Negotiating our first lock!

Yes, we successfully made it through our first lock!

We moved from Albany to Troy on Wednesday (two days ago) which took all of about an hour. Before leaving at noon, we rode our bikes across the river to tour the USS Slater, the last remaining WWII destroyer convoy escort. As you can see, I got to pretend I was firing one of the cannon toward my own boat across the river a couple hundred yards away.

Once in Troy, we got ready for the locks by tying four more fenders to the side rails. The dockmaster at the Troy dock lent us his truck to shop for fender hooks at a marine store 6 miles away. How about that, getting to use his truck!! So, with 7 fenders, we figured we'd be ready for the "harsh" locking experience I'd read about, getting banged around against the walls due to the swirling water.

Then, this morning, I was in the bilge checking the oil and the fuel filter, and I noticed "belt dust" all over everything in the vicinity of the alternator. Sure enough, the alterntor belt was overly loose. So, those who know me won't believe this, but I took my tools down there and actually tightened it! I had to remove a cover, but then the alternator looked as it does on a car engine. And therefore I was able to adjust it similarly to a car engine. When I've looked at that huge, complicated diesel engine, I never figured I'd be able to do anything, but I did! (I do plan to change the oil and fuel filters at 200 engine hours, and I have 180 so far.)

We finally left Troy in the late morning, after watching full replicas of the Pinta and Nina arrive right in front of us on the dock. They were going to have their masts taken down so they could go through the Erie Canal to Syracuse - for what, I don't know.

Within a few minutes of leaving, we approached the Troy Federal Lock on the Hudson River. I called ahead to the lock operator to let him know we were there, and he responded that he would open the lock for us. Sure enough, the big gates started opening! I proceeded in to the empty "bathtub" (see photo), luckily all alone so that if I messed up I'd have room to correct. With no wind, I gently eased Breaking Away to the side and Bruce wrapped a rope around one of the vertical pipes in the wall (see photo). Pretty soon the gates behind me closed, and we started rising. Bruce held on tightly to the rope to keep us against the wall, as he let his rope rise with the boat. I kept touching the boat into forward or reverse to keep Bruce midship, so that neither the bow nor stern could swing outward.

It went like clockwork! The lockmaster walked over, above us as we rose, to get my boat's name and registration number (but no money! It was free, although the Erie has a small cost for a 10-day pass). Pretty soon the lock filled and the front gates opened, and I motored away with a smile on my face. At this point, the Hudson River no longer was tidal. Even in Troy, as in NYC, the Hudson rises and falls about five to six feet four times each day because of the tides. In fact, the Native Americans called the Hudson "the river that flows both ways". It's a relief that we won't need to concern ourselves with tides again until I return here in October.

Before I could even lose my smile and excitement, we arrived after less than a mile at the only directional sign I've ever seen on a waterway. At the confluence of a waterway on the left, the huge blue sign said "Erie Canal" with an arrow to the left, and "Champlain Canal" with an arrow pointing to the right. I turned left. This October I plan to be coming from the right on my way back down the Hudson.

As I headed into the waterway, I could see a few hundred yards ahead the closed gates of the first lock of the Erie Canal. It was massive, and TALL. But in front of it was a long dock on the right, and we tied up. This is the historic town of Waterford, the oldest continuously incorporated city in America (1794). We plan to stay here two days before entering the canal. Once we DO start, we will pass through the first five locks within about an hour. They are so close together, they are called the Waterford Flight, and they will raise us 150 ft, the highest lift in the shortest ditance of any canal in the world! Once we are past the fifth, we will tie up a mile later at a boat club for a week. Bruce will fly home for the week. Janet A. will visit for the first three days, and I'll attend Katie's graduation in Seattle for the next four days. Then, the trip will resume on June 13, and we'll negotiate about 30 more locks before we arrive in Lake Ontario.

In case you didn't know, the Erie Canal is not the same narrow canal you saw in drawings in your 5th-grade textbooks. It has been widened several times since it opened in 1825. It now makes use of a frequently dammed Mohawk River in its eastern portion where we are. So, it will be like cruising on a river with locks getting us past the shallow dams. However, the initial Waterford Flight is a separate canal and we will join the Mohawk River past the fifth lock. On my bike ride across the country, I did get to see portions of the original narrow canal with its tow paths. It was cool.