Hudson River to Erie Canal

I have to get up to date...and fill you in on the last four days.
On Saturday, we had hoped to visit West Point, but there were no tours for days because of graduation. As it turned out, we needed time to relax and re-charge. In the afternoon we were on the boat during a very dramatic lightning storm, with high wind and driving rain. Snow Cat was well protected. At happy hour, we got together with two other couples we had met in Norfolk.

We headed up the Hudson on Sunday morning at 7am and arrived in Kingston at 11am, after fighting a 2 mph current. Friends had told us to visit the Maritime Museum, and it was excellent telling us about the booming steamboat business and commercial traffic from the Delaware and Hudson Canal making Kingston a very vibrant area. Times have sure changed...

 On Monday we left at 6:30 and enjoyed the ride through the Hudson Highlands.

 West Point-on top of one flat building there was a sign...Beat Air Force.

 Bear Mountain State Park rises behind the Bear Mountain Bridge.

When this bridge was completed in 1924, it was the world's largest suspension bridge. Today, in addition to carrying highway traffic, it also serves as the Hudson River crossing of the famous Maine-to-Georgia Appalachian Mountain hiking trail.

 On Monday, we left Kingston and this time we traveled with the incoming tide for another 60+ miles, passing from the country to the city. This pictures shows the port of Albany with downtown buildings in the distance.

 We always had to be looking for flotsam...luckily these aren't in the water.

 Anyone interested???? After passing through Albany, we entered Troy, NY and went through our first of 29 locks on the way to Oswego, NY, and Lake Ontario.

 Most people doing the Great Loop will continue straight and enter the Champlain Canal that takes them to Lake Champlain. From there they go into the St. Lawrence River, to Montreal, and then west to Ottawa where they take the Rideau Canal to Kingston. We turned left at this sign and tied up to the floating dock at Waterford, NY. We met friends on Next Endeavour and will be traveling with them for a few days.

 

 We bought our Erie Canal 10 day pass for $37.50. Tuesday morning we had breakfast at Don and Paul's...$1.75 for two eggs, toast, coffee. At 7:20 we entered the first of 7 locks we would do today.

 We had two exciting things happen in the locks today. First, Don saw this chipmunk fall in when the lock was at low water. He swam and tried climbing the walls, but would always fall back in. After being raised up about 12 feet, we thought he had drowned, but then we saw him still struggling. We told the lockmaster, and he got his net and went to save him after we left the lock. He said it was a common occurrence. 

 The second "exciting" thing was our line getting stuck as we were almost to the top of the lock. Don had to get our knife...that we keep handy for such times of need...and cut our line. The port side of the boat popped up so fast when it was freed. We had gone through hundreds of locks over the years...and this was a first!

The Erie Canal at the eastern end has been re-routed from the original canal and it now follows the Mohawk River.  This is the New York State Thruway passing right along the river.

We had hoped to go farther today, but very severe storms were forecast with possible tornadoes, 3 inch hail, and thunderstorms. Plus, we were whipped by the temps in the high 80's with terrible humidity. When the skies started to darken, we stopped at a small marina just west of Scotia around 1pm. The worst of the storms passed north of us, but we had hours of heavy rain.