Fairport NY

 We are in Fairport, NY at the village docks and are STILL here after 8 days.  The story is involved, has many ups, downs and twists, but I will give you the Reader's Digest version. We were about 6 mi down the canal last Saturday and had gone through Locks 29 & 30 where the water level was low and passage was going to be very stressful.  We went through with 2 other boats and although it was nerve wracking, it was uneventful.  We were feeling so relieved and relaxed after going through there - if only we knew that was going to be the easiest part of our day....

We stopped for fuel at a family run small marina right after Lock 30 (we had stopped there last fall and knew Brian was such a nice guy and he sold enough fuel to know that it was good fuel.) It is tricky getting in and out of the fuel-filling area, but Tom drove in like a boss and when we went to leave, we had no stern thruster. We thought maybe it was a glitch of some kind, but long story short, the motor had just died.  We still had our bow thruster, so that together with our single engine got us back out of the tight area.  We tied up at the marina wall and were there for 3 hours while Steve (turned out to be the expert and most qualified boat electrician in western NY) took a look at it.  He just happened to be there on a Saturday since he works on his own now.  Lucky for us!

He and Brian assured us that they would check on Monday about ordering a new thruster motor, so we went on to Fairport and docked the boat with one thruster. Turns out there are no new motors anywhere in the US - there are 2 on a boat from the Netherlands where they are made, but who knows when those will arrive.  We went back to the marina on Monday afternoon and had the old motor removed with the thought that it could be rebuilt. (See pic of a crowd of mechanics looking at our dead motor.) We also had Steve look at our power cord connection on the bow of the boat where our 50 amp cord is and had been giving us trouble.  Turns out the outlet in the boat as well as the end of the cord were melted due to overheating when there was a bad connection.  Lucky we didn't have a fire! We were able to connect 30 amps off the stern of the boat, so we have had power.

As the week progressed we received news that the parts necessary for the rebuild of the motor were not available anywhere and could take up to a month to arrive. After much discussion, we decided to have Steve finish the electrical repairs, and somehow reconnect our bow thruster and we would continue our journey. When the parts do come in and the motor can be rebuilt, we will have it shipped somewhere to us and find someone to install it.  All problems for another day... Steve came to us this morning and spent about 4 hours on the boat getting us patched back together so we can travel. We had planned to leave here tomorrow with hopes of reaching Buffalo early in the week, but the rain - did I mention the RAIN?!?!

We have had rain almost daily since starting the Erie and today was no exception. We have had over 2 inches of rain in 24 hours and the water level in the canal has risen about a foot and a half. We have gone out a couple of times - to a great Farmer's market this morning and to have some soup for lunch as well as potty trips with Madison and each trip requires, full rain suits and rain boots.  We have more wet clothing hanging around the boat...  And Madison is very happy that she has a raincoat too. High water levels mean faster currents, more floating debris and lower fixed bridge clearances, so we don't get to leave tomorrow either!

While we are anxious to get going, we promised each other we would never make a bad travel decision based on some arbitrary schedule or desire to be somewhere else.  We will sit tight here until the water level goes back down - although there is rain predicted for much of this week also.  People here are so disgusted with the weather and have not had a rainy summer like this in recent memory.  Personally, I think the whole "chasing 80" thing with doing the loop is a crock!  Not working out for us yet.  LOL!

I will update the blog again when we move.  Until then, we are snug and safe in Fairport.  Not a bad place to be.