Allegheny River Journal...
Upon arriving in Franklin, PA and talking with more of the locals, we were advised not to put the boat back in the river here because it was still quite shallow. There hasn't been much rain this summer, so the river levels are especially low. We were advised to put in again at East Brady, PA which is where the Allegheny River becomes officially navigable by commercial traffic and depth in the center of the channel is adequate due to the pool created by the lock and dam system that is run by the Army Corps of Engineers. So we continued on down to East Brady, where on Saturday we worked on the boat a little bit more and added some doors, sealed some holes that might let water inside our sleeping area, and repacked our supplies for the upcoming week that was before us. We got underway on Saturday evening and passed by a new bridge being constructed on the river at East Brady (Photo). It had been a long week without a shower, so after anchoring for the night we jumped into the Allegheny with a bar of soap and cleaned off by the light of the full moon.


The modifications to the vessel in Somerset took awhile to complete and provided us with an opportunity to repack the vessel and keep onboard only the things we really needed. We finally pulled out of Somerset, PA on Wednesday morning with a boat that was lighter, more organized, and better equipped to handle the nearly 2,000 miles of river that remained before us. We had two schools lined up for this week, one in Rochester, PA and the other in Toronto, OH. In order to keep to our schedule, we drove in a car to both of these schools, as we would not be passing through them on the river until the coming weekend. Dealing with the shallow water in the upper Allegheny and the subsequent vessel modifications set us back time-wise from our original plan, but our cause was not yet lost. The photo shows the Libelula being launched once again into the Allegheny River with the help of the folks at Allegheny Marina, located a few miles north of the city of Pittsburgh. We were warmly welcomed at the Allegheny Marina, and stayed there for two nights as we continued to make preparations for yet another departure.