Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Waterford, NY, Waterford Harbor Visitor Center [Erie Canal MM 0]

We departed Kingston at 8:40am on a calm sunny morning for our 66-mile trip to Waterford chugging along at our normal 10-11 mph. The scenery was gorgeous and the water seemed to barely move. The Hudson River has very limited current at this point and behaves more like a fjord than a river. The Hudson actually is a fjord! Fjords are defined as valleys eroded well below sea level by glaciers, and then filled in by the sea after the glaciers melt. They are the deepest upstream where the glacier’s erosive power was greatest. The Hudson’s deepest point is in the Highlands by West Point where it’s up to 175 feet deep!

As we poke along, it appears to be another boring, uneventful day on the river. But wait, what is that up ahead?

Dah, dah-dah! Rescue on the Hudson (dramatic pause…)

Just south of Albany, we spotted an 18’ power boat with 4 crewmen from one of the local marine service companies. Brian had observed them moving northward and suddenly stop and start messing with their outboard. He watched them make numerous attempts to get underway without success. We approached and asked if they needed assistance. They said their transmission had gone out (been there-done that). They needed to go about 1.25 miles up-river to their towboat area. We asked if they would like us to tow them back to their boat and they said that would be great. Sue rigged up a stern dock line and threw it over to them. They tied the line to the cleat in the front of the boat and were ready to go. 

We put on our headsets so Sue could keep an eye on the towline while Brian was driving. This also allowed Sue to stay in back and talk with the guys in the boat while underway.  Bo provided a tremendous amount of help by barking at the guys in the boat for the first few minutes until he understood this was his new reality. The guys had a good sense of humor about their situation. They commented that they liked our boat name, Bo and Wilson. We were able to do about 6 mph without making their boat swing around too much (it was a flat bottom boat without a rudder, so going too fast would make for an interesting ride). 

It took about 15 minutes to get them back to their towboat area. We dropped them off near their dock as some of their co-workers watched, waved and laughed (and likely prepared to give them grief for being towed back by an old trawler). And that completed our Rescue on the Hudson. We do not expect a movie will come from this.

Our next activity was passing through the Troy Lock (a federal lock operated by USACE) with about an 18-foot lift. Our timing was great, and we got through the lock with minimal delay arriving at Waterford at 4:25pm. 

Waterford is the entrance of the Erie Canal and is trying hard to use that as a reason to visit. It is a nice little town, but still has a way to go to become a tourist location. They had a mule statue that was painted in a variety of colors and designs with local information, and there was a bricked sidewalk (about 100 yards long along the dock wall) that used different colors of bricks to create a map of the NY Canal System.

We went into town for dinner at the Angry Penguin Tavern as storms rolled through. The owner has a thing for penguins, so all sorts of penguin figures, large and small, are displayed around the bar. After dinner it was back to the boat to prepare for our trip along the Erie Canal