Kingston, NY – Waterford, NY - June 22, 2008

Last night we were treated to a concert in the park right beside our boat. A small orchestra played big band music for 2 hours. This is a weekly event in the summer and many townspeople came down to listen to it. They were very good and we enjoyed it. It reminded Beth of the band concerts which were held on Friday nights in Postville.

We were up at 5 this morning and underway at 5:30. We had a long way to go today, 65 miles. The tide would be against us most of the time, so we wanted to get an early start. It’s amazing that the ocean tide can effect the current in the Hudson River all the way up to the lock at Troy which is 150 miles north of New York City. The adverse current caused an average loss of 1 mile per hour over the course of 9 hours. We arrived at 2:30 pm. If we had left at 1pm we would have had an average gain of a little more than 1 mile per hour but we wouldn’t have arrived until about 8 this evening.

The sunrise was beautiful and there were fishermen already up and out. We passed a tug pulling a barge and met several more going down river.

What started as a beautiful morning quickly turned to overcast skies with thunder and lightening in the distance. The weather station called for thunderstorms in the morning with an occasional severe storm. We didn’t run into any thunderstorms or severe weather, but had rain for several hours.

The rain stopped shortly before we reached Albany. We passed Albany on the way to our final destination of Waterford, which is just after the first lock at Troy.

A few miles past the first lock is Waterford, NY. Just before Waterford the Hudson River splits and there is a sign telling you to go left for the Erie Canal and right for the Champlain Canal.

The Waterford Harbor Visitor Center offers a two-day free tie-up, then $10 a day if you stay longer. They have complimentary electric, water and showers. It is quite a deal and many boaters take advantage of it. We plan to stay here a few days to complete boat projects. All the spaces were filled when we arrived at 2:30, but luckily Bob and Margaret were here and let us raft up with them.