold star! ⭐️ The sunshine got up at 5:22, I was up at 6:00, soon followed by my Captain. Coffee was being made and I noticed our windshield was wet. So I took my bag of helm essentials upstairs and found that our windows were all dewy. We actually had left every window open that could be open, so it was only the corners that were fogged in. And guess what? I got an excellent shammy kind of cloth while we were at Shady Harbor, and it works SOOO GOOD! Woo-hoo! This swab is happy about that! We got everything ready to go, and pulled away from the dock just before 7:00. Nobody else on the dock was moving yet.
Saturday June 26, 2021. Temp: 83/61, Humidity: 55/90%, Top Wind: SW13 mph, Precip-none, Miles Traveled: 17, #of Locks: 3
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Today was fun because I heard from several blog readers and other folks that we only know because we are doing the Loop and writing this blog. I love hearing from y’all, and count it a huge blessing when there’s a possibility that we can connect in person with someone that is actually on our route! So thank you for making my day! You know who you are. 😉
It was forecasted to be windy this afternoon, and to not cool down to a comfortable temperature tonight, so we decided to get up early and make it a short day to Amsterdam. That’s New York… not the pot-smoking-red-light-district Amsterdam. 🤭 Only three short-ish locks (like 15 footers) to transit and then we’d have power to plug into. The wind was forecasted to pick up around 1:00, so we got up and moving, and off of the dock by 7:30. It’s not that we’re total wimps with the wind (well actually… we are), but we shouldnt’ be affected by it as much on the river/canal rather than in open water, right? It’s just that wind is not fun in the locks because it swirls all around through what it thinks should be an aerodynamics wind tunnel test site. Why go into that and be squirrely if you don’t have to? Beside, an early start would have us to our destination before noon, and there is nothing wrong with that! Thanks for a nice stay, Scotia! This was a great little stop.
Friday June 25, 2021. Temp: 81/54, Humidity: 41/85%, Top Wind: SE12 mph, Precip-none, Miles Traveled: 21, # of Locks: 7
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Holy smokes, are we ever rusty on doing locks! Sheesh! 🤨 I’ll get to that. We had a 75’ go-fast Prestige boat come in at about sunset and dock all along the pump out dock last night, so we wanted to make sure he got out of here before us. Plus, we only planned to go about 20 miles today, so we weren’t in a hurry to move along. The locks operate from 7:00am to 5:00pm daily, and after the big boat in front of us left, we could see Lock 2 from the dock. (There is no Lock 1). Locks 2-6 are a flight sequence within the first two miles of the Canal. Once you start from here, you must go through all five, and you’ll be with the same boats for all of them.
Thursday June 24, 2021. Temp: 80/48, Humidity:34/90%, Top Wind: S13 (+gusts) mph, Precip-none, Miles Traveled: 25 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We started out the day still in tidal influenced waters, so we timed our departure with the tide to take advantage of going with the flood tide. Slack before flood was at about 11:30, so we had all morning to get ready to go. Since we’ve been gone for a week, we had nothing ‘fresh’ in the galley, so I took the marina courtesy car to the grocery store to pick up some parishables… like fruits, veggies, milk, etc. Kenny got the Girl ready to go, and watched in astonishment as the wind just kept increasing with every passing minute. Geeze Louise. Why? At least the wind was blowing up the river from the south, so it would be going with us and the tide as we traveled north up the river. But for departure, Captain would need to BACK the Girl out of the long fairway. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He wasn’t impressed with this “welcome back to the helm” kind of day! 🤨 We pulled our lines at about 11:30, Captain backed us out for about 100 yards against the wind and current like a pro, and tootled us over to the fuel dock so that we could pump out our black water tank. He made it look easy. Then…. away we went! So-long Donovans!
I know – it sounds silly that we took a vacation, but that is what it feels like! We flew to Seattle and spent three-ish days in the Puyallup area with family. We were able to attend our oldest granddaughter’s high school graduation, and celebrate that she also earned her two-year degree from the local community college! Woo-Hoo! This was the primary reason for the timing of this trip, and it was a great opportunity for us to get our hug batteries recharged a bit. 🥰
Sunday June 13, 2021. Temp: 79/56, Humidity:49/100%, Top Wind: S11mph, Precip-none, Miles Traveled: 0
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Another day with a cool breeze from the south, blowing right into our back door. It was actually quite comfortable, so we had the door open all day, although we weren’t in the boat most of the day. Today was the Pig Roast! There was a bunch of boats and a bunch of people. The weather was even comfy enough for a tank top. 😁😎 The morning started out with a ladies ‘bottomless mimosa and danish“ gathering at the restaurant for an hour for $20. Silly me – I though it would just be a gathering where ladies would be chatting and I don’t really enjoy that kind of thing. I’d rather just visit here and there, so I didn’t go. Then I found out that Denise on Island Office helped facilitate and organized relaxed agenda. Everybody introduced themselves, their boat, where they started the loop, and they all shared info about all kinds of loop related stuff. Woops. That woulda been fun. Oh well.
It was sunshiney and beautiful, and people meandered around visiting all day.
By 2:00, there were people in the pool, a band playing live music, a pig in the cooker, and free vodka seltzer tasting at the container bar.
The band was good and loud, playing a nice broad spectrum of rock and roll.
Since we didn’t win the guitar yesterday, Kenny bought us tickets for the “everybody is your instant friend” basket from the yacht club. The proceeds of the raffle went to charity.
There was a lot of “cheer” in here, but once again we didn’t win – the Basket of Cheer. I guess we won’t have a zillion new friends.
The pig was finally done around 4:30 or so and the cooks were frustrated because it’s been so windy. I think it must have been hard to hold a good temperature? I don’t know, but I got a nice picture of Brian & Kathy with their pig.
The cook started to dig in. I was surprised that the skin was stiff and crunchy and stood up by itself, and the meat had just collapsed under the skin.
Pullin us out some pork butt!
Everything else was pot luck, plus a $10 donation for charity. I made a big green salad to use up the veggies in my fridge, since we’re leaving for a week. It was a big spread, and it’s amazing the fabulous food that comes out of these boats!
We had a big group of people and everybody got stuffed. What a great fun time!
After everything calmed down in the evening, and most people had gone back to their boats, there was a group of us Gold Loopers still sitting and chatting. We decided that we needed to find Brian and go have a Little Beer. We found him at the container bar and he thought Little Beers was a great idea, so he took the gang of us up to the restaurant and treated us all to Little Beers. It is a shot of Licor 43 topped with heavy cream. It has nothing to do with beer, it just looks like a little tiny glass of beer. It is actually a sweet dessert kind of shooter. Yum! I love them! We had Phanthon, Selah Way, Magic, Island Girl, Sabbatical, and our fabulous host, Brian Donovan. We sat and visited for about an hour or so. It was really nice to hear Brian talk about their philosophy here, and it makes me love him even more. He is loud, bold, and fun, and has the biggest heart. Due to frigid icy winters here on the Hudson River, the marina is only open about six months, and the restaurant is open even less time than that. He admitted that the property and operation here is not their passion. Who in their right mind would own a marina AND a restaurant that is only open half the year or less?! The kids that they employ are their passion. He said that he and Kathy are all about ‘growing kids’. And I tell you what – they have an amazing staff of wonderful teenagers and young adults! Such a pleasure to get to know the inside scoop. ❤️
I can’t even describe what a fun weekend it was. Kenny and I are still kicking ourselves that we didn’t stay for the Pig Roast weekend in 2018, but we are thankful that we were able to be here this year. The Donovans add more fun and make it better every year. For future loopers, I cannot recommend the weekend enough. It truly is a looper gathering that shouldn’t be missed. It’s not even that it’s a big giant party weekend. It’s all about the friendships that are developed and nurtured here. People stay put for a few days so you can spend more time getting to know each other and help each other with projects. It’s a nice change from the normal quick meeting on a dock and then zip… they’re gone first thing the next morning. The commeradrie is really special.
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Monday June 14, 2021. Temp: 66/61(MILD), Humidity:78/100%(HUMID), Top Wind: SE12 (gusts to 24) (WINDY)mph, Precip-yes – RAIN, Miles Traveled: 0 ****************************
We watched several of our buddies bug out this morning. Some headed back down the Hudson (Phanthom, Island Office). They came for the big fun weekend, and are now going back to New York City so that they can then head east/northeast up to Maine for the summer. Several other boats took off to go north up to the Erie Canal. Others yet went north and will keep going north up into Lake Champlain for the summer. Maybe half are still here, with most of them leaving tomorrow. A couple of us are abandoning ship for land adventures. We already have a new boat that came into Inked Mermaid’s spot behind us, before the cleats even got a rest. I’m sure glad the big party was yesterday, because today’s weather is not wonderful.
It is a dreary windy cool day. A couple of new boats came in, but it’s blustery, so there isn’t much activity going on outside of the boats. Kenny went next door and visited with Jack on Jackpot for awhile this morning, and learned how to download routes from Navionics and upload them to Garmin. I don’t know if we’ll actually do that, but it’s nice to know how!
We do have some LARGE traffic that goes by.
We put our canvas covers on everything and tried to think of everything we need to do before leaving for a week. It looks like weather in Washington will be similar to here…. everything from 60 to 90 degrees! We’re really looking forward to seeing family.
SO – the blog writer will be off-line for a week or so while pausing for station identification. Ha! Did that just show my age, or what?! Oh my goodness. That made me think of the test pattern that used to come on the black & white TV at midnight when broadcasting shut down for the night. Remember that? I do! Get this! The Indian-head test pattern was used for calibration of the RCA TK-1 monoscope. It was widely used by television stations worldwide during the black-and-white television broadcasting era. It features a drawing of a Native American wearing a headdress along with numerous graphic elements that test different display aspects.
So there you go. Another history lesson that you never expected or cared to know. So now you can stare at the test pattern until I return, or here’s an idea. While I’m gone, I don’t want you lurkers (you know who you are…. Walt 😉) to have boring coffee in the morning. So pop yourself into one of our previous adventures, either on land or sea, and pretend you’re following along ‘live’ on one of our other crazy adventures for a week or so. I promise – the cross country trips are fun and full of beautiful pictures – because after all…. our country is BEAUTIFUL! And so was the Bahamas in 2017.
We’ll be back on Island Girl and resume this adventure on 6/24. So don’t go too far away, because we will be back! (Unless the minions in the family hog-tie us with duct tape and don’t let us leave the state of Washington. 😳)
Friday June 11, 2021. Temp: 68/57 (it felt warmer), Humidity:47/75%, Top Wind: S24mph, Precip-none, Miles Traveled: 0
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Today was cloudy most of the day, and much cooler than yesterday. We had a pretty brisk wind from the south, so it blew right in through our door. There were a lot of boats that came in, and I really wondered about why they came in when they did. Most of them came before noon, and the wind was blowing 24mph from the south, and the tide was going out to the south – so opposing conditions and the water was really rough. Coming into the marina they had to fight the forces, and it obviously was not easy as I watched them all try to dock. YIKES! But everybody got in safely and there weren’t any mishaps. By evening, the water was smooth and calm.
This wasn’t an overly exciting day for our crew. We took down the radar so that we can make it through the Western Erie Canal in a couple of weeks. That gives us just barely low enough air clearance at 15’3”. We need to be less than 15’6”. 😳. By taking it down, we reduced our air draft by about 9”.
We have a few more items to remove to make sure we don’t get a crew-cut. The antennas can lay down, and so can the anchor light. The little twirly-bird weather station needs to come down, then we’ll be good-to-go.
The rest of the day was just hangin out and enjoying the neighbors. It was fun along the dock, because any boat that can make height adjustments to do the Western Erie Canal were working on things just like us – to get down to less that 15’6”. Trawlers were lowering their masts, others were taking down their bimini tops, others were removing equipment from their radar arch like us. There are some boats that can’t get low enough clearance no matter what, so they’ll have to take a different route. Some of them are still really hoping that Canada will open the border so that they can go north and take the route that we did in 2018. If not, there is a way they can go out through the Oswego Canal into Lake Ontario, and then go to the Welland Canal. But there they have to hire a captain through a legal contract to take their boat through the Welland Canal from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. The problem is that the Welland Canal is in Canada, and U.S. citizens are still not allowed into Canada. Commercial traffic is technically essential, so a bonafide captain for hire can do it (for a sizeable fee…. like $1,000). I’m glad we can get short enough to go explore and enjoy the Western Erie canal. We’ve heard some real positive things about the ‘route less traveled’.
Here is our schedule for the weekend. The real festivities start tomorrow.
And here is a shot of our gaggle of loopers. There’s at least 20 looper boats here, and the Donovans are putting on a great weekend of fun for us!
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Saturday June 12, 2021. Temp: 75/56, Humidity:46/100%, Top Wind: S24mph, Precip-some drizzle, Miles Traveled: 0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was a fun looper day of frivolity! We started out serious with a flag ceremony hosted by the on-site Awenka Yacht Club. We all crawled out of our boats at 10:00 in the heavy mist and sprinkles of rain to begin the day.
We heard the history of the flag, its design, and its meaning which was fitting since Monday is Flag Day!
Bishop Gray led us all in a group prayer and a Blessing of the entire Fleet.
David from Selah Way sounded his ram’s horn, which is called a shofar, and is used in Jewish ceremonies or prayers. I’ve never heard or seen one of these, and it’s pretty neat. Their dinghy is named Shofar Away. They are super fun and sweet people.
Then the Bishop came down to the docks and blessed each boat. It was really special. 🥰 Thank you to JoAnn from Jackpot for taking this picture of us!
We even got an official certificate that Island Girl has been blessed. Let’s hope she remembers that as we continue with the remaining 4,000 miles of our loop!
Thankfully, the clouds cleared out and we had a pretty darn nice day!
We were treated to a burger & dog bbq lunch hosted by the Awenke Yacht Club. Another opportunity to sit and chat with loopers. The yacht club sold raffle tickets for a big giant basket of booze. The proceeds of the raffle went to a local charitable organization.
Then it was time for Blue Chair Bay rum tasting, which of course was a fun time! They had pitchers made up of a few mixed drinks to try. Then if you bought a full size drink, you got a t-shirt or tank top, AND….
… AND entered into a drawing to win this Kenny Chesney autographed guitar! Kenny & I both bought a drink and got the shirts, but we did not win the guitar. 😔. Oh well – neither of us know how to play guitar, and it would take up a bit of space in the boat for the next five months.
This was a busy table, and we could try all the flavors. They made a drink that was like a mango-orange julius. It was pretty tasty!
Needless to say, it was a fun time with all of our looper buddies!
Next up was to check out Brian’s new “Container Bar”. What? Yes – really! He is making a bar out of a 20’ shipping container. It isn’t complete yet, but he was anxious to try it out, so he was handing out free beer and seltzers.
Brian Donovan and his wife Kathy, are wonderful fun people who do a fantastic job welcoming boaters to their marina. They’re always looking for more fun ways to make it even better.
This is fun – the “”Twisted Prop Container Bar”. I need to get a picture of the real props for the namesake.
Here are Brian’s props from Corporate Approved (a 75’ Hatteras yacht). YIKES! I left my foot in the picture for reference. These are big expensive props…they probably cost more than our Island Girl! This was from his journey north from Florida this year. Remember – we saw them just north of Wrightsville, North Carolina at a yard with a giant lift.. Yup. Here’s proof.
Kenny, Loren (Irrational Exuberance) and Steve (our Florida buddy on Sabbatical) were having fun telling stories and hanging out.
We ate dinner aboard Island Girl again tonight, even though it was Prime Rib dinner night in the restaurant. We have food that needs to be eaten or given away or thrown out before we leave for a week. Then after dinner, there was a giant bonfire. We sat around and visited with more people, and it was a great way to end a fun day. Brian also hooked up a big huge movie screen on the side of the building (you can see the wall above Loren’s shoulder on the left of the picture above) and they played “Captain Ron”…. my ultimate favorite movie that I can watch over and over. It obviously was a favorite among this community, because a LOT of people could quote lines from it. “If anything’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there!”. “Ya know these diesels, they love their oil!”
We’ve been having so much fun! Really the best part is that everybody is here for the whole weekend, so we’ve really have a chance to get acquainted with folks. Tomorrow promises to be another great day of fun!
