Low Bridge Everybody Down !

When things draw to a completion, the expectations of what will come next always passes through your mind. What I do know, is that our time at Sea was everything I had hoped for and more. We travelled so far in such a short time and we had an opportunity to stop and enjoy places along the way to NYC. The crew was superb and that included supporting crews, before and after the US portion of our cruise, as they were fantastic.

They assisted in more than just manning the boat & lines as we travelled through the locks. They really helped in the navigation, and helped with driving the boat, and it gave me a break from so much sitting.

Dave and Austin were a big help in getting to Trenton and witnessed the failure of the port engine and the overpressure of the air conditioning systems. We worked through all this and fixed the problems. Without them we would not have made it to Trenton on schedule.

Bruce and Chester were invaluable on the return trip to the Wye Heritage Marina from Trenton, as we faced different challenges. We struggled with a battery bank that was losing power and as a result, our thrusters were not as efficient as they could have been. We had high winds and holding the boat was much more difficult and they were so influential in keeping us safe. We went through a lot of self medicating using medicinal products that have nice tasting, in the evenings and by midnight, there was really nothing more left to drink. Good thing we didn’t drink all the reserves two nights ago because we had not expected to be on a dock last night. That’s when the bottles were emptied.

So why did we write a blog?  

I though I might touch on our blogging history and our rationale for doing it. When we took the boat trip to Montreal and Ottawa in 2021, we posted a blog and had over 100+ followers. Many responded that it was interesting to read where we had gone, and what we had seen during the trip. Because our web site still existed, and all we needed to do was modify it a bit, we could publish blogs for this trip as well. I have tried to include things that we actually did and embellish it a bit with historical data to help explain what we have encountered or done. It takes time to do these blogs and usually I never got to bed before 1 am – the blog has some challenges in uploading photos and videos and that takes time plus I have my small laptop computer onboard and it is not easy to see all the photos and videos and select which ones make the most sense to use. In the end we hope that our story has been easy to follow and you did learn something about where our travels have taken us.

Were there any Bad Hallman Experiences?

1.      The port engine overheated on the 1st day and I had to replace an impellor in the Port Engine. This issue was manageable

2.      The Air Conditioning systems shut down on high pressure. We found that the system lost the water charge after going up Big Chute and we needed to vent the air from the cooling circuit and refill with water,

3.      The Blog took way too long to write – If I had too do it again, I would bring another monitor for my computer.

4.      The Erie Canal had a 5 day closure which changed our timeline

5.      The water pump failed and caused us to lose two belts to be destroyed

What was the Good Hallman Experiences?

1.      Kyle became a Co-Captain and we are proud of his achievement

2.      Alice never failed us in making sure the dishes were always clean.

3.      We bought 1400 Liters of fuel in Brewerton NY and saved $1,00 per liter in comparison to the Canadian Pricing

4.      The marina in Hudson Point NJ was amazing and the location could not have been better. It was so close to the subway to NYC

My best experience was that both Jan and I had time with each other, and with our grandson Kyle and Jan's friend Cynthia. No one argued nor had any complaints, and if they had any I never listened to them  anyways.

We have had over 100+ followers on our blog on a daily basis, and I can see where they are logging in from, and it includes the following places:

North Carolina – Ireland – Wales – Greece – Vancouver – Seattle – Florida – Australia – Calgary - Plattsville – Orangeville – London – Toronto – New Hamburg – Buffalo – Boston  and many more.  Thanks for staying InTouch with our journey.

To summarize our 2024 NYC Cruise on the Erie Canal, I put together a series of pictures from our trip and coupled them with a 1913 song about the historical Erie Canal and a mule called Sal. Friends of ours in Boston, told us they had to sing this song when they were children in school.

Low Bridge, Everybody Down

Thanks to all, for reading our blogs daily