Ben, Kate, Jim, Nice Lady, Angry Man, and Lock Flunkies

Little Falls to Amsterdam – 7 locks and 35 nautical miles

Today, Mike came to fully understand the essence of sailing – hours of unrepenting and relentless boredom broken up by brief moments of terror, chaos, panic, and confusion. There was nothing particularly boring or awful that happened today, but he had noticed this pattern developing and told us of his discovery. So exciting seeing a sailing puppy transitioning into a salty dog.

 

This morning’s fog was the thickest we’ve seen yet and I had to cruise at low speed to provide time to dodge the floating debris and submerged trees. We cruised to St Johnsville and stopped at their tidy little marina to fill up with diesel, water, and get a pump out. The lady working there was lovely and practically begged us to stay for a while, visit the local breakfast and coffee joint and explore the town. If it were three in the afternoon, we surely would have, but it was morning and we wanted to make some miles and locks today.

 

At lock 15 we started to wonder if there was a social scale or some sort of penalty system used in the New York State Canal System’s assignment of lift operators. First of all, this lock had a measly 8 foot drop, which was far lower than the rest we’d encountered so far, which had ranged from about 15 feet to 47 feet. The lock seemed shorter and narrower too. So it would make sense that the lift operator assigned to this less monstrous apparatus would be either a rookie or a flunkie.

I think this particular lift operator may have been a flunkie. We sat for a long time outside the lock waiting for him to open the door. He seemed to be playing on his phone and had forgotten there was a boat there. When he finally opened it we floated in and got the boat prepped while he slowly shuffled from one end of the lock to the other. He seemed disillusioned and disinterested, far different from the chipper, competent, and ultra friendly lock masters we’d encountered so far. The water dropped and dropped and finally settled, then we sat and waited for the doors to open. Our man was really focused on his phone now, and I have a feeling he was deep in the middle of a game of LockMaster Pro, an app designed to retrain lock flunkies. Anyway, I hope he does well and gets promoted up to a 15 foot lock someday.

 

Lock 14 confirmed our suspicions. This one too had an eight foot drop, and the reason we know is that there is a huge sign at each lock stating the elevation drop plus the distance to the next locks both eastbound and westbound. Mike tested her.

 

“Excuse me, what’s the elevation drop in this lock?” he asked her as he looked over at me and winked.

 

“Oh. I’m really not sure.”

 

Flunkie. But at least she was fast on the controls and got us in and out quickly, so she may be close to a promotion.

 

We arrived at our destination for the day – Amsterdam, New York, and got tied up to their wall and found three full dock pedestals complete with 15 amp, 30 amp, and 50 amp power…all free. We locked up the boat and went for a walk to explore the town. Within ten minutes we had already met three people. Jim, the friendly self-proclaimed mayor of Amsterdam who was hanging out in the park in his truck with a bunch of his buddies in their trucks, drinking coffee, water, and White Claws. Jim literally ran out when he saw us, blocked our path, and starting talking, asking questions, getting the scoop. He was a very nice feller. After giving us directions to the best local restaurant, he let us leave then two minutes later we met a lady by the railroad tracks waiting to cross the very busy road. She gave us a rundown of the entire history of Amsterdam and was lovely and helpful. As we were talking to her, this guy driving down the street swerved over and came to a screeching halt in front of us, opened his window, furiously pointing at a big building behind us under construction that we had barely noticed, then started yelling.

 

“Look at that goddamn boondoggle. Millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on that goddamn thing. That’s why this country is going broke, goddamn boondoggle, this place is a fucking cesspool!” Buddy’s eyes were bugging out and the veins in his neck were blue and pulsing. He cursed a bit more then hit the gas pedal and left in a cloud of dust.

 

“Do y’all have a lot of people like that here, or is he the only one?” I asked the lady.

 

“We’ve got some strange people here.”

 

We parted ways and walked for a few blocks, but saw nothing but beaten up rental Frankenhouses, angry young men with tattoos and face piercings driving around in jacked up trucks or low rider El Caminos with their stereos blasting, weird Halloween decorations in windows in yards, and a whole bunch of TRUMP -- JD VANCE -- Save ‘Merica Great Again yard signs, or something like that. We cut the walk short and returned to the boat before we ended up buying mushrooms or meth, but not before Jim the mayor ran out and cut us off again and started telling us about the boondoggle project. He let us go, then raced back over a few seconds later to tell us about a pair of bald eagles that frequented the area. He even showed us some great pictures he took of them.

 

Shortly after that a sailboat pulled in - it was Ben and Kate who we had met briefly two days before. We had them over for drinks and had a joyous time – really, really liked them, and we exchanged plenty of stories. Turns out they had just gotten married last Friday at Kingston City Hall so today was their Weekiversary. We had a nice toast to that.