In Waterford, NY

We are into our first full day in Waterford.  Phil woke me.  We had showers.  The water had a good force, but there must have been many who had the same idea earlier than us and the water was just lukewarm.  But we are clean and it wasn't cold water so all is well.  We gathered together the laundry as the Clinton Laundromat is on 4th street and Broad and half a block from Ron and Paul's Coffee Shop where we had breakfast.  Our plan was to put the clothes in the washing machine and eat breakfast while they washed and it worked out great as we were back in time before the washers had stopped.  It's my opinion that anytime we have a laundromat that's in close walking distance, we should take advantage of it.  We ate at the counter for breakfast since we came at a busy time.  Who would have figured that 930am on a Monday was a busy time?  The gentleman next to me drives a school bus, so this was the time that he was finished with the morning route.  He and many others are regulars there  as it's also across the street from City Hall.

After we returned, we moved Changes to in front of the Visitors Center away from the Lock and most of the bouncing from the current.   Phil called Interstate Batteries about 1115am and after they found out that we live on a boat, they were able to deliver the 4 new 6 volt golf cart batteries to us by 130pm.  The following data is for the techies that read the blog.  It turns out that they are more heavy duty, 232 amp hours per battery than the old ones which were 210amp hours per battery and have a lower profile. The old batteries are six years old placed in service Aug 2004 and Mike from Interstate Battery Co expects these new ones built Aug 2010 should last us 10 years.  Phil thinks if we're living on the boat the whole time, that we would be lucky to get 5 years out of them.  Time will tell.  While Phil took out the old batteries and put them on the dock I decided to work on knitting my sock.  I'm working on the gusset part after turning the heel. 

Phil and Mike of Interstate Battery Company, delivering batteries

New batteries have green top

These batteries are heavy!  3#'s more

After the batteries were delivered and installed, we had lunch of sandwiches and cut up Apples.  Phil had gotten the dinghy ready for us to go to the grocery store earlier, so off we went.  We went to a wooden dock that had to boats from Montreal Canada at dock.

Went to a store that had discounted bread products and cookies, got in the dinghy and went down to the Price Shopper Grocery Store Dinghy dock, which is where we were headed to in the first place. 

Dinghy at Price Shopper Grocery Store Dinghy Dock

Entrance into Erie Canal

Changes and Leeway II in front of Waterford Visitor Center

We came back and now I'm doing the blog and Phil got products to start cleaning the hull as Changes is very dirty.  I may start to clean off the life lines with this new vinyl cleaner.

The weather is warm enough that for the first time maybe since we left I'm in the convertible pants and T-shirt.  No Layers!!  The sun is shining - no clouds in the sky and there is a breeze from the north.

Cindy from Leeway II ( is a yawl type sailboat) said they have reservations at Riverside Marina in Catskill, NY on the Hudson River to have their 2 masts raised on Wednesday, so they will be leaving early tomorrow morning.  Riverside Marina is 40 miles away.  They are charging $2/ft of mast to step the mast (raise and put it on the boat for non-boaters) plus $1.25/ft to dock per night.  At that price, Phil's thinking of us going there also and hope to get reservations to step the mast on Thursday. That would give us one day in Troy, NY.

Dinner will be left overs- maybe the tuna pot pie as it's taking up a lot of room in the refrigerator.