Fair sailing to Fairport

I am enjoying a sultry Erie Canal evening on the back of the boat in the fair village of Fairport. This is a town that really caters to the boaters. We are tied up at a nice municipal facility with incredibly clean and nice showers and bathrooms, power and water hookups and even pumpouts. The phenomenal thing is they have this great wireless as well and it's free! I tend to get excited about small things anymore. We are awaiting Wayne's sister after a long "worky" day of lift bridge and lock navigation. Once again we refined our systems and discovered it is much better to lock through on the port side given the way the boat swings ass out in reverse on a starboard tie up. We are geared up with gloves, boathooks, fenders, and various lines that are just staying out on deck for the duration because you must be ready to lock up or down - as soon as you enter and they think you are close to being ready the water level stars changing. Today we went through a section of the canal which had a significant amount of work barges and little tugs that pull them around. I tried to make radio contact with one such foursome, but could not understand the reply. Wayne was at the tiller eating a sandwich when suddenly he realized that these guys were not playing our game the way we thought and we were on a collision course. Sandwich ditched, he deftly maneuvered out of the way when a guy on the tug came out shouting "back, back!!!!!" Would have been nicer if he had simply responded to my radio appeal. After turning Cassie in a tight circle, the tug and barge pair had moved enough out of the canal that we could pass. This time they did respond to my radio appeal to simply not change their configuration. He only had just enough time to finish his lunch when we arrived at the first of our two locks. Yeowzah, time to spring into action again! We are getting better and better at all this, and so although it can be a lot to do, we were not too stressed by locking through two times in ten minutes - the locks are only a short distance apart. The lock and lift-bridge operators are wonderful, helpful, and we arrived sans major problem to our current resting place. We had to give the boat the once-over inside and out for the arrival of Princess Sarah, and now she is clean and sweet-smelling and ready to accomodate our star guest. We'll probably take a break from blogging for a few days now to enjoy a real bed, laundry facilities, and real bathrooms that you can even use in the middle of the night if you want. Sarah will finish out the Erie with us so stay tuned for the next installment. Recommendation of the day: stay here at Fairport if ever you ever naviagted on the Erie Canal....