We are back in Buffalo, after a short visit back home, and are preparing for the next leg of our adventure. As we mentioned in a previous post, we won’t be going out the St. Lawrence Seaway and around Nova Scotia to Maine, but we have planned out a new route.
Our new adventure is to transit the Erie Canal, which starts just north of Buffalo in Tonawanda, NY. The Erie Canal then joins the Hudson River in Albany, NY. We will follow that to New York City, then to the Atlantic Ocean to get around New Jersey. At the south end of New Jersey we will head north through the Delaware Bay, through the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal to the north end of Chesapeake Bay. We then head south through the Chesapeake to Norfolk, VA, where we can then take the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) south. Once in the ICW, we will head south to either the Carolinas or Georgia to spend the winter.
The ICW is a protected waterway of rivers, lakes, and canals, which allow a boater to transit the East coast without having to do an ocean passage. It actually starts in New Jersey, however lack of federal funding in recent years has caused much of the ICW impassible by deeper draft boats, including us at 6 feet. Unfortunately, most of the New Jersey ICW is around 3-4 feet, which means for that part, we must go to sea. The ‘official’ start of the ICW for most other boats is Norfolk, VA.
Using the Erie Canal requires us to fit under bridges that are about 15 feet in height. This requires us to de-mast the boat. We hope to have that done Monday, and have already removed our sails, booms, and radar. Once the mast is down, we also won’t be able to use our onboard VHF Radio, as the antenna is at the top of the mast and will be disconnected. This also means we will not be trackable via AIS, but we will still be posting and updating our online map as internet availability allows.
Stay tuned for further updates and future posts – our adventure continues Monday!
We also want to give a big shout out to the Erie Basin Marina and to all of our new friends on Dock H. We appreciate the hospitality and for taking care of Shanti while we were away. Thank you all so much!