Day 289: Thursday, June 20, 2013

Port to Port: Kingston, NY

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 0      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First Laundromat with a jukebox in it.

Mile to Mile: Some of the locks are still closed which is pretty much the same thing as all the locks being closed. Everyone is still stuck. Some people are getting antsy, though, and have decided to move farther north even though most of the marinas are full or more expensive. The rumor is that the last locks won’t open until next week – maybe Tuesday. That is going to screw up a lot of schedules. We aren’t suffering any and plan to wait until the locks are completely open to move on. It will take us two days to get to Waterford and we want to spend a couple days there before entering the Erie Canal. Hopefully, the crowds will thin out over this time and we will have a peaceful passage up to the Trent Severn.

Today was laundry day so we joined Spiritus and walked over the bridge to the nearest Laundromat and discovered the nice little hamlet of Port Ewe in the process. We got the loads started and wandered back to an inviting ice cream shop/ restaurant for a snack and Eddy and I headed back to the boats to work on projects while the girls went back to flip the loads into the dryer. I spent several hours cleaning the dinghy – barnacle residue is really hard to get off the bottom. We also have something sticky on top of the dinghy and I tried everything with no success until Eddy rescued me with some magic cleaning solution that took it off instantly. Tomorrow I will spray a couple coats of rubber paint on the stern to try to seal a couple leaks and we will be ready for the rest of the journey.

After our projects were done, we celebrated with an excellent late lunch at Mole Mole, a nearby Mexican restaurant – $10 for a drink and entrée. We finished in time to mix some new refreshments and join our fellow strandees for docktails at 5:00 pm. Several of our new friends are leaving tomorrow morning so it was nice to chat one more time. It will get pretty quiet here but we are glad Eddy and Linda are planning to stick around a little longer.

  We finished the night with a movie (Young At Heart) on Spiritus’ fly bridge as the sun slowly set. A perfect ending to another “busy” day.