Sunday morning we left Catskill NY and made our way up the Hudson River. In the town of Troy we passed through our first lock of the trip. Once through the lock we turned off the Hudson onto the Mohawk River to the town of Waterford.
Waterford has an excellent free city dock and the visitor center has showers and restrooms. The docks are free for 48 hours and electricity is $6 a day. We were initially planning on staying one night, but decided to spend an extra night. On the Hudson we took a large boat wake on the beam and as our boat rocked sideways, we noticed one of our mast cradles really needed to be reinforced. The temperatures were also going to be near 100 with high humidity and we needed the air conditioning.
I brought spare lumber in case I needed to make repairs along the way. What I didn’t have was a power saw and the wood I needed to cut would have taken hours with the hand saws I had. Did I mention it’s also hot outside? I broke down, walked to the hardware store and bought a power saw. By noon, we had the extra bracing in place and we’re ready to move on.
The locks open at 7AM, and we’re hoping to be there at opening. We’re going to try and push to Amsterdam NY as our next stop. They also have free walls with electricity. Most towns have free walls, but few have electricity, so we don’t mind getting up early and pushing if it means air conditioning at the end of the day.
We also ran to the grocery store to pick up more seltzer water and fresh fruit and vegetables. We would have liked to have explored some of the parks in the area, but it was too miserable outside.
Sue’s cousin from Boulder told us about the Erie Canal song (‘Low Bridge, Everybody Down’), which neither of us heard of before. I’m not surprised I didn’t know it, but I would have thought Folk Music fan Sue would have known it. Give it a listen on You Tube if you have a chance. It’s a catchy tune and I’m sure we’ll be humming it as we make our way to Buffalo.
Kurt & Sue Sail 