Waterford, NY

We leave at 10:00 AM and stop at the Riverview Marina on Catskill Creek to pump out our holding tank and to fuel up. I am a little peeved they don't respond to my radio call. After we leave there, it dawns on me, Oh yeh ! The mast is down and the antenna is disconnected. We get out the hand held VHF radio. We have 40 miles to go the Waterford, the start of the Erie Canal.
 

View south of the Catskill Mtns.

Tappenzee beam fabrication site

We reach the Tapenzee beam fabrication site and there are lots of nearly completed beams waiting to be transported down river. 

Port of Albany

Federal Lock

At Troy we go through the first lock, the “Federal Lock”. This lock is run by the Federal Government because it is on tidal waters. All the other locks, Lake Champlain Canal and the Eire Canal are run by New York state. 

We get into Waterford late in the afternoon. There is free docks here with water and power. By the time we arrive all the dock spaces are taken, but we can tie up to the wall on a built in ladder. Otherwise the wall is too high to climb from our boat or even tie up. There are two other sailboats with their mast down heading out the Erie Canal, the rest are trawlers.

Waterford, 1st lock of the Erie Canal

Waterford is interesting because sections of the original, unused, hand dug canal and lock walls still exist. The Champlain Canal from the 1820's was hand dug from here to Lake Champlain. Around 1915 the Champlain canal was enlarged by a series of locks and dams on the Hudson, so now the Champlain Canal system uses the Hudson River north to Fort Edwards. From Fort Edwards to Lake Champlain the canal was excavated, some places following existing streams.