7 Jun 15

Awakening early to a beautiful, clear, cool morning, we cast off at 08:15 and headed on through the Erie Canal/Mohawk River Valley, through 5 more locks and 27 N-miles to Ilion. Locks have become a bit “old hat” now to us veterans, but Lock 17 was special: 44 ft lift and the downstream gate is a guillotine style, rather than the more normal double swing gate type (i.e., they lift the gate up and you motor in underneath it - and get wet, then they lower it before starting to fill the lock). Ilion was achieved by 13:40; another poor Mohawk Valley town. We went for a quick grocery shop and then I took “Swallow” out for a short sail; I can now say I have sailed on the Erie Canal, although it was not particularly satisfying, as the wind was very light and fluky. Happy hour and dinner aboard.

Here’s a link to a high-speed video of our journey from Catskill to Ilion:

http://youtu.be/sNNZ-RfD864 

43-01.199’N, 075-01.752’W