Oct 12, 2007, Brewerton, NY

We woke up this morning to an overnight low of 41 degrees. Windy, too. Winter is on the way.

Ilion RV Park and Marina. No frost but we can see our breath this morning.

We completed four more locks today on the Erie Canal and reached our highest point after two locks today (420 feet above sea level) and then started back down again toward the level of Lake Ontario.


The Erie Canal seems to look the same mile after mile. Pretty and rural with few towns or homes as we move to the west.

Erie Canal

We crossed Lake Oneida (the last 20 miles) from east to west in 15 mph winds and a 3 foot chop (the canal itself is almost never choppy-too small) and arrived in Brewerton at the Winter Harbor Marina. Our whole trip on the Erie Canal from Troy to Brewerton was 150 miles and took us two and a half days because of the 22 locks and the speed restrictions. KOKOMO II will spent the winter here in Brewerton at the Winter Harbor Marina in a heated (45 degrees) barn.

Heated Barn - and nice people with a loaner car

Good fuel prices, too.

The crew is picking up a rental car in Syracuse (7 miles) and driving back to Florida. We plan to pick KOKOMO II up again in May or June of 2008 and continue the journey!

KOKOMO II cruised from Florida to New York, then to Maine and back to New York, then up the Hudson River to the Erie canal and west to Brewerton, NY, a total of 3350 nautical miles in 2007.

Oct 11, Erie Canal, NY

We started from the west side of lock #8 on the canal at 7:30 am and immediately entered the lock as it's first boat heading westbound.

KOKOMO II's overnight location last night was under the trees in the center of the picture. There is nothing around us but countryside. Here we are just clearing the lock at 7:30 am.

Locks are usually located next to dams on the Erie. Here is the spillway next to lock 8

We motored all day and finished through lock #18 about 5pm just as the locks were all closing for the day. As the locks are only open from 7am-5pm, no boat can go further than the next lock after 5pm until the next day. We covered about 60 miles today and 11 locks and it was a long day.

Many of the locks have pretty grounds

This was an industrial area and many abandoned plants still line the Mohawk River waterway

A Volkswagen atop an old chimney. A point of interest in the travel guide. Not much else around.

Lock #17 was the most interesting as we rose 40 feet on that one lock alone.

Linda getting ready to handle a line in our tallest lock as we prepare to rise 40 feet. The lines from the lock are hanging over the side for us to grab to stabilize the boat while locking through. These lines have been in the water all summer and are dirty and so the boat, the fenders and the line handlers gloves all got dirty from handling the lines.

Sky was overcast all day and we had some drizzle. It seemed cool enough that we thought it might snow. Low temperature today was in the 50's but it was damp and felt colder. We ended the day a few miles past lock #18 at the Iloin RV Park and Marina, where there is a nice park setting and seawall with power. Again we feel like we are out in the middle of nowhere. There are four RV/travel trailers here tonight and no other boats. But we are happy and secure after a long day on the water. However, the Erie Canal is nothing like the Canal du Midi.

Oct 10, Erie Canal, NY

We leave Albany and enjoy the Albany skyline as we go. The beautiful ornate building was built in the 1900's as the headquarters for the Delaware and Hudson RR ("those were the days" for the RR's) and after their hard times it was purchased and restored and is now the new headquarters for the NY State University System. You can see who has the money now.

NY State University System HQ

Downtown Albany

We will now go under a whole series of low bridges in the Erie Canal that all allow only 20 foot of clearance (KOKOMO II requires 21 feet to clear) so we have "stepped" our radar and TV mast and laid it on deck until we clear all these low bridges. We do not enter the canal until about 11:30 as it took Owen longer than he thought to "step" our mast but we did it with our own dingy crane without any help from another crane. Now we hope we can get it back up the same way.

Dunn Memorial Bridge is our first low one. Our mast has been "stepped".

Our first lock in Troy, NY as we enter the NY State Canal System

A tourist boat joins us in the lock. Note our "stepped" mast laying on deck.

Here we choose to go left on the Erie Canal

Waterford, the first town on the Erie Canal, downtown

Here we are rafted to an old time canal boat now available for charter to cruise the Erie Canal

The Erie Canal begins in Waterford, NY, on the Hudson River, where the highest canal lift in the world raises us 169 feet through a series of five locks, to the Mohawk River, where we will head west. The Erie is a combination of dug canal, existing Mohawk River and some beautiful lakes as we get further west. The dug canal is not very pretty but the Mohawk is beautiful and the hills and forests (with the leaves changing) come right down to the water.

Some color

Large home overlooking the Mohawk River

More color. Starting to get pretty good now.

The locks close at 4:30 west bound and KOKOMO II made it as far as the west side of lock #8 where we spend the night tied to the lock wall out in the middle of nowhere.

Oct 9, Albany, NY

We headed out this morning on the incoming (rising) tide (that helped push us along) and motored 70 miles to Albany, New York. The day was overcast and much cooler (about 65) and we wore jeans and jackets on the flybridge. It threatened to rain all day but it never happened.

Newburgh/Beacon Bridge

Close-up Newburgh/Beacon Bridge

RR Bridge (1900) in front, Mid Hudson Suspension Bridge (1930) behind

A little fall color

Chesapeake type sailboat heading south

Lighthouse

Esopus Lighthouse

Tanker heading south from Albany

Kingston/Rhinecliff Bridge

Middle Ground Light

Rip Van Winkle Bridge

Coast Guard

Lighthouse

Ruin

Castleton-on-Hudson Bridge

As we continued north on the Hudson, the communities became smaller and the homes along the waterway became less frequent. The scenery was beautiful as the steep hills come right down to the water and are covered with trees. There were train tracks along the east side (right down along the water) so we saw 10-15 trains today. We encountered only a few small boats travelling south today, (heading south to Florida?) and some commercial barge and ship traffic, and saw no other traffic going north. Most of the time we were the only boat to be seen on the river. The incoming tide stayed with us all day and we averaged 10 knots at idle speed using the incoming tide. We figure it added 1.5 knots to our speed. Not really noticeable except in the amount of ground we covered.

Approaching Albany and Albany Yacht Club, our marina, Dunn Memorial Bridge, in background

Downtown Albany

We stay at Albany Yacht Club. Really nice staff and we have take-out delivered. First time on the trip.

Oct 8, Newburgh, NY

We left Upper Nyack early (8 am) to catch the incoming tide to speed us up the Hudson River. We are using the 1-2 knot incoming tide to help us along the way (and are avoiding the 1-2 knot drag we would have if we timed our journey to have an out going tide). So we are speeding along at 10 knots, using little fuel and enjoying natures boost from the incoming tide.

Bear Mountain Bridge

Stephens Motor Yacht TRILOGY (90 feet) on the Hudson heading south. She charters for approximately $30,000 per week

West Point Academy seen from the Hudson River

West Point close up

Beautiful countryside

Leaves have changed little as yet

Bannerman Castle ruin near Newburgh

Approaching Newburgh, New York.

Newburgh civic improvement project. See the real stone (left) and the painted stone (right) to match.

Painted scene on the painted stone wall

Click on any picture to enlarge

These are all scenes from the town of Newburgh

Painted policeman

Real artists (foreground left and right) are working on a panel

Panel being roughed in by a real lady in a real bucket

Real artist hard at work

We rent a car in Newburgh so we can go to the West Point Military Academy for a tour of the campus. Very impressive. Lots of history here. West Point was a Revolutionary War battle site and there are many stories of cadets who have made significant contributions to country. U.S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower were both war hero's and then U.S. Presidents. Cadets were here for classes and we saw a few around campus. There are approximately 4,000 at the academy and about 15% are women. About the same percentage as at the Naval Academy. Temperature reached 85 degrees today at West Point, unseasonably warm.

West Point main parade ground

Very elaborate pipe organ keyboard in the West Point Chapel

View north from the West Point campus overlook near the parade grounds