Day One on the Erie Canal

Saturday was completely different from Friday. It was calm. There weren’t a lot of boats coming up from the Troy Lock. We dropped lines at 7:00 and slid over to hover in front of the lock. It was a gray day with rain forecast for the afternoon.

The lock opened at eight and we all moved forward alternating sides. First boat to starboard, second boat to port. We chatted with the neighbouring boats, sharing information on destinations and home ports as we wait for everyone to get tied up.

We meet a lot of people while boating. It is one of the joys of this trip. People from different locations, with different careers, life histories and lifestyles. Many boaters have boat cards made up with their names, boat names and contact information. The cards usually include a picture of the boat and the owners.

The photo above shows a sampling of cards. They belong to boats who are at the same stop. Once we go our separate ways we put the cards in the box.

The cards are immensely helpful to keep everyone straight. Many of us belong to the same age cohort. Gray hair and glasses are common, plus relaxing muscles allow gravity to have a similar impact on everyone. The result: like babies, retirees start looking more and more alike.

We were just commenting on how glad we were to be locking through now instead of opening day, when we heard some shouting. John was in the cockpit as we were locking through so he moved over to the starboard side to see what was happening. It was hard to miss any drama but I was tending the mid line where we were tied to the lock wall and had to tend the lines.

John stepped back into view and I asked what was going on. He said, “It’s Pat!”

I could not think of a boat card with that name. “Pat who”

“My brother Pat!”

“What?”

Sure enough it was Pat and sister-in-law Anne. They had driven all the way from Saint John, New Brunswick to say “Hi”.

What a marvellous surprise. We had a great visit catching up on various kith and kin. If we had started the Erie the day before we would likely have missed them.