Friday, June 26, 2015

New Baltimore, NY


Who ever heard of a town called New Baltimore? We hadn’t until we met the guys who own the Shady Harbor Marina there.  We met them at the Rendezvous, the conference of boaters who are traveling the Great Loop which we attended in Norfolk.  They lured us to their marina with free tee shirts and two for one drink guarantees.  So we chose to stay there as a convenient stopover point on our journey up the Hudson River.  Boaters can be easily bribed! 

On Father’s Day, we took our time leaving Kingston in order to ride the current up to New Baltimore.  Tides, currents, wind, etc. all play big roles in trip planning.  Our friends Chuck and Vickie on Patriot left at 11 a.m.  We left at 1 p.m.  We both travel at the same speed and they arrived at Shady Harbor only 45 minutes earlier than us.  We generally travel at 8 mph but with the current running we were able to travel at 9 1/2 to 10 mph (speed demons that we are)! 

And we passed another Hudson River lighthouse on yet one more scenic Hudson river cruise.

New Baltimore lighthouseNew Baltimore vista

Shady Harbor is a large and comfortable marina right on the river.  There, we joined Vickie and Chuck for dinner at the restaurant at the marina which was surprisingly good! 

The next morning, in the wake of his previous success, Jonny decided to work on fixing the leaky forward hatch while Lynn did laundry.  The latch was leaking slightly onto the V-berth mattress and since we are expecting guests when we arrive in Montreal, we had to get it fixed pretty quickly.  Once again, Jonny came to the rescue by removing and re-caulking  the hatch.  He also ordered a new seal to be shipped to a marina on Lake Champlain.  We’re hoping that that will do the trick but it won’t be fully tested until we get a another heavy rain.

We left Shady Harbor by 1 p.m. headed for Waterford, N.Y. and the real start of our locking adventures!

We passed Albany’s skyline but resisted the urge to stop.  Next time we come by, we need to visit New York’s capital.

Albany skyline 1Albany skyline 3Albany skyline 2

We also passed by the very industrial city of Troy, N.Y.  One of the most interesting waterfront sites was the modern bridge across the river. It was quite an architectural departure from most of the bridges we’ve seen to date. 

Troy bridge

It was in Troy that we traversed the biggest lock on the Hudson, the Federal Lock.  It was fairly intimidating because it was so large and we were so new to the experience.  We had to hold onto our lines for dear life to make sure we stayed close to the sides. We have about 25 more locks to go on this journey so we should be experts by then!

Troy 2TRoy lock 1

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