August 13, 2011 - Schuylerville, NY to Kingston, NY

Another long day today (9 1/2 hours) and it's starting to feel like we are driving to Florida only a whole lot slower. The crew has been asked to report in today to give her accounting of our final passage through the locks. You see in all of these annual trips and over the course of the last month, I have never brought the boat into the lock and close enough to tie up for the up/down lift. What better time than now, I ask.

The captain will readily admit that I do a very good job at running the boat, that I run the boat a lot, and that I'm really good at crewing during locking and tieing up. When it comes to actually bringing the boat to the lock wall, he will succinctly (and accurately, I'm afraid) say that I suck at this. I can't get used to the boat not having brakes so I kind of throw the boat into big-time reverse. In other words, I goose it instead of going ever so lightly. There is not a lot of room for this kind of error in a lock. In spite of my horrible performance in lock 4, we decide I should try one more. After all, we're never going through any more locks again. It was a slow day on the canal, so this at least affords the lock master a few yucks. Almost there when I gave it one more blast for old times' sake. So, yes, I really do suck at this and have yet another reason never to go through 100 locks or thereabouts in one trip. To give credit where credit is due, the captain was a very good sport about all this and fended Blue Belle off from all the damage I almost did.

Waterford, NY (The "other" Waterford) at the end of the Champlain Canal

The Federal Lock and the final lock of the trip

Mid-Hudson Lighthouse

"Bella" at Roundout Marina, Kingston, NY

Tomorrow will be a short day. Rain in the forecast.

Full set of pictures are at: https://picasaweb.google.com/golphinut/201107BlueBelle02?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Click on any of the photos above to enlarge them.