Waterford, New York

Well, we've made it to Waterford. This is the beginning of the Erie Canal system. After our boat repair in Kingston we moved on up the River to Saugerties where I was able to put in all of those pictures. That night we went out to the local movie theatre and saw the most recent Harry Potter movie! All the posters said it was to come out in 3 days but for some reason it was already playing there!! It was great and the kids loved it. The next day we moved on a few hours further and anchored in Shodack creek. It was great, no one there, trees on both sides, no houses or roads visible. We stayed for 3 days and swam off the boat and had a campfire with roasted marshmellows on land. We decided to read book 6 of Harry Potter again as the last book comes out very soon. So during the 3 days I read aloud for the whole family and we read it together. We had a great time. The weather was hot and perfect for swimming and we had no one around.
After this we moved on to Castleton-on-the-Hudson. The only reason to stop here is to drop the mast. It actually went very smoothly and our mast stands were still there too! We left the stands at the marina in the back and they were perfect and waiting for us. The crane is all manual and do it yourself, we had quite the audience watching us too!
So now we've gone through the government lock at Troy and no more tides and all fresh water. On to Lake Ontario!!
Rumour is that they are continuing to not charge for the locks so that works out well for us.
We've really had a great trip. Both Rob and I and the kids are all very happy that we did this. It's been a great adventure. Working our way up the coast slowly was great and important as the trip down was so rushed. We definitely had trials and challenges but we made it through and the family is much stronger now because of it.
We'll stock up here on some groceries and likely in a week or so will be in Lake Ontario.