Coxsackie to Troy, New York - 23 miles sailed, 4 kilometres walked
By 7:15 am we had prepped the boat, ate breakfast, kissed Ana goodbye, and were pushing off from the Coxsackie Yacht Club dock headed north up the Hudson to the Champlain Canal. We were excited and energized as Magnus and Curtis got their first taste of the Hudson, dodging partially submerged trees and other debris. The heavy rain yesterday had again flushed a bunch of junk into the river creating hazardous conditions which, as I learned from the Mariner's Alert on the New York Canal Corporation's website, also forced them to close the first four locks of the damn Champlain canal! Sometimes it feels like the world is plotting against you. I try not to take it personally, but crikey, are we ever going to get this boat home?
I called Waterford dock master, which is the town nearest to the start of the Champlain canal to see if they had any space left on their docks. They did not. So we pulled the boat into the free public dock in the city of Troy, which is just north of Albany, ten miles from the Champlain canal, and a hundred and fifty steps from Dinosaur BBQ where Ana, Sina, and I had gorged ourselves on food just two weekends before. We hung at the boat for a while and after a brief disappearance in the cabin, Curtis returned to the cockpit.
"Hey, how do you transfer a dump from that hatch thing on the composting toilet to the chamber," Curt asked.
"What? Wait, did you read the SeaLight Visitor's Manual, page 3?" I said, voice teetering on the edge of alarm.
"I skimmed it," he admitted.
"You're supposed to open the hatch before you drop the load. So what you got there now is an inspection platter."
"Ah yes, I understand. I'll be right back..." he said as he took a few deep breaths then disappeared back into the cabin.
After the cleanup, the boys and I headed into town to see what we could find, and what we found was a food festival. But not just any festival. We stopped at two or three vendor stalls and I was perplexed, as the food that looked so delicious radiated no recognizable buttery or cheesy or porky aromas, and we were aghast to find ourselves in the epicentre of a Vegan Food Festival. The food did look good, but we had just scarfed Wonder bun hot dogs with jalapeno ketchup and cheese strips at the boat so weren't too hungry.
We explored a few of the shops, walked the streets admiring the beautiful architecture of the classic buildings, and stood for a very long time watching a local percussion troup banging drums, snares, triangles, and shakers to a large crowd of swaying onlookers. When we got tired of all that we returned to the boat and started working on the case of Carlsburgs we'd picked up at Duty Free. That went on for a very long time and fueled some magnificent conversations on music, travel, and the art of living dangerously. In fact, the beer drinking went on for so long that pouring ourselves tumblers of tequila took on the illusion of a stupendous idea.
I have no idea when we went to bed. But I do know my stomach was slightly irritated from laughing so much.
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