TOP LEFT: Leaving the final lock (Lock #2, interestingly enough)
TOP RIGHT: Confluence of Erie Canal and Hudson River
LOWER LEFT: Lumpy posing on the Mohawk
LOWER RIGHT: Peter in lock (a rare moment when he wasn't eating...)
We're off an paddling on our final segment of our Erie Canal traverse, this time from Fonda (home of world famous Fonda Speedway) to the Hudson River. We've got a good crew this trip, Me, Carl, Peter, Scott (Koz), and two of the girls who will relay/provide sag support, Jan and Kathy.
On the drive up to Fonda we loose another fender off of the trailer; we never actually see it fall off (as the trailer is about 200 feet long with the boats on it), but several cars give us massively dirty looks when they pass us. Geez, you think a slab of metal bouncing by you at 80mph is a big deal or something.
We get off and running on friday; we've got about 50 miles to paddle over the 3 days, good weather forecast (with decent trailing winds!), and we're all ready to see the "Big River" after 3 years of the narrow Erie Canal (which is sometimes canal, sometimes creek, sometimes, lake, and sometimes river).
We come across our first "Lock-Mistress" of the journey, a lovely gal in a world full of crusty old men. She couldn't have been any more pleasant as she locked us in, gave us a smile and a wave, and then proceed to let the water in at 100mph as she told us about the "man who had wronged her". We nearly drowned, but for Peter's quick thinking in distracting her by, well, I won't go into that as his spousal unit wasn't there and I don't know what story he told her...
Peter is on his 4th kayak of the trip, having blown the bottoms out of the prior 3 between his weight flucuations and his food loading. This trip he is "down" to only 35 lbs per day, spread amongst 3 drybags, and a feedbag tied around his neck (for those sudden urges to graze). It was an uneventful day, except for our lunch stop. We had picked a site near the age-old industrial city of Amsterdam; unfortunately for Jan, the site was tucked into a very decrepit industrial site, probably massively polluted, with drug dealers all hanging around. As she was waiting for us to arrive (with our sandwiches in her hands!), a truck came down and, let's just say sexual escapades occurred in the truck, in full view. We're out there working our butts off paddling, and she's getting dinner and a free show!
All in all though, a good first day, and we head off to put a hurting on Bucca de Beppo that evening. The waitress said she'd never seen a table not take a single doggy bag home, as the meals are massive. Peter orders seconds.
Saturday, the winds kick up strongly over 20mph, and we fly down the canal (which is the mohawk river at this point). Near Schenectady we go by a massive house up on the bluff; Jan's searching turns up that it was built and owned by some rich industrialist who got caught up in an insurance fraud scam. I seriously thought that the house must have been a college dorm, or a cathedral or something like that, it was so huge.
As we look for a place to put-in for the night, Jan comes across Diamond Coast marina. It's a no-name, no-where marina, but populated with awesome folks. The owners invite us to store our kayaks there overnight (really nice, far less work at the end of the day than packing up on trailers), and invite us to their end of summer clambake. Kathy and I head back to pickup the start car, while the rest of the crew sucks down free beers and dozens of clams; I think Peter at something like 7 dozen alone. We cap the night with another great meal, and drift off to sleep with dreams of the Hudson flowing through our heads.
Sunday, we awake to our final day of the adventure. It's another perfect day weatherwise, and the river is like glass as we say goodby to the Diamond Coast people and hit the water. This section of the river is vast wetland, and there's Heron's and other birds everywhere. They fly right up to the boat, checking you out. We also see lots of Carp jumping out of the river, some probably 1-2 feet long. I'm just waiting for the point when one jumps into my boat uninvited.
The canal ends with what is known as the "flight locks", a series of 6 back-to-back locks that take up a few hours of water time to lock-through. As we approach them, a "lock gate", a huge metal gate used for flood control, is closed - we have no way to get down to the locks themselves, and we're fearful that we've come this far, only to find the canal "closed for the day" for some reason.
After much scrambling, we finally locate a lockmaster downstream who drives up to open the lock gate for us; seems the guy the night prior had closed it and we were just the first boaters to come upon it in the morning. After an hour or so delay we're back on our way, towards the flight locks.
Now, back in Lockport (near Buffalo) when we did our first locks, it was a pretty darn cool activity. At Albany, 40 or so locks later, with 6 in a row to undertake, it's not all that interesting. In fact, it's damn tedious, as we spend the next two hours lock-in, water down, lock-out, paddle 100 yards to next lock. The locks sides are all concrete, and there's no where to get out (at least from a kayak), and thus, no where to pee. And, with tourists at every lock, it's kind of rude to release the water snake with kids hanging on all the locks. So, two hours later as we lock out of the final lock, we make a mad dash to the shoreline to empty our bladders. Funny picture, 4 guys emptying about 20 gallons of waste onto the beach.
The canal was a great adventure, and I'm really glad we undertook it. It is deep with history, and was one of the major events in opening up out country to what became; from sea to shining sea.
Next year we're looking at doing the length of the Hudson River, from the canal confluence at albany past new york city, and out into the ocean. If we can get the logistics of that together, it should be an equally great adventure.
Lumpy out
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