Good-bye Erie & Oswego Canals (#18)

We left expecting a quick journey to Oswego through the Oswego canals. We knew we had one more lock (#23) to complete before we left the Erie Canal and entered the Oswego Canal.

As we were leaving we got fuel and left on a very hot day. The temperatures of the engines warmed up to 162 while waiting to leave. We notices the Port side engine had an unusual vibration at low speeds. As we went along it seemed to lessen slightly. Ted noticed that the Port side engine continued to rise, and we were reaching 174 and higher a good 10 degrees more than the starboard side engine. We turned off the port side engine and ran on the starboard side with the rudder adjusted for several miles as we discussed our options. We conferred with our mechanic (Matt) and went with the simple solution to empty out the strainers. Ted has a second set of strainers so it's simple to switch them out and clean them later. After doing our quick switch, the engines worked well. There wasn't much in the port engine, but the generator was full of grass even though it hadn't been bad the night before. After speaking to others at the marina, there were some boats that were being pulled with a large amount of grass in the strainers and exhaust. We also suspect that we could have gotten some grass around the prop, that eventually came loose when we drove on one engine. The end result was that we were back to normal about 20 minutes after we left. But, this was one of the many times we have to weigh all our options to troubleshoot issues on the Loop.

The rest of the trip was smooth sailing.

This picture shows the sign directing us to Oswego Canal from the Erie Canal. The Western Erie canal would have taken us past Niagara Falls into Lake Erie.

The western Erie Canal has a low 15 foot bridge clearance and not all boats can be lowered to transit this section. The Sparkling Star has enough clearance, but we wanted to go to Lake Ontario, the Thousand Islands, and the Trent-Severn canals.

There were a number of unusal bridges in the Oswego canal systems. After we had been lifted in this lock, the bridge had to be raised so we could fit under. This is after the bridge had lifted and we had navigated under the bridge.

This is the bridge closing.

These were stopsigns on a bridge in the lock. The water went under the bridge, but it would have been a big problem if we had hit the bridge.

When the lock lowers we will go beneath it as this bridge seemed to be fixed.

We locked by ourselves until the last four locks. The lockmaster slowed us down to let these other two join us. They were not happy with our very slow speed and passed us when we all went to the next marina together.

Snoopy was sad to leave our last Erie/Oswego canal lock 8.

We arrived to our wall lock which again works perfectly for our 390 Motor Yacht. We have easy access on and off with our boat.

We arrived with enough time to see Fort Ontario at Oswego.

Which had great views.

And we saw a field of granite slabs ready for future kitchen countertops.

And we went to bed early to prepare for our early Lake Ontario crossing to Clayton, New York.

Mast lift for sailboats after completing canal transit before entering Lake Ontario.

Reviews:

Oswego Marina

Pros: Great location for transit, clean bathrooms, laundry affordable, easy access of Oswego, easy access to laundry, affordable, helpful staff, great for one night stay

Cons: Long way to walk to laundry from our slip

Rating: 4 stars