Saturday July 10, 2021.
Temp: 74 /63, Humidity: 59/92%, Top Wind: N8 mph, Precip: NONE! YAY!, Miles Traveled: 49, Locks: ONE
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Sometimes a late start is frustrating when there isn’t a choice, but hey! we got to sleep in a bit today. We have one more lock to go through in Buffalo, to avoid the rapid current of the Niagara River. It doesn’t do the first lift until 11:30 on the weekend. Our plan was to leave early enough to stop and get our fuel tanks topped off, then go the nine miles to the lock. We only need about 80 gallons, but figured we’d like to have full tanks going out onto Lake Erie. So up an atum and ready to go around 9:45. Spinning Dreams and Paradise Falls had the same idea, so they were already at the fuel dock. We only had to wait a few minutes for them.
Toodaloo Tonawanda! During our stay here, we were tied up back by the boats on the right. This is the Dockside Restaurant where we had excellent fish dinners.
And this is the wall at the park area where the concert was. There is a wall on the other side of the canal too, so there is a lot of tie up space here!
We finally got off of the fuel dock and made our way out of the canal around 10:20. 😳 This was cutting it close time-wise, because I wanted to be at the lock by 11:15…. and it was 9 miles away, and we usually cruise at 9mph. We came out of the canal and into the Niagara River, and GEEZE LOOUISE! There is some current here! We did not consider that there would be a 3-4mph current against us as we tried to paddle upstream to the lock. We were only going 6mph, so it was going to take us 1.5 hours to get there??? I had a Navionics route set for the lock, and it said we were going to get there at 11:45 at this rate. DANG! That won’t work for us! So we went fast for about 15 minutes to catch up with the other boats. There were about five other boats that had left Tonawanda that were all ahead of us in a parade to the lock. You can see the current against this marker.
As we struggled along, we heard someone talking to the Black Rock Lock (say that fast three times), and the lock master confirmed that the first lift would be at 11:30. Cool! Our timing was looking good now. But then we heard a commercial passenger vessel call the lock and say they’d be ready to lock through in about 15 minutes, which would be 11:15. The lock responded that the gates would be open, and that he’d have some company with some private vessels. WHAT?! Spinning Dreams confirmed with the lock that they could lock through on this lift with the tour boat. Ah – geeze…. are we going to make it?
We had one boat behind us, and miraculously we all made it into the lift. We were instructed to stay on the starboard side and hold the ropes. Thankfully the tour boat went to the port side which made room for all of us. And they call these wimpy little yellow things ‘ropes’?? These were skinnier little lines than a ski rope! But it was only a five foot very slow and gentle lift, so it worked out ok.
We entered the lock at 11:15, and were on our way out of the lock by 11:35. I guess it’s a good thing we went fast to catch up with the parade, or we would have had to wait for another lift! So we all tootled out of the lock together and along the protected canal in Buffalo.
The good thing about being in a group was that the railroad swing bridge opened for all of us, and then this bascule bridge ahead of us opened too. Both bridges were reported to be 17’ in the closed position, which we could still do, but it was nice to just have them open and not worry about it. We haven’t put our radar back up, so we’re still in our sleeked down panini pressed ‘go-fast mode’.
I said we were in a protected canal, right? So on the other side of the island to our starboard side, we could see the Niagara River. Some boats just “shoot the rapids” and don’t mess with the lock and it’s schedule. Yesterday, Kenny suggested to Joe that maybe we could do that? Joe said to call the nightly news so that there would be video. 😳 He was right. We caught glimpses of the river, and there was a big SeaRay go-fast boat over there going slower than us, and we were only tootling along the canal at 6mph. YIKES! There truly are rapids on the river here!
Here’s another shot of the water rushing past a bridge and an old bridge ruins. Definitely white water!
We came out of the canal into a protected basin area of Buffalo.
We had decided that we didn’t feel the need to stop and stay in Buffalo, so here it is, in our rearview mirror.
When I say it’s a ‘protected basin’, it’s because there are a lot of jetties and breakwaters to help protect the city from all of Lake Erie to it’s west.
This was our route through the lock and Buffalo Harbor. You can see that the Niagara River gets really narrow here, and that’s why the current rushes so fast. And… that’s why they put in a lock – after all…. think about it. The lock raised us five feet! That’s a lot of water rushing by in a pretty good elevation change in a short distance.
They say that this lake can be really nasty and storms can come up quickly. We were very blessed to have picked a day that was perfectly calm and beautiful!
We’d also heard that the color of the water isn’t as nice as Lake Michigan. I don’t know – it looks pretty blue to me! Way better than where we’ve been for the last… I don’t know…. four months? 😉
Finally around 4:30, we arrived at Dunkirk New York, and pulled into the Dunkirk Yacht Club. They don’t take reservations in advance which made the Captain a bit nervous. But I had it from reliable sources that there would be room for us. Our friends on Irrational Exuberance had stayed here a couple of weeks ago and said there was lots of space, especially for our beam size boat. Our other buddies on Hallelujah! were already here on a T-dock, because they’re wider than us. They said there was plenty of room. I had tried calling the yacht club yesterday and got no answer. So as we approached, we called on the radio. Surprisingly, we got an answer from a boat that just passed us, and they told us to go on in, and where to go! As we got closer, there were people on the dock by Hallelujah! waving at us as we were headed to where we thought we were supposed to go. NOPE – come right here! Like…. this slip that you’re driving past! OH! OK…. make a quick adjustment, and just pull in bow first. The slips are a little precarious with metal pipes and stuff, but we had help and fenders, so I don’t think we bonked anything that could hurt us. Whew! Then we discovered that there was only one 30amp plug in available for us. Hmmm…. OK. We can make that work! Best of all, the first night of dockage with power is FREE! So, who are we to complain?! The weather wasn’t hot, so we didn’t need both air conditioners, and I don’t need to use the stove… so we can run off of one power cord, no sweat.
It’s a bit rustic but extremely friendly club. They don’t really require that transients be yacht club members -if they have open space when you show up, you can stay!
Their club house had a kitchen, bathrooms with showers. and a big open meeting space inside. They had all kinds of grills outside available for use.
But it is a bit rustic. This is looking between the floorboards in the bathroom, into the water below the building. 😁
It was so fun to see our friends Ann & Steve on Hallelujah! again! I don’t know when we saw them last, but it was great fun to hang out with them again. Ann cooked up some pork tenderloin and veggies on a grill, and we had a fun evening with them.
We sat on the docks and visited with the locals, which was great fun. This gentleman knew our area of Florida pretty well and talked about Pine Island Sound and his favorite places to go.
And he took at picture of us, complete with his shadow. 😎
Most of the boats in the club are run-about size, and we were surprised to see several Bayliners!
When we came into the boat basin around the breakwater, our depth alarm kept going off. I could see the weeds in the water and I had read that there was plenty of depth, but a lot of weeds. True Story! Then Steve saw these underwater weed whackers! Somehow they hook onto a boat and shave the weeds!
Yea- this is what I’m talkin about.
After dinner we took a stroll into “town”. It was Saturday night and there was some good live music coming from a restaurant nearby. There is a public pier on which our friends Spinning Dreams tied up. It’s free, just no power. And it’s an active popular place to be, because cars can cruise out and back, or park and enjoy the pier. It was quite the happening place on a Saturday night. We shy’d away from it in favor of the more protected yacht club docks. The pier is a bit more open to the entrance to the harbor, and the other night our buddies on Sabbatical got really beat up in the middle of the night by some great big six foot crashing waves that came in.
