June 21st and 22nd
We are now in Waterford which means we are now on the entryway to the Erie Canal. We did our first lock in Troy and then landed on our first FREE dock at the visitors center. We knew when we left this morning that NautiNell would be here along with several other loop boats. We will now get ready to start our locking loop adventure on the Erie canal system.. When we arrived there was no room for us on the dock so we are now rafted up with NautiNell.
This is the lighthouse at the entry of Catskill
And this one is in the town of Hudson, I love the Lights on the Hudson River
This beautiful boat is having their masts stepped (taking them down) so they can travel the canal system as there is many low bridges. Some of the sail boats will lay their mast down across the boat and travel with them, some will ship them to somewhere else to be put back up after they clear the bridges.
This is the first of ALOT of locks we will be going through, this one is in Troy NY it has a 14' lift. You pull into the lock and wrap your line around the pipe that is built into the wall (mid ship) and hold on to it as the water rushes into the chamber it creates a wave, you can swing a fair amount. as it raises you up. Be sure you have plenty of fenders on the wall, we had 2 set at water level and 2 set at the rub rail.
Jim holding the line in the lock as it is lifting us.
Right out of the lock 2 miles on the left is Waterford Welcome Center FREE dock there is 1000' of floating dock and 600' of wall. Take a right at this sign for the FREE <---(I love this word) dock.
This is SweetPea right in front of the 1st Erie Canal Lock which is actually Lock 2
We will remain here for a couple of days as it is FREE and water and electric included. Once we head out we will enter the Erie canal, in the next week or so we will travel though 22 locks which will lift us a total of 437'.
