It has rained for the last 2 days and although I am not sure how many inches of rain fell the Erie Canal is up about 10″‘ The sky looked threatening this morning but it was not raining and the radar did not show any rain moving our way.
We did not have a long run today because we are trying to space out the locks we need to pass thru in one day. Today is 3 locks so it should be easier than the first day on the Canal. A little bit of wind but a lot of current because the Canal drains naturally to the Hudson River so we are going against the current.
The high current almost caused us a problem at one of the locks, E-9. We were trying to avoid some wood in the water and the current and wind almost put us into the lock entrance wall but I backed the boat out and made another entrance attempt and was successful the second time. For the most part the river was smooth between the locks and the only boats we passed were the rowing sculls. They appear to be very popular in the Canal. We saw no other boats on the Canal or in the locks. The 2nd and 3rd locks were waiting for us as the lock master from the 1st lock called and told them we were on the way.
We stopped at Riverlink Park in Amsterdam NY. It is a floating dock alongside the river and a very nicely landscaped park. There is a restaurant here and they cater different types of events in a large tent they have set up on the east end of the grounds. The restaurant also manages the docks, showers and restrooms. The only drawback to Riverlink Park is the railroad tracks immediately to the north of the park. This is a tradeoff because the next two stops were also docks along the river but they had no electrical hookup for the boat. The park does have a bridge over the railroad tracks so the access to town is good. There just seems to be a lot of train traffic. I hope it is limited to the daylight hours.
Tomorrow is supposed to be bright sunshine and high 70’s so we will be moving. We will see how well things go before exactly where we will stop tomorrow night. We may need to sit Monday and Tuesday because of rain and thunderstorms that are forecast for the area. They have had a wet spring around here so the ground is pretty well saturated and most of the new rainfall runs off in to the Canal.