We finished our week on the Erie Canal in Schenectady, NY at the Yacht Club in full view of one of the many aqueducts and old bridges we have seen

 on Oct. 13th where Cindy rented a car to drive back to Buffalo with the cats en cage to pick up the truck and then continue on back to Traverse City with an overnight in Port Huron (cats really enjoyed the hotel room and as usual used their own means to open the bathroom levered door into the main bedroom) to run the inn for the rest of the week. On the way she and cousin Jeff passed each other at mile marker 284 on I-90 as Jeff joined Jay on the boat for a week.

  Jeff and Jay finished the Erie the next day traversing down the “Waterfall” , a set of 5 locks in a row dropping a total of more than 125 ft. Then it was on to the Hudson River heading south toward NYC. Their first stop was to put the mast back up turning the Balia back into a sailboat finally. In the first four days they have passed beautiful scenery, quaint towns, West Point,  and dealt with wind and currents testing their docking skills. Jay has indicated Jeff prefers to steer but yesterday he asked Jeff to jump to the dock where the wind was pushing them off, and Jeff said something to the effect of “are you crazy, we are still 12 ft away” (no wonder he wants to be at the helm!).

Today was put the sails on day as the wind died down some. Sunday they will push on past NY Harbor to Sandy Hook NJ and then return to Schenectady to pick up rental car 1 that was left at the Schenectady Yacht Club and then home. Thank you Jeff!!!

 Here are some additional photos they took along the Hudson in the past few days.