Cady Girl

What a beautiful day for traveling the Erie Canal!  And since I keep thinking of the song we sang in grade school about the Erie Canal - following is a link to a U Tube video for your viewing and singing pleasure:  https://g.co/kgs/rZGFzhg We left St. Johnsville a little before 10 am, because the first lock #16 did not open until 10.  Managed that one smoothly!  It had a lift of 20 feet. Then came Lock #17!  It has the highest lift of any lock on the Erie Canal at 40.5 feet.  YIKES.  The process went fine but putting that many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water through the lock system takes about 40 minutes. So that means 40 minutes of holding the boat with the lock lines.  Can anyone say sore hands or back? On to Lock #18 - piece of cake at 20 feet lift! Between all of the locks you may only travel at 5 miles per hour, so we went a whopping 21 miles in 5 hours. We did have a guest rider - a beautiful butterfly joined us! Decided to spend t...

We left Mohawk Marina and motored through 4 more locks arriving in Amsterdam in time to walk around the town and eat a fabulous dinner at Lorenzo's! Italian with a terrific antipasto tray that we took home for another dinner! Amsterdam is rejuvenating itself and has a wonderful walking bridge across the Mohawk River. It is called the Mohawk Valley Gateway Overlook and won an award in 2019 for being one of the Great Public Spaces in America. Below you will find a picture of a flag honoring a veteran.  Most small towns in New York, have these!  It is such a wonderful way to honor these heroes, so I just had to share!  God Bless America! On Sunday, we left Amsterdam and motored 35 miles to St. Johnsville Municiple Marina and Campground.  What a small, serene place. The town actually is a village with a population of 1,643 and closed factories! We walked a mile to buy ice cream, but alas, the drive in was closed.  Still searching for my "ice cream." During that trip...

The Maryland party to celebrate our niece Lauren's High School graduation was a Wigglesworth mini reunion.  Crabs, and more crabs and lots of pool time!  With a super graduation party as a plus. We returned to Shady Harbor Marina in New York on Tuesday and departed there on Thursday!  Weather went from 90+ degrees to drizzling rain.  Motored up the Hudson River past Albany to Lock #1.  Piece of cake!  Then continued on past Troy to dock at the City Docks in Waterford. Only $10 for the night. After a morning of Don doing "boat yoga" in the engine room fixing the generator, we left Waterford and traveled through Locks 2 - 7 to Schenectady and the Mohawk Harbor Marina. When opened in 1915 the "Flight of Five Locks" as those locks are named represented the greatest series of high lift locks in the shortest distance of any canal in the US. What a workout, you basically try to hold your 40,000 lb. yacht against the wall, while the filling water is in turmoil. And...

So sorry for the delay in posting, we've been landlubbers again.  The delay due to the closures of the Erie Canal locks have actually created some interesting adventures!  Let it be a reminder, to always look on the bright side. We left Haverstraw on the morning of June 8th, cruising up the Hudson.  On that ride we passed West Point, Hyde Park, home of the Franklin D Roosevelt and Vanderbilt Mansions, and the IBM campus at Poughkeepsie.  We moored at Rondout Yacht Basin. On June 9th we cruised through the fog (again) to Donovan's Shady Harbor and that's where we are now until June 25th. The Hudson is chock full of "flotsam & Jetsam" floating debris - floating trees, etc.  So, it was fun dodging them in the fog. According to NOAA, flotsam is debris not deliberately thrown overboard, while jetsam is debris deliberately thrown over.  Who knew?? The Hudson traffic is diverse with freighters, oil and gas barges, asphalt and aggregate barges, and cruise ships...

Friday- What a fun day, motoring down the Long Island Sound, the East River, the Harlem River and then finally the Hudson River.  We buddied up with fellow loopers, Kent and Annie from Maine, who have a Mainship Fast Trawler.  They are a delight! Weather was perfect and so was the water, for the most part.  Just a little busier coming back into NYC with ferries, freighters and some large Yachts. The ride through Hell Gate which is a confluence of the Harlem River, and the East River was timed perfectly.  It was so much fun to see the back of Manhattan, Harlem, and the Bronx from the river.  Auto traffic on the highways was backed up, making it probably the first time Cady Girl was moving faster than a car. The ride up the Hudson was HOT - 87 degrees, with high humidity and not much wind.  So, we were glad to anchor at Safe Harbor Haverstraw. I got to stick my feet in the pool until a thunderstorm shut it down.  Saturday - Raining today, so we "Lifted" ...

Today was a first!  I captained Cady Girl out of the slip at the Stamford Yacht Haven.  I could not have done it without Captain Pop Pop's sage advice!  Phew! Weather was perfect and the ride was smooth! We passed several lighthouses and channel bouys with fog bells. Love Port Washington and the weather is finally nice!  Met more fellow loopers - 5 boats total!  Everyone's waiting for the Erie Canal to open and have lots of advice about what we should and shouldn't do. Port Washington's history includes "Baymen", of course, those who created and ran the commercial shellfish industry in 1832. It is also known for its boatbuilding industry starting in the 1920's. But the most interesting aspect of its history, is that it was a key research and manufacturing center of aircraft prior to World War I.  Giant Pan American Airlines Clippers took off from the Manhasset Bay in 1937 and continued to do so during WWII. We head off tomorrow for the Hudson River - HOORA...