Amsterdam to Waterford

Another easy day on the water, 3 locks, and more scenery than just trees! (not that they aren't lovely to look at)

Pulled into Amsterdam dock $1/foot park side. Great spot. Bob and his gang of workers, i think they are all family, are throwing a wedding later today. Ceremony, cocktails and reception all held water side.
We got organized on the boat then I headed off to tackle laundry while Al worked on some banking/computer business.  Unfortunately not an easy task as Al found out. Finally almost 2 hours later he managed to knock a couple of items off our to do list.
I had a great chat with Bob who runs the docks, the cafe, and caters special events. Everyone helping there, including Bob, works full time jobs also!!  Al had told him I liked cooking so he was giving me ideas for storage and getting the most out of my vegies as well as a couple of recipe ideas. Very hard working organized bunch and still so friendly and helpful. Taking the time to make sure we were good.  A grocery bag was filled with ice from the kitchen for me and I was on my way.

We both showered, grabbed a cocktail, G n' T with Campari, bag of Bits n Bites then settled in for the wedding.

we had front row seats.

Had a great dinner and then watched a movie with an early lights out. Rained  some overnight and the train noise, oh the train noise...

Al had a terrible night sleep so he was moving slower and with me taking some time to do some computer stuff we were a bit slow to get going. Pumped out the head then we were on our way.

Today was going to be the day we went through the "flight of 5". Lock 6 through to lock 2.
Five locks very close together (within a mile) all at elevations of 33 to 34.5 feet each. So dropping over 160ft.

A familiar site for me!

Lock 7 had my name all over it. This was the one and only lock that i was a rope girl instead of being at the the wheel.  I wanted to have a chance to experience it before we got to the end of the canal. Very uneventful, I don't think it was as hard as Al made it out to be (just kidding). No pictures.

Bob the lock master at lock 6 held the boat for us so I could get photos.

In the distance you can see the next lock

We weren't sure where we were going to end up. We were a bit ahead of schedule as we wanted to avoid Waterford during the weekend. We had heard it was a nice place to stop. Free dock right in town with full service, showers, wifi, power etc. The glitch was that the Tug Boat Round Up was going on in town. Drawing huge crowds and all the tugs would take up the dock space. Now I'm a sucker for tug boats but not sure where we could stop and get into town easy.  Al did some investigating and found out we could stay on the wall above lock 3 and it was just a short walk into town.  We ended up in the center of the canal and the gates over to land got locked at 6pm when the lockmaster left for the night. I tried to get him to leave it open but, no go, although he did leave the main house open for us to use bathroom and shower - ok, that was nice.

"Haven" front of the line.

We paddled the dingy across the canal easily as there was no current with the locks closed and walked into town to check out the festivities. Lots of tugs, good music, another quaint little town. Our dinner consisted of fair like food, nothing really to get excited about but we did have the most amazing dessert call "fried dough". We haven't been eating badly so i thought we could splurge.  Almost the same as a Beaver tails, all you Canadians should know what i'm talking about.
Waterford put on an amazing Fireworks display. Lasted almost 30 minutes and was well done. Quite the celebration.

Had a great breakfast on the main street in the morning, $3.50 each and walked to the farmers market.
Al grabbed a tide chart for the Hudson and in the magazine (Boating on the Hudson & Beyond) he noticed the dates didn't match up. When he asks the dock master about it he sent him in the direction of the Publisher and editor John Vargo, who just happened to be there.  So, humbly he acknowledged the error and set Al up with a computer and copied everything he needed. A wonderful gentleman who made sure Al knew his name and phone number so that if we had any questions at all regarding our transit down the river that we are to call him. How awesome.

Al and went back to the boat to get her ready and I headed over to Troy, crossing the Hudson River via Union Bridge,  just on the other side to get groceries.

We were thinking of waiting till later for some of the tugs to move off the wall and then come down from lock 3 and stay on the dock for the night. I can't remember what changed our mind but we decided to move on.

Downtown Waterford

Heading out of town

Waterford and lock 2 are the end of the Erie Canal entering into the Hudson. One more lock which is a federal lock in Troy and then we are back in tidal waters.

We are officially southbound!