Left Lock 7 Vischer Ferry, on the Erie Canal, in the morning and motored twenty-nine miles through locks 8, 9, 10, and 11. Lock 11 is located in Amsterdam, NY. I tied up at the public dock in Amsterdam and spent the day visiting with my niece Crystal and her husband Loyd. We had lunch, picked up supplies at Walmart, and drove around town to see the sites. After dinner, they dropped me off at the dock. Most notable about Amsterdam, NY is the train traffic. The trains pass through the town all day and night about every half hour. It must be a contest to see which engineer can blow their horn the longest and loudest. The tracks are about 200 feet from the public dock. You do not sleep well tied up to the public dock with the train noise all night. One hundred thirteen cars was the longest train counted so far as it passed by my boat in Amsterdam. Lots of graffiti on the train cars.
August 9:
Left Amsterdam in the morning and motored through locks 12 through 17 (Little Falls, NY).
Lock 17 is the most interesting lock on the NY canal system. Heading west, you motor into the lock by passing under a massive sliding, overhead door. You look up at the lock walls and wait for the sliding door to come down. When the door finally bottoms out, there is a loud thud (more like a boom from a cannon) as the lock starts to fill with water. The lock lifts you up forty-one feet and is the tallest lift on the canal system. Yup, forty-one feet of slimy walls. Leaving the lock, motored two more miles and tied up at Little Falls, NY for the night. Went in to town for dinner.
Roblgreatloop 