No more locks or lift bridges, Lake Erie is in sight.

Saturday we had a short day into North Tonawanda doing the last locks and lift bridges of the Erie Canal.  It's a good thing we got in early because there was a concert by the waterfront Saturday night.  Between the concert and the weekend the seawall filled up pretty early.  The weekend ended up being not very relaxing.  The band was not very good - Sue thought she recognized a song or two, and I think I recognized a chord or two.  They were pretty loud though, and they played for 4 to 5 hours.  While that was going on there was a steady stream of boats cruising up and down the river.  A large share of the boats were the really noisy thunder-type-exhaust boats which everyone found to be pretty annoying.  About an hour before the band finally quit the restaurant across the river from us started playing loud music.  We ended up going to sleep with our earplugs in.  And off and on all weekend I thought about all the things that had to happen to get the mast back up safely.




The western end of the canal was man made and looks like this for around 100 miles.
On the right is the old mule path, now used as a bike and hiking path.




The last lock is actually a double lock.  You go up half way...



...then the lock opens up and you meet boats coming down.
Then you lock the rest of the way up.

Sunday morning I watched the British Gran Prix report on line - Fernando Alsonso won for Ferarri.  Then we move the boat over to Wardell's Boat Yard to start getting it ready to put the mast back up.  Sunday is a busy day for Dennis Wardell selling fuel, so when we were finished we walked over to see the Hershell Carrousel Museum.  It was pretty interesting and we got to ride on one of their carrousels.





Check out the pedal boats/boatcycles.  Also the boats rafted 3 and 4 deep because
it was a weekend and there was a concert.





Sue and I on one of the first carrousels that left the factory around the turn of the century.



Fluff in one of his typical sleep positions.  I think the sole (floor) is cooler. 

This morning we started stepping our mast around 9:00, and by 1:30 we were pretty much done with tuning the mast and getting the boom and sails back on the boat.  We fueled up and left around 2:30.  We are now at the Buffalo Yacht Club which is about 10 miles from Wardell's and a couple of miles from Lake Erie proper.

Other things we won't be seeing back on Lake Erie:   dolphins, rays, tropic birds, alligators, sea turtles, pelicans, eagles, jelly fish, sharks, phosphorescence, and the elusive "green flash".

And BTW, I finished Jaws and don't really think the book as written would make much of a movie.