Just above Catskill there is a large island in the river called the Middle Ground Flats. If you take the channel to port, you end up in shoal waters. This beautiful lighthouse marks the south end of the safer starboard channel for the big boats.
The town of Hudson featured this picturesque waterfront and had a small tour boat tied up at the quay.
The southbound parade continued with a set of three Ranger Tugs following one another. This is the smallest of the three. It fits a standard size trailer and can be easily moved down the highway from cruising ground to cruising ground. We liked her because her color scheme is similar to Broad Reach, but we need a red canoe on top to complete the ensemble for our boat.
We knew we were closing in on Albany when we saw this canalboat headed down river. Before we moved to Maryland, we had debated renting one of these on the Erie. There are a number of companies and locations on the Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal that offer these narrow boats.
The south end of the river near Albany is very commercial. The port is the northern terminus for most of the large barge traffic that we had been dodging for the last several day. These cormorants did not seem to mind the huge pile of recycled steel behind them.
The river is pretty narrow going through the Port of Albany. It was a little intimidating to pull past all those huge barges at close quarters. None of the tugs were underway, but a few were actively making steam, with smoke coming out of their stacks as we slid quickly by. These two were all quieted down for the night.
Turning past the oil storage area and refinery we were greeted with this view to port.
And to remind us that this was a gritty working port, when we looked to starboard we saw this on the eastern shore.
Above the working port the views became more citified.
We sure felt sorry for the guy who had to move from Maryland to New York by land instead of by sea. He must have gotten hijacked along the way, cause somebody lost his U-Haul truck for him, really and seriously lost it.
But even those who regularly travel by sea can lose things. Look what the United States Navy lost all the way up the Hudson River.
The view looking back from the river to the capital is pretty cool.
And if we ever live on a barge in a river, I want it to be done in the Japanese style of building like this one. This was just a few blocks above the Capital Theater.
The upper Hudson and the Erie Canal took a lot of flood damage during Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. The high water mark was evident on most of the bridge abutments above Albany. Check out how high the piles are on these pilings.
The marina we had planned to stay at on Saturday night in Troy was below the Troy Federal Lock.
We were not sure we could make it to the lock by nightfall, but we soon discovered we had no choice. The Troy Municipal Marina had been wiped out completely by the flooding. We motored past downtown Troy in the late afternoon. The riverbank showed the remnants of our hoped for marina.
We decided together that Niki would take the helm to pilot the boat into the locks, while I grabbed lines and stanchions on the lock wall. We got the green light at the bottom of Troy Federal Lock and she motored us slowly into our first concrete bathtub. The Troy lock has no lines to keep the boat centered. There are large vertical tubes built into the lock wall. By running a line from the deck cleat on top of the doghouse behind the big steel tube and then forward, we were able to safely ride up the rising current as the lock filled. The lock master came down for a chat and to obtain the boat registration numbers. He congratulated us on our first ever successful locking through. We were too busy in the locks to get many pictures, but here is the view as we left heading to North Troy. The lock tower and exit are just below the backstay on the far right side of the snapshot.
We were trying to call around for a marina for the night, since our plan A was washed away in the flood. Niki's call to the old number for the Troy Municipal Marina somehow got switched to a part of the NYS DMV. The gal on the other end of the line responded to our predicament with three suggested possibilities for dockage in North Troy. The Troy Motor Boat and Canoe Club told Niki we could tie up for the night. This is a private club that does not usually do transients, but it was directly across from the entrance to the Erie. A club member met us at the dock as darkness was gathering, made sure we were safely tied up for the night and hooked up to shore power, and gave us a recommendation for a restaurant four blocks away.
If you are ever in North Troy and you like Italian, you must, you must, you must, go to Testos Restaurant on 4th Ave. Our waiter Mike was a real professional. When I quipped that the entrees were the size of Rhode Island, he quipped back that I should have read the gluttony disclaimer at the bottom of the menu. Huge home cooked Italian dishes served in a casual family atmosphere and the place was packed to the walls. Good wine and great gnocchi made a long day seem well worth the effort.
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