Day 106, Sunday October 6th

Day 106, Sunday October 6th

We woke to the sound of the alarm.  We don’t tend to set it but we wanted to lock through the last 2 locks first thing before other boats started through so that we could get a spot on the wall below.  Ralph was tapping on the hull by 7:00 letting us know that the lockmaster was preparing for us to come through.  Coffee was already on so it was only minutes until we had thrown our lines and on our way to the last 66 foot descent in the last 2 locks.  Lock # 2 spit us out right in the middle of Waterford town docks.  We all got parked in a few tight spots.  It was raining still, but not too badly.  Everything was wet, however we had put the cushions away the night before so just the boat that was wet.

The farmers market was setting up and the showers were available so within minutes we were cleaning up and spending some money.  We only stayed for a couple hours, and then said our good-byes to our travelling companions and headed off as we wanted to get south to the marina where we were getting the mast taken down.

Big ship with life raft that looks like submarine

First we went through a Federal lock to drop us about 15 feet to sea level.  This was the last of the 35 locks.  A few miles down the Hudson River we pased Albany and then our first ocean freighter.  We were back using the autohelm, however had to pay close attention as there is now commercial traffic.

The tide was going out initially so we made good speed (well for a sailboat anyways) for the first 3 hours, but then the tide started coming in so was a current in the wrong direction.  All in all it took us 7.5 hours of motoring to get to the marina that was going to set up our mast again. 

Albany with tall ship

Along the way the channel was well marked and other than a few bald eagles to look at and a couple ships to pass by us,  the trip was uneventful.  One ship's life raft looked like a submarine.  We did pass by Albany which is the capital of New York State and it had a tall ship parked at the seawall.

Getting into the marina was easy with lots of room.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson