Now, Eat my Dust !

The sun never came out early in Rome, NY this morning, but we were up at the crack of dawn all prepared to make the last trip on the Erie Canal before we cross the Oneida Lake and then to Brewerton. The Ess-Kay Marina is all set to greet us and have scheduled to install the coolant pump on our Port Engine. We are crossing our finders that this will be resolved later today.

We needed a 1 hour run to Lock 21 and it opened at 8 am so we left early so we would arrive in Ess-Kay asap. It was a bit chilly, but the winds had died down and the water was calm - again. This section of the Erie Canal was straight for almost 55 miles and it is lined with tall trees the entire way. Although there are towns on either side, you can't see them from the water. With only one engine working, I used Auto Pilot a lot so on the straight stretch of the canal, I set it for auto and just let it go by itself. Not turns required.

In Canada, the locks are maintained and well groomed by the individual lock employees but on the Erie Canal it is more of an industry and they only have 1 or 2 staff at each spot. This morning we passed by Lock 21 and the grass and property was lookin pretty good, so I wanted to post a photo of their grounds. Not much gardening but what is there is well done.

We arrived at Oneida Lake at 10 am and started to cross (it is 23 miles long), only to realize that we had the winds behind us and the lake was a bit choppy. Some waves were 4 footer's but we managed just well, and made it to our destination at 12:30 where we got a pump out and fuel. We tied up in a slip and waited for their service tech to come over.

It seems like everything is connected and so are the thrusters. I have been using the bow and stern thrusters a lot when docking or entering the locks. Now that has created another issue. The Port Engine that has a bad circulating pump, has not been running for 5 days and the alternator has not been charging the batteries. Upon arrival at Ess-Kay we noticed that all alarms were beeping. Even our Starlink was not working. We did a load check on the batteries and hoped that the batteries will come back to life by the end of today.

Route for Today and tomorrow to Lake Ontario from Rome NY

Here are a few videos of the work being done on the boat and another short tour of the engine room.

The technician arrived around 3 o'clock and removed the broken pump and installed the new one. When we tested it, the belt frayed right away and we were concerned that there is another problem. We put a second belt on the engine and made sure it was very tight. After testing it seemed to work, so our plan to leave Saturday for Oswego, still is on the books. Given that the weather window on Sunday morning remains good, we may just make it to Trenton by Sunday noon. Stay tuned because with the Hallman Experiences anything can either change or get cancelled.

At the Ess-Kay Marina we slipped beside one of my favorite boats. It was a 49 E Marlow Explorer and this particular boat has been a favorite of mine for a long time. It was good to get a photo of both boats in the same frame as well as a personal tour.

When we were in Brewerton two weeks ago, Kyle and myself were going to go to the car races but it rained and was cancelled. Tonight was a big race event at the raceway so Cynthia and I took an Uber to the track and had a blast watching the dirt races and yes, I do mean dirt. It was flying everywhere and many people in the grandstand were wearing safety glasses to prevent the dust from getting in your eyes.

Now Eat my Dust - well we did and it was gritty

There were four main races but we stayed for only three. The classes were Dirt Car Modified, Dirt Car Sportsman and Dirt Car Sprint. They were fast, crazy funny and very loud. Jan could hear them from the boat as they raced. I made a short video of a couple races.

Sprint Series

Sportsman Series

When it was over, we walked back to the boat and called it a day. We are just hoping that tomorrow we can make our way to Oswego. On our way home we passed the Brewerton Fort. All we have is a photo and don't know much more about it however, it is close to the water and all forts defend something near a water location. As I have said before Stay Tuned.

Here is our Nebo Log for the day. We travelled 57.8 km over 5.04 hours and had an average speed of 12.8 km per hour