Erie Canal 2027 resources

[A&Etug]

Our plan has been to get used to our Cutwater 30 s le this year 2026 and take care of needed maintenance.
With the intention of traveling to the Erie canal as we grew up on it and want to travel it, at least to the Finger Lakes with the intention of being gone for a month.
Our current port is Catawba Island/Port Clinton Ohio.
I envision getting to the canal entrance in 3 stops, Erie Pa, than the canal entrance.
Aside from the NYS canal chart and waterway guide, anyone have any thoughts?
We both grew up in the Spencerport area/Rochester but its been a few years since we have been back , we also belong to great lakes cruising club.
Any resources would be helpful, Thanks

 

[CaspersCruiser]

Sign up for the New York Canal System Notices to Mariners. Their alerts are very timely and are delivered to your choice of text or email or both.

Sign Up for Notice to Mariners Alerts

By signing up for Canal Notices and Alerts, boaters can receive the latest information about Canal openings/closures, water levels, construction and other elements affecting navigation on the Erie, Champlain, Oswego and Cayuga-Seneca Canals. Residents, businesses, and other stakeholders around...

www.canals.ny.gov

In late July, I trailered my boat and cruised the eastern half of the Erie Canal. I didn’t get all the way to Waterford because flooding closed the canal below Lock 13 for three days. I was lucky. I had just passed Lock 14 when the canal was closed. I was alerted to the closure by a Notice to Mariners text.

Look around the Canal System website. It has a variety of navigation resources.

I used Navionics and Aqua Maps on an iPad for navigation. Navionics has the best depth information, but Aqua Maps has better map detail features. It also displays both Waterway Guide and Active Captain information. Navionics displays only Active Captain since both are owned by Garmin. The Waterway Guide reviews of marinas are more up-to-date.

BEWARE: When I was on the canal, there were areas with lots of large mats of floating eel grass, especially in and near locks. It was impossible to avoid them. My raw water intake on the bottom of the boat got clogged up with eel grass three times. The strainer only had small bits of grass in it.. I had to enter the water and get under the boat to clear the intake. It presents exactly like a failed impeller— the engine temperature rises with increasing rpm and will overheat. I needlessly changed an impeller the first time it happened. I have owned this boat nine years and it is the first time I have experienced a clogged raw water intake and I’ve been all over the eastern U.S. with the boat.