Great Loop Overall Statistics to date:
Statute Miles: 2493.3
Average Miles/Day: 48.9
Total Hours Underway: 340.7
Average speed (mph): 7.4
States Transited: 11
Total Days: 119
Travel Days: 51
Locks: 43
Fuel Purchased: 680.5
Miles / Gallon: 3.5
Nights at Extra Days
Marinas: 27 60
Anchor: 14 3
City dock: 3 0
Free Wall: 8 4
Mooring: 0 0
Travel Day48 - Leaving Medina
We woke up the bridge operator at 7 for him to drive down to the second bridge that he operates 20 minutes away so we could go through (we had stopped between his two responsibilities). Apologized to him on the phone for getting him up to drive down to the bridge 😊. Foggy, misty morning with little to no wind. The passage through 5 lift bridges followed by a pair of nested locks lifting 50ft was made seamless by great NY state canal workers. These folks are impressive. We arrived in Tonawanda after negotiating some debris in the river at the exit of Lock 35. The town wall is very nice and very convenient. We opted to use the South wall to help with the crowds and noise of the Tonawanda-proper side of the canal.
Travel Day49 - Leaving Tonawanda
Exiting Tonawanda, we stayed near the southeastern shore of the Niagara River to try to improve the 2-3 knot current in the river. Even close to shore, though, the current was up to 2-1/2 knots all the way down to the Grand Island Bridge. We now call ourselves “southbound” on the radio, communicating with bridges and locks on the Niagara River --- instead of “westbound” on the Erie Canal. Past the Grand Island bridge the current was about 3 knots against us all the way into Black Rock canal and lock. The lock was open and waiting for us at Black Rock when we arrived and we transited easily, being lifted only about 10 feet. Once in the Black Rock canal, there was little to no current. We arrived in Buffalo and tied up at the canalside park for a flat fee of $50. The park was quite busy for a weekday, but the dock was down and away a bit from everything.
Travel Day50 – Leaving Buffalo
We left very early to take advantage of the calm conditions predicted on the Lake Erie and there were finally no locks or bridges to open on a schedule. Lake Erie was glassy with the occasional swell from the west and southwest. Winds predicted at 5-10mph from the south. We crossed into Canadian waters for a time on the way across the lake. Canada is still closed for COVID as of this day, but navigation to another US destination is allowed as long as you don’t anchor or get off the boat in Canada. We have a slight foul current early, making our average speed only 6.6 knots. Midges everywhere on the outside of the boat – picked up just leaving Buffalo! The lake stayed calm with short 1-2 foot chop the entire day of almost 11 hours. We took on fuel at Presque Isle marina and then anchored in the nearby lake/basin for the night which was calm and quiet.
Travel Day51 – Leaving Erie
The forecast again was for S wind, so we left early again to try to follow close to the southern shoreline where the waves would be less, protected from land. By mid-day, the wind was much higher than predicted, and sustained. Even only 3/4mi offshore there was significant chop generated by the wind. The forecasts for the lakes are notorious for being difficult to predict as they tend to generate their “own weather”. The high winds/waves also reduced our boat speed by 0.2kn making the already long day to Cleveland even longer. By afternoon, we had a full 15-20mph of wind “on the nose” with over 100 miles of lake for fetch. We had planned to anchor in Cleveland behind the main breakwall to wait for a slip to be available the next day right in the heart of the city. However, when we returned a call to Oasis North Coast Harbor, they were able to take us right in. This was our longest travel day to date – 104 statute miles and 13-1/4 hours and 186 miles over the previous two days!
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Great Loop Travel Days (GLTD):
048: Tonawanda NY from Medina NY
049: Buffalo NY from Tonawanda NY
050: Erie PA from Buffalo NY
051: Cleveland OH from Erie PA
Map of our Overall Great Loop travel:
GLTD048 Tonawanda NY (From Medina NY): We took advantage of free pump-out before leaving Medina. This was a nice addition by the town to have for boaters. We called the “shared” lift bridge operator and readied our lines for departure while he traveled over from the other bridge he managed about 20 minutes away.
It was hazy, but it looked like we may have our 3rd consecutive day of sunshine!
Another dry day will be good for the boats behind us, "trapped" behind the locks, like our new friends on mv Blue Oyster, who still work. The small bit of good news is that they are stuck on the "high road" (higher water levels), so hopefully the locks will open up for them with just a few dry days. Meanwhile they are making alternative plans to “stage” their boat.
Some of the waterfront home sites on this stretch of the canal are beautifully manicured.
After passing under 5 lift bridges, we arrived at the last pair of locks on the Erie Canal, E34 and E35 in Lockport, NY. The original locks at this location were known as the “Flight of Five”. The Flight of Five [seen at the right in the picture below] was originally constructed in 1825 as five separate sequential canal locks meant to lift boats up the Niagara Escarpment. Parallel to these now is the more modern iteration of the locks from 1918, which utilizes just two larger steel locks (34 and 35) [on the left side below].
Locks E34 and E35 work in tandem. When heading west (as we were), the exit gate for lock E34 is the entry gate for lock E35. In this photo, you can see the “extra tall” exit gate for our first lock E34.
In this photo, the shared gate between E34 and E35 is opening for SCOUT to enter E35.
Each of the locks lifted SCOUT 25 feet for a total of 50 feet. It was nice to have the cable option to hold to, which, again, allowed us to wrap a line to just 1 mid-ship cleat.
While we have completed all the locks on the Erie Canal, we still need to travel to the end of the canal waterway.
On the other side of Lockport, as we approached Pendleton NY, there was a lot of big debris in the water, so we slowed our speed. Several crews, from US Army Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife, were working to clear it.
Shortly before arriving in Tonawanda, we officially left the Erie Canal and entered the Tonawanda River.
Milestone: We completed the Erie Canal!
We were still dodging fallen trees as we docked early afternoon at Tonawandas Gateway Harbor Park.
sv Aurora was there to catch our lines for us. (They were the sailboat stuck behind the shallows of locks E29 & E30 in our last blog).
There is a minimal fee to dock here, which includes power. The dockmaster office, restrooms and coin laundry are nearby (under the Main Street bridge).
Not to Miss: Food: After resting a bit and showering, we went for an early dinner, across the river, at Remington Tavern and Seafood Exchange, which is in a c.1895 trolley barn. We split a seared scallops dinner, which was not only delicious, but filling!
We enjoyed our meal so much, we ate at Remington again the next night – lobster night. Awesome!
Niagara Falls: The next day, we took a 20-minute Uber ride from Tonawanda to Niagara Falls State Park (free). Instead of taking this boat ride, Maid of the Mist, …
…we opted to hike the Cave of the Winds (not free, but worth the fee).
We really felt the force of the falls, which almost toppled me over at one point on the stairs.
This view shows the stairway route we took – and how close we got to the falls.
Photos really cannot convey the majesty of this natural wonder – it was breathtaking.
This photo shows an interesting contrast between what looks like an innocuous pool of water up at our level just behind us – and the violent turbulence created by the falling water below.
Nikola Tesla is commemorated by a statue in Niagara Falls State Park.
Tesla moved to the U.S. from Yugoslavia and was the first to create an alternating current energy system that converted the energy of Niagara Falls into electricity in 1896. This electricity was then transmitted over 21 miles from Niagara Falls to Buffalo.
Ref: https://www.niagarafallsusa.com/blog/the-power-of-tesla/ I was pointing out to Ray a possible math error in his notes. 😉
After touring Niagara Falls, we walked downtown for lunch at Anchor Bar. The Buffalo NY location of this franchise is known as the place where Buffalo Wings originated.
Along the way, we captured photos of 2 historic buildings, St. Peters Episcopal Church, c.1880 (left) and The Giacomo, originally The United Office Building, built in 1929.
Prosper Brewing is a short walk from the marina after crossing Main Street Bridge (North Tonawanda). Ray enjoyed a small flight of mostly dark beers.
Tonawanda was a convenient stop. There is a pharmacy within 2 blocks and a grocery just 0.5 mile away. We happened to be there on a Wednesday night, when there is free music between the 2 bridges. The river gets very crowded with boaters looking for dockage for free music, but SCOUT survived the “chaos”. 😊
GLTD049 Buffalo NY (From Tonawanda NY): Having completed our westward passage of the Erie Canal, we will now travel slightly southward to begin crossing through three Great Lakes.
As shown in our general plan below, we will head southwest across Lake Erie, north across Lake Huron, then south down Lake Michigan to Chicago. But not all this week! This will take us several weeks! 😊
Since it would be a short cruise to Buffalo -- our first stop on Lake Erie, we did not leave quite as early as usual. As we turned south onto Niagara River, the water was much more blue; we left behind the brown “muddy stuff” we had seen for the last month.
As we started seeing the Buffalo skyline, I knew we would have a lot of old buildings to photograph!
By mid-morning, we were docked along the Buffalo waterfront at Canalside town docks near the USS Little Rock. Getting here early on such a short travel day will be good. Since we planned to stay just 1 night, we had more time today for sightseeing.
We took a few minutes to raise the mast back up (since we will not encounter any more low-clearance bridges until we get to Chicago).
Big Ditch Brewing, named in the spirit of the Erie Canal – Strength, Pride, Ambition, was a neat venue: The small pours were a convenient option since we planned to stop at a second brewery, too. The nachos we had for lunch were awesome!
LaFayette Brewing is in the Hotel LaFayette, c. 1904, a French Renaissance-style building […] designed principally by Louise Blanchard Bethune […] the first professional woman architect in the country. Ref: https://thehotellafayette.com/about
The bar was gorgeous and looked like it could have been there when the hotel opened over a century ago.
Pearl Street Grill & Brewery is in a beautiful 4-story building, built in 1841, with New Orleans-style wrap-around porches on 3 sides. The colorful hanging baskets are festive. Ray said they looked like Corona Virus was growing on the outside of the building. 😊
History/Architecture: There were alot of old intricately embellished buildings in Buffalo.
The Electric Tower, c.1912 (left) was designed by John Galen Howard to represent the importance of Niagara Falls in the Pan-American Expo (a World's Fair held in Buffalo in 1901), whose purpose was to introduce electricity to the world.
The Old Post Office (right) opened in 1901 – the year of the Pan-American Expo.
Ellicott Square (bottom), c.1896, was the largest office building in the world at the time of completion.
Church: St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, c.1851, was built of the Medina sandstone that we talked about in our last blog.
Canalside (Waterfront): The waterfront is a bustling hub of activity (even on a weekday), with a maritime and boatbuilding museum, a navy museum, historical ruins of canal buildings, a beer garden/ice cream stand, outdoor games, and exercise classes. Several tour boats also leave from the docks.
After the last tour boat cruise, the waterfront clears out and the docks seem dark and isolated. A security officer makes rounds on the dock and waterfront. (I’m not sure how long he patrols, but I saw him make a couple of rounds.)
GLTD050 Erie PA (From Buffalo NY): We left Buffalo early, before sunrise, for travel across our first Great Lake, Lake Erie, to Erie PA. It would be a long, and apparently, cloudy day, but we hoped the winds – and waves -- would be low.
Since we were through all of the locks (for now), I returned all the fenders that SCOUT had been wearing for the last month, to their normal positions on the stern.
As the sun rose, the “mess” of midges that accompanied us from Buffalo were apparent, but not too big of a nuisance.
For the first time, we found midges even flying around in the engine room, so we turned on the engine room fans to try to keep them out. We will clean these up at one of our upcoming stops.
🧭 Navigation: Ray had planned another perfect weather travel day. There was a gentle swell, but basically no waves since wind was very low.
Sea conditions allowed us to set a straight-line course to Erie PA; we did not have to “hug the shore”.
I was able to work on the blog a few minutes at a time, while Ray researched fuel prices in the area. He also spent several “sessions” trying to clear the cockpit of midges (as much as possible).
On these waters, we found that you don’t get distracted watching for crab pots, or dolphins or whales. There is the occasional flagged fishnet marker, but those are few and far between. And, as the t-shirts boast around here, “No salt. No sharks. No problem.”
⚓Anchored. By late afternoon, we were anchored in Presque Isle, after topping off fuel (diesel) at Presque Isle Marina. We enjoyed the pleasant weather sitting on the bow – something we have missed due to rain and our obligatory sightseeing. This was a Friday evening. Though several boats were anchored here, it was very quiet all night.
Milestone: We left New York after 36 days.
Interesting Fact: So far, New York is the state where we had the most travel days, 17, and where we’ve spent the most time.
GLTD051 Cleveland OH (From Erie PA): We left the anchorage before 6:00 AM, on a Saturday, along with about 30 fishing boats, hoping to make Cleveland OH today. The sun rose as we reentered Lake Erie.
We don’t know the real story behind this photo, but it looks as though they cut the corner too close. 😮
Sea conditions: By afternoon, the winds had increased to 15-20 mph – much higher than forecasted. We had anticipated a long travel day, now we were bracing ourselves (literally) for a rolly day as well. 🙁
Throughout the day, wind and waves increased, decreasing our speed. We kept moving closer to shore (for windbreak from land/trees) to try to maintain speed.
The winds were not only stronger, but they were coming from the west-southwest, not as much from the south as originally forecast (the shoreline would have shielded the wind in this case). This meant that they traveled over the full length of the western Erie before reaching us.
🔷 Boater Tip: This long distance of wind-over-water is called “fetch” – the longer the fetch, the bigger the waves that are built up by the wind.
120 miles is A LOT of fetch!
While these sea conditions were not dangerous, they were just a bit uncomfortable for us in the last 4-5 hours of our trip.
📞 Same-day marina planning: I tried to make an online slip reservation for 2 nights beginning tonight (Saturday) at Oasis Marina, but slips were shown as unavailable for our first night according to the online server, so we began reviewing forecasts and options for an alternate stop tonight. We decided to stop at an anchorage just inside Cleveland Harbor’s breakwall, then move to Oasis Marina the next day – for sightseeing convenience.
Before finalizing anchorage plans, however, I called Oasis Marina to confirm there was indeed no slip available as shown online. We learned there was no availability for 50-amp slips (which was the checkbox we used when setting up our online account), but there were slips that had double 30-amp power (another option for us). Ahh!
🔷 Boater Tip: Online slip reservations may not show availability for power configurations that do not match your profile.
Oasis Marina uses Snagaslip.com for marina reservations. SCOUT’s profile was configured as a single 50-amp boat, even though SCOUT can also use a double 30-amp configuration with an adapter. If your boat can accommodate multiple electric configurations, be sure to check them all if your preferred configuration is showing unavailable to reserve.
After the first 10 hours of slogging through waves, we rewarded ourselves with an ice cream snack. 😊
Sea conditions: Throughout our cruise to Cleveland, I kept singing the tune “Cleveland Rocks!” (as I remembered it from the Drew Carey Show). Lake Erie was also rocking and rolling! 😊 SCOUT was bouncing with waves, then bouncing with waves on swells, and we were taking spray on the bow, but I was still able to work on the blog.
We watched this crazy jet skier jumping all the waves and chop. Running up behind traveling boats and using their wake.
He kept circling back behind SCOUT looking for our wake. But unlike other “beefy” looking boats, SCOUT does not create much of a wake! Sorry.
After more than 13 hours, we were heading into the north harbor of Cleveland.
We finally docked at Oasis Marina (at North Coast Harbor).
This was our longest travel day – time (13+ hours) and distance (103+ statute miles)!
A nice young family came over to catch our lines, which was helpful, since the winds were still high. (The dockmaster had left a security gate key for us near the harbor office.)
We walked to dinner at Nuevo Modern Mexican, overlooking the harbor. As we were discussing how dreary the whole day was, I noticed we were both wearing grey. Maybe we should avoid both wearing grey on travel days. 😉
After dinner, we strolled through the beautiful waterfront park. The city was celebrating “Christmas in July”, so there were Christmas decorations and Christmas movies playing on the big screen in the park. 😊🎅
There was a beautiful sunset that evening, reflecting off of all of the dreary clouds that were now clearing.
And the lighted skyline was pretty. Even some of the boats in the marina had strung Christmas lights for the festivities.
We had just 1 day “in port”. First stop, the Cleveland sign. (SCOUT is even in the picture – barely.) We exchanged photographing tasks with another nice young family, and it turns out they were from my hometown. (Small world!)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: There are a lot of artifacts in the 5 levels of the building that sits right on the harbor front (the angled modular building in the above photo).
A few of the guitars we photographed: Bo Diddley and Buddy Guy.
ZZ Top guitars. Sadly, Dusty Hill died just 2 days after we snapped this photo.
Michael Jackson’s infamous glove, and a hat from Bob Marley.
In an area called “The Garage”, you can play various instruments. Cleveland (Lisa) Rocks!
We had fun playing with the camera in the lighted infinity mirror area.
Before touring Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we had a delicious lunch at Masthead Brewing,
Before dinner, we took a long walk to an area of Cleveland called “The Flats” for a drink at Thirsty Dog Brewing. This part of the city was really bustling on a sunny afternoon.
We had planned for drinks and dinner at Collision Bend Brewing, but we didn’t get there before they closed at 5:00 pm (Sunday). 🙁
Not to Miss: Food: Walking back to the marina, we found a nice-looking Lebanese Restaurant, TAZA, and decided to try it. The shish kabobs we shared were awesome!
History:
Birthplace of Rock ‘n Roll:
In 1951, disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term "rock and roll" to describe the up-tempo R&B records he played.
Freed organized the first rock concert, the Moondog Coronation Ball, which was held at the Cleveland Arena in 1952.
Architecture: We appreciated the way old buildings were preserved and stood right in alongside the new.
Cleveland City Hall, c.1916 (center) still seems grand among the rail system tunnel, high rises, and modern glass buildings.
Another old vs. new juxtaposition.
Churches:
In the photo on the left, Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, c.1852.
In the photo on the right, Old Stone Church, c.1834 (center) is one of the oldest buildings we saw.
For this big city, the areas of Cleveland we visited -- about 3/4 mile extending from north harbor marina -- were noticeably clean and appeared very safe – at least when we were walking around (before dark).
There is a lot to do, and walking around town is not a problem.
We even found a market along our walks, so we could restock our raw sugar supply for coffee.
What’s next? We will make another stop on Lake Erie before heading north to Michigan on the Detroit River.
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