Into the Erie Canal

We departed Kingston, New York and the maritime museum on Saturday at 0710 and had our first really nice day on the water since coming up the New Jersey coast. There was little wind and the sun was shining, although the tidal and river current were against us most of the way to Waterford, past Albany and to the Federal Lock at Troy. As we left the Federal Lock we noticed for the first time a bridge that was close to our clearance height (21.3 feet), and when Judy checked the tide board through binoculars we realized that we needed to lower the mast to insure we would clear the bridge (with mast down we only need 15.3 feet for clearance). So Judy drove slowly while Bob assembled the tools and various lines necessary to lower the mast. Once that was done (it only took about five minutes this time) we proceeded under the bridge and took a left off the Hudson River and onto the free wall (the floating docks were full) at Waterford where we spent the night.

Today we departed Waterford at 0830, entered the first lock on the Erie Canal five minutes later, and completed the "stairstep" series of five locks about two and a half hours later. We completed five more locks before ending the day at lock #11 At Amsterdam, New York. We were travelling by ourselves all day, although there was a group of six boats that had departed ahead of us this morning.  

We are tied up tonight along the wall of lock #11 on the up-river side along with three other boats that were here when we arrived about 1755. We ate dinner in an Italian restaurant nearby.

We'll depart tomorrow morning at a reasonable time and continue heading west. We hope to make about 45-50 statute miles a day in order to meet Andrew and Avery in Syracuse on the 10th.

Pictures: Waterford dock (2), lock 2 (the first lock), a flood gate raised for us to pass underneath.