Our plan was to leave at dawn to make the 70 mile trip to Waterford. The run includes one lock (Troy Lock) and we would be going against the current. Waterford has a free dock wall that is first come, first serve. With all of the other loopers in the creek, we wanted to try to beat them to make sure we got a spot (sorry, fellow loopers… you know how it is).

When we woke up, however, it was just starting to sprinkle. A quick look at the radar showed a huge splotch of red about to move over us. Shortly thereafter, that blotch of red started to pour rain on us. We decided to wait about an hour for it to let up.

At about 7 AM, it was still raining steadily, but it was not storming anymore. Donning our rain gear, we pulled the hook and got underway.

As we entered the Hudson, the wind was blowing. There were some waves that made for a bouncy trip, but on the bright side there was very little boat traffic. We were pushing into about a 2 mph current, so it was slow going. After a few hours, the rain cleared. It remained a bit windy, but ended up being a pretty day to sail.

The trip north was uneventful. We passed a couple of large boats and small marinas. Coming into Albany, the riverside got very commercial, but there still wasn’t very much traffic.

North of Albany, we got to our only lock of the day. When we radioed in, he was just letting a couple of northbound boats out of the lock and had to turn it around. We idled just south of the lock for about 25 minutes before the doors opened and we entered in on our starboard side with a wind pushing us forward.

This was our first experience with a pipe lock. There is just a single pipe per boat running vertically up the wall. We had to put a line around it and then make sure it slid up as the water moved us up. Since we don’t like to twist a lot, we actually wrapped three lines around the pipe to different cleats and monitored them to make sure they didn’t catch. We had line cutters ready just in case.

After we got to the top, the doors opened and we were on our way. From the lock to Waterford is only about three miles. We passed by the Green #1 marker, which marks the easternmost point of our Loop.

Turning into the Mohawk River and the Waterford docks, we spied 3 or 4 empty spots on the dock and a couple more on the wall. We pulled up to the dock in a spot on the easternmost end closest to the Hudson. By now there was a stiff wind pushing us forward, but Wendy’s masterful line handling had us quickly secured.

After checking in with the very nice volunteers who staff the welcome center and paying a flat $15 for power and shower/bathroom access, we explored a little. We went across the Hudson to the grocery store. The store will let boaters take a cart back to the dock and leave it there for pickup later. We didn’t need anything, but just wanted to look.

Crossing back into Waterford, we stopped for dinner at Ze Cuisine. It’s a little diner place with a bakery where we had a delicious and inexpensive meal. After dinner we went to walk around Lock #2 that we would be traversing the next day. They allow people to walk right up on the lock and across the doors. It’s the closest we had ever been to a lock outside our boat and it was really cool to see the engineering.

After the lock we crossed the Mohawk River to Peebles Island State Park. It’s just a small island between two forks of the mouth of the Mohawk. It has nice trails and very tame deer. It also has the remnants of Revolutionary War fortifications.

Worn out, we returned to the boat to settle in for the night.