Our Day in Waterford!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 74 - June 13, 2017

Waterford Visitor Center

Daydream among the big dogs!

We decided to stay another day in Waterford, since we really had not looked around much yesterday. We moved up from the concrete wall to the floating dock, as several of the boats there had moved on.  The floating dock is 1,000 feet long and directly below the Visitor Center. The dock is free but there is a $10 charge for power. As the day went on, we got sandwiched in between the big dogs on the floating dock!

The first thing we did was to walk up to Lock E-2 (there is no Lock E-1!) and watch how it works. For westbound traffic, all the water is released, which creates quite a bit of turbulence below the doors. Then the doors open and the water level in the lock is the same as the water level outside the lock. Boats come in, and tie to a cable in a groove in the wall on either side. Then the lock begins to fill, and the boats are raised up 34 feet. When the lock is full, the doors on the other end open, and the boats drive out. I made a quick and dirty iPhone video with minimal editing in Final Cut Pro.

Original Champlain Canal

The lockmaster pointed us to the remains of the original Champlain Canal dating from about 1860. It consisted of three chambers and was very narrow - it is hard to imagine boats fitting in this narrow lock! The areas where the lock doors used to be remain visible. Today this former canal functions as an overflow for excess water above Lock E-2.

Yesterday evening when I was walking Baxter along the promenade, I stopped to chat with a Waterford bicycle police officer - I liked him right away, he had dog treats in his pouch! I asked him about restaurants and supermarkets. He told me there was a nice but expensive restaurant called McGreavey's but all the locals ate at Don and Paul's, which he said had great food at very reasonable prices. I later went into the Visitor Center to look at menus, and the lady working there also volunteered that if we didn't mind a very plain atmosphere, Don and Paul's had the best food. Who am I to question the locals? So we had lunch there - a bacon cheeseburger was $4.00 and a Mason Jar of iced tea was $1.50. Well, they called it a Mason Jar but actually is was a Ball Jar, but it was a full quart and very good, so who cares what kind of jar it really was? We got out of there for a total of $11.00 for both of us for lunch! 

Don and Paul's Restaurant

After lunch we wandered over to fellow Loopers Rip and Beth Tyler's Monk 36. They had downsized to this boat from a 50 footer. After the Loop, they plan to downsize again, and they are considering a Rosborough or possibly a C-Dory. I suggested that that they probably should look at a Rosborough and a C-Dory Venture 26 instead of a C-Dory 25 Cruiser, since although we love our 25, it truly is the Volkwagen of pocket cruisers. If we were interested in a trawler, a Monk 26 would be on our short list! 

Isaac Eddy House - 1826

While we were there, we took a look at the dinner menu and decided to return for dinner!  We both had the scallop dinner, eight or so large scallops perfectly pan fried in butter, with two sides, for $11.95.  If we were going to be here tomorrow morning, we probably would go back for breakfast - two eggs and toast for $2.00, adding sausage or bacon would bring it up to $3.50. We did not see many boater types in there, they were probably all at McGreavy's. Walking over for dinner, I took a picture of the Isaac Eddy House from 1826. Mr. Eddy's claim to fame was that he invented the process for pulverizing the ingredients for printer's ink. He evidently did very well, since even now 150 years later, his house is still pretty impressive!

We don't really know how far we will go tomorrow - we have to do the "flight of five," Locks E-2 through E-6, and stopping before transiting E-6 is prohibited. These locks lift boats a total of 169 feet in a distance of just under 2 miles, and the guide books say it takes 90 minutes to 2 hours to go through all five. We'll be trying for Scotia, about 24 miles from here, but in addition to the flight of five, there are two other locks, so we will be playing it by ear tomorrow!