Erie Canal, Day 1 - Hibiscus Harbor on Cayuga Lake to Seneca Falls

Finally coming back to last month's adventure on the Erie Canal. Day 1, 10/10/2016: As already mentioned in my earlier post about our boat, we got introduced to our boat in the afternoon, and at 3 pm we set out for our first destination, the town of Seneca Falls. This was about an 11 mile leg, starting in the open waters of Cayuga Lake (nice for getting the feel of how the boat handled) and then moving into the Cayuga-Seneca Canal. The first locks we negotiated were CS 2 and 3, kind of fun because it's a double lock with each lock lifting you 24.5 feet - we knew we were going through 2 locks before we got to Seneca Falls but we didn't realize they were linked like that so it was a bit of a surprise when the water stopped bubbling into the first lock chamber and the big doors swung open to reveal the second one. This carries you over the place where the actual falls used to be, and you can read a lot more history on the NY State Canal System site.

I was driving when we got to this one so I did the driving; TQ has a little more motorboat handling experience than me so I was tempted to hand over the helm to him and go handle lines, but I was actually looking at this trip as a good chance to get more experience for myself, and at some point I was going to be driving into my first lock, so heck, I went with it. My approach was not a thing of beauty, this being our first lock we didn't have a sense of the time it would take for the lockmaster to be ready for us, so instead of approaching juussst fast enough to maintain steerage, I drove up to the waiting area and then stopped and then had to do a couple of circles to stay in place. I got better at that as we went along, we did end up a good job of taking turns doing things, which was pretty much what I'd wanted.

We got to Seneca Falls around 5, found ourselves a spot on the town wall, sorted out our storage a little better and then fixed our first dinner on the boat, steak and potatoes and squash.

Here are some photos from the first day. Click on any photo for a slideshow view.