Free at last, free at last ...

The federal lock finally opened on Tuesday, September 13.  Three of the boats we were trapped with left immediately.  We decided to give the lock and lock tenders a day before we went down river.  It had been more than two weeks since the lock was operated and we weren't sure things would run smoothly the first couple of times it was used.  Turned out that we were right, the boats who left first thing Tuesday did have a bit of a wait before the lock actually opened for them.

We left Wednesday morning and ended up locking through the federal lock with five other boats, Bright Star a sailboat that had been trapped in Lock 2 with us and four other boats who came down from the north through the Champlain Canal.  We arrived at Coeyman's Landing Marina about 1:00 PM and spent the afternoon cleaning the boat in anticipation of being hauled out of the water the next day.  Early Thursday morning they hauled and blocked the boat (set it up to sit on the land), we completed the winterizing (anti-freeze in the engines and fresh water systems), we rented a car and were on the road back to Cleveland by 5:00 PM Thursday night. We spent the night at a motel in Syracuse and were home by noon on Friday.  Yeah!!

The boat will be shrink-wrapped sometime in the next week to keep snow off of the deck.  I'll post a picture and tell you about the last of our pre-release adventures then.

Flooding again

It is flooding again here at the junction of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers.  It has been raining for the last four days and the remnants of Hurricane Lee are just about to arrive.  The forecast is for an additional 1-2 inches of rain in the next 36 hours.  The visitor center where we were docked before Irene is under water again.  The docks that the NY Canal Corporation fixed last week are at the top of their flotation and may tip over again.  We're just hoping that the town doesn't flood again.  Those poor people have been through so much.  Many of them have just gotten the ruined flooring and damaged drywall and insulation out of their houses.

We remain safe and trapped.  The rumor was that the the Federal Lock might open on Monday.  With the new flooding I think that is unlikely.  We settling in for our third week as guests of the the NY Canal Commission herein the Erie Canal.

We are making new plans

Although it hasn't been officially announced yet, it doesn't seem that the Erie Canal will open again this year.  Some of the locks have lost their doors, some have had the earth washed away from both sides of the lock.  So we are looking into other options for storing the boat this year because we can't get back to Brewerton where we were planning to store the boat.

I've taken some post-flood pictures of the scenes I included in the earlier post.  I'll put them here, but to really appreciate the size of the flood, you should go back to the previous post to see the contrast.

The view east of the Lock 2

The flooded fences in their normal state

The whole 3 tier park

Right now we still don't know when we might get out of the locks.  The Waterford city docks are still damaged and can't hold boats.  The Federal lock south of us on the Hudson is still closed because they haven't yet cleared out all the boats that hit it flowing down the river.  We also haven't heard if it was damaged.  So even though our lock works, there is no place for the 15-20 boats to go.  So here we sit.  We'll keep you informed as the adventure continues.

It's not the wind, it's the water

The rivers crested today.  I've never witnessed serious flooding before and I sincerely hope I never will again.  The speed of the water and the flooding was just amazing.  There is the street next to the dock in the morning

and here is that same street less than 3 hours later

Unfortunately, those people standing there live down that road.  One of them had to have their dog rescued by canoe.

The water in the Mohawk River is flowing 30 times faster than normal. It comes from the south and the old Erie and Champlain Canals (from the 19th century) both flow to our north.  The result is this merging of the flows in front of the lock we are behind.  Those bumps down the middle of the picture are signs on a pier you can't see providing instructions on how to enter the canal.

Facing east from Lock 2

Same view after the flooding 

Here are a few more morning and afternoon comparison shots, taken about three hours apart.

The park fence was already disappearing in the morning

But it was gone in the afternoon

Fences without flood

Park in the morning, two tiers above water

Park in the afternoon, only one tier left

Park after the water receded

I can't speak highly enough of the the NY Canal Commission.  First of all they saved us from ourselves by requiring us to come into the locks.  This picture of the docks where we were tied up says it all.  We were on the piece of the dock that is crumpled up under the bridge.  Even the piece that looks flat is six feet higher than it was Sunday morning and there is water on both sides of the dock in the picture.  Before Irene that was a six foot high concrete wall to the left of the dock.

After the hurricane

The folks from the Canal Commission were here at the lock before 11:00 AM Monday morning.  They told us where the grocery store and laundromat are and made a car available to all of us stuck here so that we can get to either if we need to.  This afternoon another Canal Commission employee came by to see if we needed water or ice.  At the next lock up, lock 3, they've put in extension cords that make it possible for every boat trapped up there to have power.  Fortunately, we have solar panels and a generator so power isn't an issue for us.  The canal toilet and shower facilities that are normally meant for the lock master have been opened to us as well.

The bad news is that we don't know how long we may be here.  It could be weeks.  We are headed west and three of the locks west of us were flooded.  No one can yet tell us when (or if) the Canal may open again.

Most of the boats stuck in here with us are headed south.  They may get to leave long before we do.  The only things keeping them here are the flooding, which will subside soon, and the federal lock on the Hudson River.  We haven't yet heard about the status of the federal lock.  Apparently the Troy Yacht Club docks broke loose and flowed down to the lock with boats still attached.  We've heard that two boats went over the 

dam and two more hit the lock gates.  We also heard that an RV floated down the river to the lock.

So until the rivers calm down a bit, we remain members of the Lock 2 yacht club with the other five pleasure boats, two Canal Commission tugs, and the City of Waterford's historic tug, the Buffalo.

Lock 2 Yacht Club

Hurricane update - Sunday night

It rained continuously for 18 hours but we're fine and the boat is safe. The Mohawk River isn't due to crest until 6:00 PM Monday and it won't be below the flooding level until Wednesday morning. I think we're going to be here a while.

Hurricane update - Sunday morning

Well we guessed wrong. The storm came north instead of going northeast. We are now tied up in the lock flight between locks 2 and 3. Lot and lots of rain but the winds aren't predicted to go over 35 mph.

Hurricane update - Saturday noon

Yes, we are awaiting Hurricane Irene.  I thought we would be out of hurricanes once we left the south, but noooo!  We are sitting at the community dock in Waterford, NY where the Hudson River meets the Erie Canal.  You can actually see us on the town's dock cam by clicking on http://208.125.161.182:7111/view/index.shtml.  Be patient, it takes a couple of minutes for the camera to load.

The last 24 hours have been an exercise in "what happens now?"  Yesterday the dock master here in Waterford told us that the Canal Commission would permit docking between locks 3 and 4 as a way to escape the hurricane at 7:00 AM this morning.  We asked if we had to go, or we were just being offered the option.  At that time, the dock master said it was just an option, that they would make a decision about whether or not we could stay where we are on Saturday morning.  I walked up to look at the offered space between locks 3 and 4 and it didn't look like such a great deal to me.  There was lots of space but very few things to tie up to.

Where we are now offers secure tie up on a floating dock.  That is the good news.  Where we are now is also where the Mohawk River empties into the Hudson.  We are 150 miles north of New York, so we're not actually too concerned about the wind, nor are we worried about storm surge.  There is a lock between us and the rest of the Hudson River and it would have to be a legendary storm surge to get this far up the river anyway.  Our concern here is the rain, not the rain as it falls, but the rain as it drains from the Mohawk Valley through the Mohawk River into the Hudson.  If we get a lot of rain from the storm, we'll get flooding where the rivers meet because the Hudson won't be able to absorb all of the run-off from the Mohawk.  The NY State Canal Commission has already begun preparing for possible flooding by letting water out of the Erie Canal to lower the Mohawk before the storm hits.

The dock we are on is a floating dock.  That means it rises and falls as the water level rises and falls, and the boats tied to it rise and fall with the dock.  It is the best docking situation for this type of event.  since they started lowering the Mohawk last night the water here has risen a foot.  We've got about 6-7 more feet that the dock can rise with no problems.  After spending the morning talking with each other, watching the weather forecasts, and speculating about what could happen, about half the folks who were docked here decided to move into the canal and trade the iffy tie-ups for not possibility of flooding.  The rest of us decided to stay with the secure tie-ups and hope the rain isn't as bad up here as it will be further to the east.  Waterford is on the eastern edge of the Mohawk Valley drainage system, so the hard rains would have to be west of us to cause flooding.  Even the most dire track shows the storm will be east of us and most of the tracks have the outermost edge of strong rain running up the Hudson, or east of the Hudson.  So we decided to gamble on the rains not being so bad west of us.

Now it is a wait and see game.  The irony is that for everyone else, after the storm passes it is over.  For us, the flood will arrive, if it is coming, after the storm has gone through.  So we won't know if we made the right decision until some time on Monday most likely.

Ah well, the insurance is paid up.  You pays your money and takes your chances.  Remember, you can watch it all unfold on the town dock camera.

More later.