We had a false start this morning turning on the engine 20 min before 8am to go through Lock 11 only to turn it off again but waiting for a motorboat to go up the lock going westbound. Finally, M/V Glazmor from France started up her engines and we got into the lock at a little after 820am. 20 minutes later we exited to start our trip of 37 statute miles before we got to the “Flight of Five” Waterford locks which are 5 step locks that will lower us almost 150 feet total as each lock lowers us between 33-35.5ft and pours us out at the Waterford Visitors Center.

Phil took the first watch while I made eggs easy over with toast for him, and fried eggs and toast for me. Then I washed up the dishes, yes I DO do them sometimes, until we got to Lock 9 which we can tell wash washed out from Hurricane Irene.

It interesting how different the Erie Canal is once you’re in the Mohawk River. Here are some photos before we got to the step locks.

A cliff that had a land slide.

Teenage Rowers

A panoramic view from the helm.

A neighborhood on the water.

Wish I knew what this building is.

The dam at lock 7, which had been destroyed by Hurricane Irene. We had a 27 ft drop in this lock and people were watching from the top.

Guard Gate 2 – had to radio Lock 6 tender and wait for him to drive over to open the gate and then wait for him to drive back to Lock 6 to open the lock.

Boat we saw coming out of Lock 6

Coming into the last lock 2 (besides the Troy Federal Lock)

The Waterford Welcome Center. We can stay here for 2days. They charge $10/day for electricity and since our battery charger isn’t working still, we are using batteries charged with the solar panels.

Changes at dock.

They predict that it takes 2 hours to complete the 5 locks into Waterford, but we made record time of 1hr 15 min as the locks gates were open as we came to the next lock. It’s been busy for the lock tenders. One said they had 13 lock throughs on Saturday.

After checking in we took a stroll down the dock. They didn’t have any problems with flood this past recent rain and have a marker on the Welcome Center marking how high the the water was with Hurricane Irene.

We met Jason and Jessica, who are caretakers of the tug Chancellor and the 1614 replica of a Dutch trader S/V Onrust and then met John on M/V Riverkeeper.

John takes water samples and tries to do what the Hudson River would want them to do to take care of her. He’s been doing this since 2006 and is very passionate. His and other people’s effort sound like they are paying off. He has some important guests and journalists that are coming to visit this week. Good luck to them.

Phil asks do I want ice cream or a big glass of wine to celebrate the completion of first part of our trip. I say ice cream as it’s 94F on the boat. Now that my feet feel better and this post is done, it’s time to go. BTW we have free WiFi here and Phil is already watching his favorite series, Breaking Bad.