Day 295: Wednesday, June 26 , 2013
Port to Port: Kingston, NY
Underway: 0:00 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 0 Stayed At: Marina
Mile to Mile: We finally got some updated information. The good news is the lock system is opening to traffic on Friday. The bad news is the weather forecast is calling for a lot of rain over the next week. To be on the safe side, they are lowering the water levels in the Erie Canal to be ready for any additional water flowing through the system. We have commented every day over the past week here how perfect the weather has been for travel and now we might be traveling and the forecast is all wet. Hopefully it will just be afternoon rain so we can travel in the morning and be done early everyday. We shall see.
Everyone is now in planning mode. When should we leave? Where should we stop? Should we hurry or relax and take our time? Where do we want to be for the Fourth of July? Our “plan” right now is to leave Sunday and anchor out and then go to Waterford for a couple of days to stay at their free dock and explore before heading towards the Erie Canal. This will allow some time for all the boats ahead of us to get through the locks and let things get back to normal.
One of the boats that was been trapped in the locks for this whole time is Help Me Rhonda. They have posted about their experience on their website – it is worth checking out (http://www.wrmcmanus.blogspot.com/). This will probably be one of the most memorable experiences of their trip.
We got an early start today to try to beat the heat. Ron dropped Eddy, Linda, Cindy and me off at Eddyville about 3.5 miles up river by a manmade waterfall. We enjoyed a leisurely walk enjoying the scenery, taking pictures of Eddy in front of the Eddyville sign, checking out the architecture and exploring some of the ruins leftover from this areas heyday. We detoured over the bridge to the Sunshine Café to get a little lunch (and/or ice cream) before getting back to the marina in time for naps (I wish). With lots of time available and nothing to do before our potluck at 5:30 pm, I decided it was a perfect time to figure out how to build a bipod to support our mast when we take it down for the locks. Luckily, I was able to get a long 2×4 right here at the marina and, with the loan of a jigsaw from Carried Away, soon had a custom made mast support all assembled and stored on Aurora’s bow ready for use in a few days.
We ended the day with another successful potluck – this time celebrating the news about the locks opening soon – and we watched the dvd “Hyde Park” in the barn on the computer. We are definitely ready to move on but it is going to be sad to say goodbye to our friends here – we will hopefully meet again but you never know.
