Sept 4, 2024 Old New York - Lyons to Fairport

 Wednesday Sept 4, 2024  Lyons, NY to Fairport, NY  27 miles and 5.5 hours

Another beautiful day to be out boating.  Sunny and mid 70's would be ideal on the flybridge.  Unfortunately for us we're down at the lower helm.  Putting the radar arch and bimini down has two drawbacks.  On a sunny day with no bimini shade it is just too brutally sunny.  Lots of reflection off the white fiberglass would cook us like a convection oven. There's not enough sunscreen in the world to overcome it.   Other drawback on a day like today is getting down to handle lines when going through five locks.  Much easier to just walk out the pilothouse side door and grab a line. 

Beautiful day for cruising. Guard gates are common on the canal.
They allow for blocking off sections of the canal in case of flood, breach, etc. 

Going through locks 27, 28a, 28b, 29 and 30 slow our travels down and we cover fewer miles than normal for the hours we travel.  They estimate 30 minutes per lock as a guide. Some are quicker if the gates are open and waiting for you (rare).  So basically half our day was spent locking.  We also had a delayed stop for a pumpout in Newark.  As we were passing by, the pumpout dock looked easily accessible. So decided why not use it.  Turned around, got tied up walked over to the machine and noticed instead of the normal start/stop buttons it had a keypad to turn it on.  No code in sight.   Walked up to the visitor center and sign on door says 'back at noon'.  Couple of phone numbers listed so start calling.   Finally contacted a very accommodating lady at the Chamber of Commerce.   "I'll be right down to enter the code once you're all hooked up".  She was down in a few minutes, and all went fine.   Seems they had to put this system in place after too many local youths were playing with and breaking the machine.  Worth the slight inconvenience to have machines that are functional. 

A fleet of these true European canal boats for charter are based out of the Fairport area. 
Quite a difference from the Le Boat canal boats on the Rideau. 

Entire Fairport waterfront on both sides of canal lined with boats 

Arrived a bit later than we normally like to dock and found no readily available spot open for our length. Good teamwork between the bridgetender and dockmaster got a few boats juggled and us a spot with power right in the center of town.    This is a pretty active little town located on the eastern outskirts of Rochester. Seems to be undergoing a good amount of revitalization and reuse of the older buildings. Three ice cream parlors, four breweries, a distillery and lots of restaurants.  The lift bridge here is unique and made the Guinness Book of Records.  It's on an angled bias and no two pieces of steel are the same size.  The bridgetender here is known far and wide for his humor and was quite a hoot. 

The Fairport lift bridge lit up at night

Journey for Sept. 4, 2024