The Explorers left Spencerport for another short day of motoring. The main business of the day was to cross back through Rochester and get through two locks to get back to Pittsford. Again, they crossed the Genesee River, this time there was no traffic and no scullers to dodge.
The first lock was a little bit of a mess. Traveling east, Lock 33 drops boats 25 feet. As the Explorers entered the lock, they were planning on grabbing lines on the port side. The problem was… the water was so high that the boat sat high above the cables, and the cables didn’t terminate in loops like many of the other locks. Sidekick Sue tried using the boat hook to grab a line. She managed to get the hook around a line, but the boat starting pulling away from the wall. Captain Mark announced that the current or wind was pulling them to the starboard side, so the new plan was to now grab the lines on the starboard side of the lock. There was no one else in the lock yet, so there was no danger of hitting anyone, so Captain Mark let the boat drift over to the starboard side. Unfortunately, Sidekick Sue could not unhook the boat hook and when she ran out of length, she had no choice but to let it go. Luckily, it stayed hooked on the cable, sort of protruding from the wall, instead of sinking.
Sidekick Sue switched over to the starboard side, and because she still couldn’t reach the cables, she stepped off the boat onto the lock wall to wrap the lines around the cables. To do so, she literally had to lay down flat on the lock wall and reach down to wrap the lines. Luckily, the locktender was waiting for another boat that radioed ahead, and it wasn’t yet in sight, so there was no particular hurry. Still, it wasn’t exactly the smoothest maneuver the Explorers had done.
Once the boat was secure, Sidekick Sue noted that the other boat was still not in sight, so she flagged down a locktender on the port side of the lock and asked if he could retrieve their lost boat pole. He kindly retrieved the pole and walked it over the closed lock doors at the front of the lock. Sidekick Sue was happy to have her boat hook back. Even though she has a spare, she likes to keep one on each side of the boat for quick access.
When the other boat reached the lock, Sidekick Sue watched to see how they would handle the situation (not being able to reach the cables). The woman aboard struggled with her boat hook, similar to Sidekick Sue, except that they had immediately aimed for the starboard side (so no lost boat hook). The captain jumped off the boat and held the boat to the wall. After the water level dropped a few feet, he hopped back in, and his wife was now able to grab a line. Sidekick Sue tucked this solution into her memory banks, in the event this same situation ever happens again; she was actually surprised that the locktenders started lowering the boat while the captain was still on the lock wall. She recalled that in Canada last year, in a similar situation, the locktenders actually walked the lock wall, hooking ropes and handing them to the boaters. No such service at Lock 33. Maybe, this is the difference between having locktenders that are grumpy old state workers instead of energetic college students on summer break like they saw in Canada.
The next lock was about a mile down. Again, this lock would lower the Explorers another 25’, but it had the traditional loops at the top of the cables, so it was much easier to grab the loops with the lines to hold the boat against the lock wall until the water level dropped enough to wrap the lines around the cables. The Explorers were able to manage the lock without any loss of equipment or leaving the boat.
A short time later, they pulled into the dock in Pittsford. A fellow boater shouted warning that the water was shallow by the wooden dock that they were headed for, but since they had parked there last week, they decided to proceed. Luckily, they did not hit bottom, but the bow thruster was kicking up a lot of mud, so the Explorers acknowledge that it is indeed shallow. They manually pulled the boat back a bit, into the same parking spot they had used the week before, and settled in. The boat will be parked here for several days, as Sidekick Sue is getting a lift from her college roommate, Maura, to go to “college girl’s weekend”, while Captain Mark hangs out in Rochester and sees some family members and friends. Sidekick Sue finished writing about yesterday’s escapades while Captain Mark got in a conversation with a fellow boater and went down to troubleshoot a problem with water seeping in around the propeller shaft. He diagnosed the problem (packing needs to be replaced), but he didn’t want to offer to help fix it while their boat was in the water. It requires pulling out the existing packing material and re-packing with new material. He has done this before on the Explorer’s sailboat in California while the boat is in the water, and it makes Sidekick Sue very nervous because water leaks in until the space around the shaft is sealed and the bilge pump has to be able to handle the flow during the process. This is obviously not a risk to take with someone else’s boat.
Late in the afternoon, they took a bike ride from the Pittsford docks to the Genesse River. The ride was about 14 miles out and back. They passed through the town of Henrietta along the way. As a child, Sidekick Sue lived in Henrietta for 15 years, attending Henrietta schools from K-12. In all that time, she never realized that a small section of the Erie Canal passed through the northeastern portion of Henrietta, with one of the locks being physically in the town. The Explorer’s bike ride took them past some landmarks that Sidekick Sue recognized like the Jewish Community Center, the old county building on Westfall Road where she worked one summer, and Genesee Valley Park, where the Explorers turned around. It was a nice bike ride, but as with the ride the night before, the Explorers ingested more than a few gnats.
After they returned to the boat, they made dinner and ate. Captain Mark took a walk while Sidekick Sue worked on the bills and packed for the weekend. Captain Mark’s sister, Christine (aka Pooh) stopped by to say “hi”, as she saw the Explorer’s bike ride show up in her Runkeeper App. Afterward, the Explorers got things ready for Sidekick Sue’s departure in the morning.
Boat passing the Explorers. Looked like some kind of students studying something.
Lock 33… where the Explorers had a few problems.
Sidekick Sue manning the lines after a few bumps in the road.
Waiting for the lock doors to open.
Parked back in Pittsford, NY.