Erie/Oswego Canal Re-Opening??

[donradcliffe]

We are sitting in Brewerton NY and waiting for the NY canals to open so we can go through Lock E23 on the Erie and down the Oswego canal. All I can get from the Canal website and calling Lock 23 is that things are closed due to high water--no estimates of when things might open.

Do we have to wait for hours, days, or weeks?? Does anyone around here have any inside information or insights??

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

We are sitting in Brewerton NY and waiting for the NY canals to open so we can go through Lock E23 on the Erie and down the Oswego canal. All I can get from the Canal website and calling Lock 23 is that things are closed due to high water--no estimates of when things might open.

Do we have to wait for hours, days, or weeks?? Does anyone around here have any inside information or insights??

When I took my boat up to Canada back in 2002 we had severe storms dump a lot of water into the Erie Canal. I think we had to wait a day or two until they were able to dump some of it through the gates. One thing to be aware of is there may be a lot of small debris in the waters when you do get going again. Watch you engine temperature gauge as your engine intake may get clogged quite often as you start out.

[donradcliffe]

Its 2 days later and nobody knows nothing! We did rent a car yesterday and drive down to Oswego for the car races last night. There was some serious water coming down the Oswego river and a bunch of boats waiting there too.

[SV Bonzi]

I live in Oswego and currently the rumor is a determination will be made on Monday. When it does reopen use caution as suggested above, I have seen a lot of large objects flowing into Lake Ontario during the last week, including trees and parts of broken docks.

[Vasco]

Relax and enjoy your stay. It does get a bit noisy at that bar in Brewerton on the weekends though! The canal folks do their best but Mother Nature's in charge here. If the water's too high you just have to wait. In the past I've had to wait as much as week and others I know have waited longer.