Burntside Adventures: In the Erie Canal

The past 3 days we have left NYC worked our way up the udson and into the Erie Canal. We pulled out of the marina in Jersey City at 0500 Monday morning and it was beautiful as the sun came up. The lower Hudson Valley has a lot of relief and the Pallisades are cliffs that line the bank. It's also very deep, 100 feet plus at times. As we went north, the Catskills became apparent, geographic relief we have not been accoustom to seeing. Made camp and anchored mid Hudson at Saugerties, a small town on the west bank. It has significance because it marks the end of salt water, although the tide will persist to Troy at the first lock. The next day passed through Albany and the upper Hudson which was much less scenic. From the water it is pretty unimpressive, lots of tank farms and industrial dockage. Got to Troy mid afternoon and locked through, and entered the flight of locks at Waterford, taking us up 5 steps of 35 feet each, all over a two mile stretch. We pulled over for the night at the top of the 5th lock, tying up to the lock wall there. A bike/running trail parallels the canal most of its length, so Cindy got a run in and I biked back to Troy to the NAPA store to pick up an oil filter and changed the oil on the main engine yesterdy morning. It was easy getting to NAPA, but the return trip was like biking up Knuutti hill for 3 miles. Yesterday we proceeded west on the Mohawk River portion of the Erie Canal, and camped at the wall on the upper end of Lock 12. The Mohawk River is gorgeous, green, wooded with hardwoods and lots of farms nestled on the banks. Today we'll continue west for a full travel day as far as we can get, hoping to get to Oswego by tomorrow night. A note to anyone with android or apple devices, we are locatable on NEBO. It is a free downloadable app but not windows compatable. You can then type in our boat in the search box and see where we are in real time.