Day 89 Thursday September 19^th

As we pulled out of Rome N.Y. we were only 3 minutes underway when a loud toot from behind us had our hearts racing, and a quick over the shoulder look, expecting to see a 200 foot boat pounding down on us as that is what is sounded like.  In a split second we saw nothing then realized it was the train approaching from behind us but off 50 feet to the south on land.  Wow did it ever wake us up.  Julie was sure she had checked for traffic before pulling into the channel and sure enough she had.  It took a few minutes for the heart rate to slow down.

Dredging the canal

Today we are planning on going only 1 lock and 14 miles downstream as there continues to be no rush to get eastwards as lock 13 continues to be under repair.  As mentioned on Tuesdays blog 2-3 weeks is the estimated downtime.  The canal in this section does not seem to be in near as good a shape as the western section.  There are patches where the dredgers are in the way so we go around them at very slow speeds and avoid all the grasses that are floating from them churning up the underworld.

Boat in lock behind us as we chat with "Voila"

After about 2 hours we get to lock 20 and it is nice to be going down again versus going up.  Down is much easier.  Julie’s arms are sore today from fending off the wall on yesterday’s 2 up locks.  If we had fender boards we would not be fending so much, but we did not seem to need them initially and we don’t for the down locks, and there were only 3 up locks which we have now done.  At the lock we meet Alan and Felicity Critchlow who have done some research on trucking the boats from here to Annapolis.  We spend an hour chatting to them tied up to the east side of lock 20.  We then continue on to Utica, where we are greeted by Tanaca, Vincent and Debbie that we had met in Sylvan Beach.  Here it is a pay dockage, but with no services it is ony $20.  A very good price for a safe haven. 

Julie blogging

We have many jobs to do.  A pad eye to install to hook onto in bad weather, stainless to treat, blogging to do, research on trucking our boat if we decide to, and wood to clean.  A very busy day.

A few new boats are appearing, as we are starting to stack up awaiting the reopening of lock 13.

After dinner we head to Mcdonalds to get a coffee and use their free wifi.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson