August 22, 2021: The day we waited for a lot of lift bridges.
Nano at sunrise in Rochester.
We left Rochester just before 7 AM on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful morning with no sign of rain. The river, although still very silty, wasn’t flowing nearly as quickly. We backtracked to the south, against the river’s current, back the way we had come. There were still quite a few large logs caught up in snags and a bunch of the buoys were definitely misplaced. I hoped that someone would come through and fix everything up.
Back at the intersection of the canal, Capt Paul turned right. Nano’s navigation software, which displays water depth, got as low as six feet. Paul powered through it, dropping us in the center of the Erie Canal channel, heading west.
A pair of barges were parked there. I wondered whether they’d be filled with some of the logs we’d spotted in the river. The barge parked near our overnight spot had been partially filled already and there were a lot more that needed to come out.
West through the Lift Bridges
There wasn’t much going on in the canal. It was very narrow in this area with lots of straight stretches and few homes or docks. We could cruise at the 10 mile per hour speed limit. I started taking notes in my Cruising Guide around the town of Greece, where we saw a handful of parks and a “nice little marina” (according to my notes).
Allen’s Canalside Marina, with its tucked-in location in Greece or Gates, looked like a pleasant place to kill a few days.
Then we arrived at Spencerport and the first of 10 (I think) drawbridges for that day. Either Dianne or Paul was at the helm; I know I wasn’t because I had been taking notes. It would take a while before we got the knack of going through the drawbridges. The operators — if they were there — expected you to call when you got close, at no wake speed, and to be able to cross under as soon as the bridge was high enough to do so. We consistently waited a little longer than we needed to, sometimes testing the patience of the operator.
The lift bridge at Spencerport.
I wrote a lot more about lift bridges in my Day 12 post.
From that point on, the Cruising Guide showed the distance between lift bridges in a little diamond along the route. From Spencerport to Ogden was 2.9 miles, then 4.5 miles to Brockport. My notes along the way mention levee walls — in some areas the canal was actually higher than the surrounding land — homes without docks, and open land. Where farther east there had been a lot of trees crowded right up to the canal, the area on this end of the canal was flatter and more open with lots of corn fields and even an apple orchard in view.
Brockport had two lift bridges a quarter mile apart with just one operator. The town had a nice wall to tie up on that included power kiosks. Town was right there; I think it would have made a nice stop, especially since they had a collection of bicycles in all sizes available for people to borrow.
I probably should mention here that a well-established bike path had been following the canal since before Rochester. When we went through towns, we’d see people biking or walking along it. I think it would be a lot of fun to bike part of that path and look forward to coming back with my bicycle.
Holley and Hulberton were three miles apart and shared a lift bridge operator for their bridges. She beat us to the other bridge. Holley had a nice docking wall with power and water, although I don’t remember the town being very big.
Somewhere along the way, I got my turn at the helm and had a heck of a time getting bridges opened promptly for me. We waited at one for at least 20 minutes, just drifting in the still water, propelled by the wind. I used the bow and stern thrusters to keep us pointed in the right general direction.
Albion had two bridges 2/10ths mile apart. It looked like a nice little town with two dock walls and a park. One operator handled both bridges and she was pretty fast about it.
After one more lift bridge and more farmland with corn and apples, we reached the town of Medina (which is pronounced with a long I like diner). I was still at the helm and Capt Paul let me take it in to the dock wall where a few other boats were already parked. We parked at the very far end, which turned out to be a good thing since that’s where the restrooms were.
We’d been on the water for seven hours.
Day 13 on Nebo. You can track our progress daily in the Nebo boating app. Just look for Nano Paul G.
In Medina
It was Sunday afternoon in the small town of Medina NY, so even though the town was easy walking distance from the boat, there wasn’t much to do there. There was, however, the Medina Railroad Museum, which included the biggest model train setup that I’d ever seen. Capt Paul and I spent about an hour in there, wandering through the exhibits of model trains and full size train equipment. There were thousands of items on display — far more than I’d expect to see in such a small town.
Part of the huge model train setup at the Medina Railroad Museum.
After walking around the town a little bit, we went back to Nano, where I made some vegetable fried rice for dinner. Then I must have worked on my Day 10 blog post, since that’s the day I published it.
Medina, NY.
It was a peaceful stop for the night, but the one drawback was that we were right in a sort of basin on the canal with concrete walls on each side. Anytime anyone drove by in a boat, they’d set up a series of reflecting waves that rocked the boat a little more than we were used to. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic.
