Thursday June 12th, we traveled 54 miles from the Hudson River Maritime Museum Marina to the Albany Yacht Club.
Unlike Marlboro, the Albany Yacht Club is a somewhat sleepy place, no big greetings from the Commodore here. But the harbormaster Ron was a great guy, and helped us get fueled & safely into our slip under somewhat high winds & no dock pilings between you and your neighbor boat.
The Yacht Club is very pretty, has a nice pool, and supposedly great stuffed pork chops this Friday night.
After getting settled in, doing some laundry, and cleaning up a bit – we strolled into town to a place called the Illusive Restaurant. It was not that illusion, because me & Jonell had been there in 2018. When we entered, we saw a guy at the bar from the Yacht Club named Dave. So we shinnied up to the bar and ate there. Dave was an awesome guy and bought the first round of drinks for us.
After dinner I had a special treat. I was able to hook up with my investment broker’s neighbor Steve Murdock & tour his beautiful 55ft Fleming. Kind of a strange story, but my broker Randy Eschels is following our trip. Randy’s next door neighbor in Bloomfield Hills Michigan is doing the Great Loop – his name is Steve Murdock. So a couple days ago Randy attempted to hook us up. As luck would have it, we both ended up at the Albany Yacht Club at the same time. To further amplify the coincidence, while getting to know Steve, I found out that Steve is also good friends with my Detroit Power Squadron pals – Vince & Delphine Cooley. Steve/Vince/Delphine are all members of the Great Lakes Yacht Club in St Clair Shores Michigan. Once again we find out that “IT’S A SMALL WORLD” in the boating community.
I spent about an hour on Steve’s beautiful 55ft Fleming Yacht – getting to know Steve, drinking Tequila, & touring the boat. The boat is beautiful, but the engine room is spectacular !!!
Ok , time for The Big News Update. We had heard rumors yesterday & confirmed this morning (Friday the 13th 😲), that the ERIE CANAL LOCKS #16 & #17 ARE NOW OPEN !!!
Fire up them motors, it’s time to roll on. We have a very aggressive schedule over the next few days, because they’re is always the ongoing risk that the locks could close again if the fixes to the embankment between Locks #16 & 17 leaks to much.
So our plan for the next 3 days is ; Sat = Locks #1-7 (7 Locks, 31 miles), Sun = Locks #8-15 (8 Locks, 50 miles), Mon = Locks #16/17/18 (3 Locks, 20 miles).
You may ask – why not just do a very long day and go from Lock #1 to Lock #17 ?
The answer is that going thru Locks & bridges that have to be raised, is a very time consuming process. Our 7-8 locks per day plan, will be full 8 hour days long. And you have to coordinate marina or anchorage stops along the way & the options are much less than on the Hudson River.
That’s all for now from Albany NY.
Oh, BTW – we did have the Stuffed Pork Chop at the Club tonight. It was very good. We were also treated to enjoy our dinner with our new Looper friends Ted/Beth from Wastin’ Away & Steve from the vessel Patriot.
Nitie Nite 😴
Mike, Deena, and Jerry
gettinlooped2017.com 