Waterford NY (2014-05-02)

N42° 47.273', W73° 40.810'

Yesterday at just before 1900 we arrived at the Waterford visitor center and tied up to the dock.  The Hudson River is now behind us, and only the Erie Canal lies ahead of us before returning to Canada.



We left the Steel House dock at about 0900 on Friday, and headed down the creek back to the Hudson.  A quick check on the state of the tide showed that we were just before the end of the ebb tide, which would mean that the current would be against us as we travelled.  Thinking about how tide worked on the Hudson, this also meant that we'd be travelling up the river with the swing of the tide, and would be probably be ahead of the slack and flood tide for quite a bit of our day.  Well, I discovered that the tide transition moves up the Hudson at about the same speed we travel, as we ended up with the current against us most of the day.  We finally did have the flood tide catch up with us in the afternoon, but due to the amount of water that the Hudson drains in the spring, we still had almost a knot of current against us for the rest of the day.

We arrived at the Troy federal lock at 1800 and joined a motor yacht and a small fishing boat for the upbound lockage. 

Locking up in the Troy federal lock

Ten minutes later we were through the lock and were finally done with cruising in tidal salt water.  We'll still probably have strong currents to deal with on the rivers that make up the Erie, due to the spring run off, at least until we reach the peak of the eastern Erie at lock 20.

Arriving in Waterford

There were four other boats here at Waterford when we arrived.  The motor yacht and us made six boats waiting for the locks to open.  Later last night a sailboat arrived, and so far today two other boats came in, bringing the total to nine boats.  There is still room for two more boats on the docks and after that new arrivals will have to tie up on the concrete bulkhead down from the docks.

When we arrived we had a nice surprise of our daughter and her husband waiting to greet us.  We got the pleasantries out of the way quickly and tasked them with helping to take our lines as we docked. :-)  They will spend the weekend with us before returning home on Sunday.

Last night Rob and Serena from S/V Vita joined the four of us for dinner at McGrievey's.  We hadn't seen them since New Smyrna, so we had a great time catching up with them.

The lower Erie Canal officially opens on Monday morning.  We'll enjoy having the weekend for a break, and then on Monday morning we'll start our northbound passage of the Erie.