Last night, the Explorers had decided, on the spur of the moment to get up extra early to “see” the eclipse. Of course, they had no proper equipment and hadn’t prepared in any manner, but nevertheless, they got up at 5:30 to go outside and look around. Sidekick Sue lingered in bed a little longer, but finally resolved to getting out of bed, to find Captain Mark in front of the Waterford Visitor Center trying to look at the sun without looking at the sun. Captain Mark swore he could see the crescent if he looked really fast at the sun from side to side. Sidekick Sue just saw a big blob. They have vowed to be more prepared, when the Great American Total Eclipse sweeps across northern NY (Buffalo, Rochester, Watertown) on April 8, 2024. (Note to Sidekick Sue…. buy the special glasses now, when no one else is thinking about it).
Today was a day of going through locks on the Champlain Canal. The Explorers left right after the “eclipse viewing” and made it to the “Lock #1” just as it opened for the day. The first lock raised the boat 14’ , and Lock #2 raised the boat another 18.5’. The Explorers are finding they are nearly all by themselves on the Champlain Canal. It seems that everyone else took a left at the Erie Canal. This means that they are in the locks by themselves and they have a choice of where to park. For the first couple locks, they were parking with the port side of the boat to the wall. Sidekick Sue handles the lines to keep close to the wall, while Captain Mark hits the bow thruster every so often to make sure the front rails don’t hit the wall. The Explorers agree that they need to add a couple of big round fenders to the front of the boat to fend off the cement bulkheads and locks they have encountered on this trip.
Between Locks #2 and #3, the Explorers stopped at a park with a cement bulkhead provided by the city of Mechanicville. The amenities even included free electricity, so there was no need to fire up the struggling generator (still need to find the hole in the radiator) to make breakfast. They took a quick walk through Mechanicville, and found that there was not much to see. It appeared to be another “burned out” industrial upstate NY town with few signs of prosperity. Surely, these towns saw better days when the canals were bustling with commercial activity. A brief miscommunication (and small spat) during docking led the Explorers to realize that it made much more sense to be on the same side of the boat whenever possible giving the Captain a better view of what the lineperson was doing, and making communication easier. Of course, this is not always possible when docking, but the Explorers resolved to approach the lock walls on the starboard side, whenever possible, moving forward.
The rest of the day was spent negotiating the locks. Each successive lock continued to raise the Wayward Explorer as it passed through Lock #3 (25.5’), Lock #4 (10’), Lock #5 (19’) and Lock #6 (16.5′). Depending on whether the lock was already occupied with a south-moving vessel (only happened once), or if it had to be emptied before we could approach (happened several times), each lock could take up to a half-hour to get through, so travel time was longer than expected. As it turned out, rising early to see the eclipse was an important factor in getting to the planned destination before the locks closed for the day. The Explorers had wanted to stop at Fort Edwards to do some more walking, but decided to stay the course because of all the time that had been lost to lock-throughs. Up until Fort Edwards, the Champlain Canal was fairly wide and winding compared to the other man-made canals, as it was still connecting vestiges of the Hudson River. After Fort Edwards, the Hudson River veered away, so the waterway was a narrower, man-made trench.
Lock #7 raised the Wayward Explorer another 10’ and Lock #8, another 11’, for a total of nearly 125’ for the day. The Explorers were getting pretty good at managing the locks by this point, even getting pretty tired of them. As the Explorers approached the final lock for the day (Lock #9), they were surprised to see the walls were so low. That is when they realized that this lock was already full of water and was going to be taking them down 16’.
The Explorers reached their destination in Fort Ann right around dinner time. Fort Ann provided a small free, floating dock, but without any amenities, so the Explorers had to crank up the generator to make pizza. After dinner, they walked around Fort Ann, which (didn’t take long), and then walked a mile or so up the Champlain Canalway Trail a mile and back to finish up their “steps” for the day. On the way home, they stopped at the Battle Hill Brewery to have a few draft beers. They were entertained by a little boy at the next table over who was putting on a show for them to get their attention while his parents obliviously ate their dinners. The Explorers retired back to the boat in the park; it was too buggy to sit outside and enjoy the night air. It was a quiet early night, as they were hoping to get extra sleep to make up for the early morning.
