Day 88 Wednesday, September 18th

Day  88 Wednesday, September 18^th

Today is Kevin’s birthday so we are sad we are not with him, however he lives in Newfoundland so not being on the boat would not have changed the situation.  He is an hour and a half ahead of us timewise so we will wait until the end of his work day to give him a call.  Today we are planning on leaving Sylvan Beach and heading to Rome which is 2 lift vs. lower locks and about 10 miles away.  This way we will charge our batteries, but drag our feet on the forward motion.  As we get closer to the Hudson River, costs go up and facilities go down.

Voila entering the locks

The two locks are close together and there is one other sailboat with us called Voila out of Montreal.  For locks that raise you it seems like a cavern you are entering.  It is dark so we enter very slowly.  We yell a hello across the cavern, but other than that move along independently.  The up lock is very difficult to keep the boat off the slimy walls.  We have bought some gloves soJulie just pushes off with her hands versus using the boat hook.  The currents, as the chamber is filling up is very strong pushing us against the wall.  Our outboard is mounted on the starboard so that is the main item we are trying to protect from the slimy walls.  We are also trying to keep the fenders from getting too slimy as these are our only fenders.  Some people protect their fenders with pillowcases or lumber.  We have done neither because there was no problem keeping off the walls until now.  After the 2 locks we go another 4 miles and then we are at Rome.  We head to the newer floating docks slowly only to come to a complete stop about 12 feet off from them.  We have run aground!  No warning from any of the guide books which is unusual.  We easily back out of the silt and head over to the old seawall area that is just falling apart and find lots of depth.  There is a large power boat there and depth is probably why they are not at the newer docks.  Wonder if they touched too?  For them it is a prop hit, for us just a drag on the lead, not a big deal.

After getting secured, we head into downtown Rome for a look see.  Lots of revolutionary history here and we look at the fort from the street but do not want to visit it.  The town of 33,000 is very spread out and not particularly attractive, looks like it has suffered economically recently. 

We give Kevin a call and have a lovely chat.  A quiet night for him for his birthday.  Hopefully he will not be so far away for his next birthday.

Back on the boat after a couple of hours walk for some work.  Dawson installs a new 12V outlet in our bedroom, and Julie works at getting the sewing machine working.  We chose to bring an old featherweight singer vs. Julie’s regular machine and the old machine has a learning curve and a few issues associated with it.  Time will tell if we get it up and running, hopefully we do, as the sewing to do list is growing.

We have a fabulous salmon dinner from the fish that Kerri (Concrete Idea) has caught.  After a game of king’s cribbage and coffee it is off to bed for some reading and Spanish lessons.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson