• Todays Trip Day 12
• Start 8:20am
• End 12:05pm
• Underway 3:08 hours
• Distance 21.5
• Av Speed 6.8

We left Shady Harbor Marina today to head to the Erie Canal. It is only about 22 miles but we encounterd our first lock. While we were both apprehensive about the lock, it was very simple.

Most of the trip was the very picturesque, that we have become use to on the Hudson River. While there were a couple of comercial docks, there were not many. The first large scale comercial area we encountered was at at Coeymans, were we saw the largest boat lift that I have ever seen. The lift had a capacity of 825 metric tons. I am use to seeing boat lifts, in the 30 to 70 ton range. This thing was massive and looks to be used to pull large tug boats out for repair.

Not much later we came to Albany, and the Port of Albany was surprisingly large. For all of the commercial traffic we saw on the river, there did not seem to be that much, until we got to Albany. Passing Albany we came across island, which looked to be recently developed with condominiums, and the Island was name Starbuck Island. Is Starbucks branching out from coffee to islands?

Right after Starbuck Island, we saw the approach to our first lock. The Troy Federal Lock. The lock raises (or Lowers) you 14.5 feet on the Hudson River to bypass The lock was open and ready for upbound traffic so we were able to proceed right into the lock. We were one of two boats in the locks, and it looked like we were going to have a quick passage thru the lock. The lock doors were just about closed, when they operator opened them up again, and told us there were a few more joining us in the lock. Four more boats joined us including a couple of Loopers we had meet the night before. After locking thru we had a short 2 mile trip to the Waterford Visitor Center, the start of the Erie Canal, and a free dock for us to stay on.

Shady Harbor Marina was a very nice stop. The docks were some of the best docks we have stayed on so far. We spent most of the day in the pool with other loopers, including the crew of Ginger Gale who we passed coming up the river.

Shady Harbor has a loner car which we borrowed to go get groceries. We did not need much, but decided to take advantage of the car while it was there.