July 18, we were up and ready for the lock operator to get us through at open, which was at 7 am. We completed the remaining locks of the Champlain Canal, entered the Erie Canal heading for the lock at Albany . We were now done with locks and were now in the Hudson River. We finished motoring around mid-day arriving at the Castleton Boat Club with a plan to stay over, stand our mast and be ready to go first thing in the morning. We had lunch at the clubhouse and were second in line to be able to stand our mast. First in line was a guy with a Catalina 30 who was single-handing, so we offered him help in raising his mast. We quickly found out he had no idea how to do this; it was three hours to finally get him stood and able to finish on his own. He finished rigging in torrential rain (no raingear) and after getting later in the day with poor weather, we decided to defer till the morning. He did kindly offer to help us with ours, but we were confident we did not need his help.
July 19, We hoped to start our day with breakfast out (Suzanne was missing proper toast), but there was nothing in the area within walking distance. We did go try, but no luck. The local area seems to be very poor. Beware the trains that pass through at 80 MPH! It was breakfast aboard once back. Taking our time, we had the mast up, cradle disassembled/put away and rigged in an hour. Mike and I did most of the grunt work of getting the mast in place and Suzanne was in charge of operating the gin pole. It was a pretty slow machine, but slow is good with large heavy parts. The cost here was very reasonable. To raise/lower the mast is $55 for use of the pole and dockage is $1.50/ft. It quickly warmed to be a pretty hot day, but we got all sails bent on and the decks tidied up with all covers in place. We looked like a sailboat once again. Yay! We did manage to take a couple of cold beverage breaks to cool down in the clubs bar throughout the afternoon, and once finished had a celebratory beer/wine there as well. The evening was spent more on us recharging to get ready for the rest of our upcoming busy trip.
July 19, We hoped to start our day with breakfast out (Suzanne was missing proper toast), but there was nothing in the area within walking distance. We did go try, but no luck. The local area seems to be very poor. Beware the trains that pass through at 80 MPH! It was breakfast aboard once back. Taking our time, we had the mast up, cradle disassembled/put away and rigged in an hour. Mike and I did most of the grunt work of getting the mast in place and Suzanne was in charge of operating the gin pole. It was a pretty slow machine, but slow is good with large heavy parts. The cost here was very reasonable. To raise/lower the mast is $55 for use of the pole and dockage is $1.50/ft. It quickly warmed to be a pretty hot day, but we got all sails bent on and the decks tidied up with all covers in place. We looked like a sailboat once again. Yay! We did manage to take a couple of cold beverage breaks to cool down in the clubs bar throughout the afternoon, and once finished had a celebratory beer/wine there as well. The evening was spent more on us recharging to get ready for the rest of our upcoming busy trip.
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