Day's 37

• Fairport NY - Gasport NY
• Start 7:10 am
• End 4:40 pm
• Underway 8:30 Hours
• Locks - 2
• Lift Bridges 16
• Distance 58 miles
• Av Speed 6.8 knots

We are both ready to be out of the Erie Canal. After today we have one day left on the canal. While most of the towns we have stopped in are very nice they are starting to look the same.

As you can tell by the only having two locks in 58 miles, this end of the Erie Canal is very flat. It is also mostly man made, where before this the canal ran through rivers. There are miles of the canal that were cut though rock. It is amazing to travel the canal and think back to the people who dug the canal out of rock, without the excavating equipment that we have today. The other cool thing to see, is where the canal is higher than the land around it. When you look off to the side of the canal the fields around you are 50 feet lower than the canal. At one point there is a road that goes under the canal.

What is new to us on this part of the canal is the lift bridges. Today we went under 16 lift bridges. While they are much faster to pass under then the locks, some of the bridge tenders operate two or three bridges. The bridge tender would let us through a bridge and then drive to the next bridge and let us through that one. Two of the bridges were so close the bridge tender walked to the next bridge. The bridge tenders also call the next bridge to let them know we are coming. Unless we had to wait for them to get to the bridge, they would call us as soon as they saw us to let us know they were lifting the bridge for us.

Gasport is the smallest town that we have stooped in so far. There is nothing to do here. We did go to the local corner bar for dinner, but they were closing early because of the 4th of July. They did turn the grill back on for us. That is the nice thing about small towns.

While it is a very small town these folks are putting on some very good backyard fireworks shows. I am sitting here watching them from the boat while I write the blogs.

We have 30 miles left on the canal with 2 locks so tomorrow will be a short day.