A Day Off in Waterford

Waterford – 0 locks, 0 nautical miles, 7 kilometres walking

We decided to give ourselves a day off after our triumphant completion of the Erie Canal. There was just a single lock remaining, but this would be an easy one in the Hudson River that we’d tackle tomorrow on our way to Castleton Boat Club to step our mast.

I popped my head out into the cockpit around 6:30 and there were already vendors setting up their stalls for the weekly farmers’ market so I went out for a walk to have a look around. The Waterford visitor centre was open and I stopped in to pay for the dockage, which was actually free but they charge ten bucks for using electricity. I was hoping they might have some Erie Canal cruising guides for sale I could get for the return trip, as we had been kicking ourselves for being cheap and not buying the Skipper Bob Erie Canal Guide at the Nautical Mind bookstore back in Toronto this summer, but unfortunately all they had for sale was Waterford t-shirts and sweatpants. One aspect of the canal that has surprised me is the limited number of towns that had developed waterfronts on the canal. Most hadn’t seemed to have changed much from the times of heavy industry where the canal was treated like a dumping ground or sewer and they kept it hidden away in their backyards.

We met with Kate and Ben around 9:30 and walked over to the local restaurant for a Sunday brunch fryup. It was a classic American diner – shoddy tables and benches, 70-year-old framed photos of old newspaper headlines, brat pack memorabilia, family photos of the owners, low prices, basic menu, and staff who had had undoubtedly worked there for decades. The place was packed, but they found room for us and the big bags of laundry we were carrying around and we enjoyed a great conversation and some decent enough food.

The next stop was a small commercial centre about a mile and a half away where we picked up some boat stuff at a hardware store, did laundry, had coffee and free wifi at McDonalds, bought some goodies at a liquor store, and nearly bought a half gallon of fancy ice cream we were all going to share, but couldn’t find five plastic spoons anywhere.

We returned to the boats, had lunch, then Ana and I decided we just couldn’t stand the disgusting state of the deck of our boat anymore so we got to work cleaning. Having the mast down and going through slimy locks makes a real mess so it took a while for us to clean all the mud and dirt and lock gunk off the parts of the deck we could access. I also scrubbed the hull from the paddleboard as it had been splattered with substances of all textures and colours. By the end it was starting to look pretty good, but honestly we couldn’t wait to get that mast back up tomorrow so we could properly clean it and convert SeaLight back into a sailboat.

I took the paddleboard for a ride while Mike and Ana chatted in the cockpit. I paddled against a surprisingly strong wind past all the boats and dock into the Hudson, which is a huge river. This river would take us all the way to New York City then into the ocean so it gave me a little thrill standing on my board looking southwards, wondering what adventures awaited us.

We assembled with our buddies for cockpit cocktails and toasted our successful completion of the Erie Canal.