Waiting Out Weather & Canal Re-Opening in Catskill, NY

Days 44 -48  ... June 3 - June 8, 2017 ... Catskill Marina, Catskill, NY
We arrived in the afternoon on Friday, June 2nd, at Catskill Marina; Quickly decided to stay a week. We needed to place an Amazon order for delivery, we needed a delivery of things from Annapolis Rip's brother had collected and been holding for us, provision food for the next 10 days or so AND ... time to get some prescription refills. In addition to all these things, there was a lot of rain in the forecast. NOTHING is fast on a boat or when you travel from town to town. Getting docs to call orders in to a new town is not quick or easy as phones must go back and forth and then follow up to  Walmart to see if the order came in and IF they have your drugs. One drug had to be ordered ... so good thing we are staying for a few days. This is the first stop we knew we would be there long enough for an Amazon delivery ... including food for Cally and more poop bags!! Cally wont run out of the food she is used to for another month, but makes me feel good to know it is on board already.

Our view of the tented picnic area with grills and fire pit

View out the river to the Hudson

Marina office ... nice and small!

View to the Showers/Laundry ... VERY close!

Rip grilling ribs for dinner tonight

Ribs ... finally a nice night!!

We are enjoying this cute, almost spotless marina and the quaint town within walking distance. There are several restaurants in town, an ice cream shop, coffee shops and more.

Nice town with lots of stuff

Old fashioned Main Street - NO malls here.

Ice Cream Shop by the River is only .4 of a mile away!!

Cone E Island Ice Cream ... has a tiny State of Liberty!!

The town has CATS decorated by different organizations lining the 8 blocks or so of  Main Street ... Cats ... Catskill ... get it?

Cally is not impressed

Neat mosaic cat

TOO weird for my taste

The marina is run by a really nice couple who live aboard their sailboat. There is a huge fire pit and tented picnic area with gas grills to use. Other loopers are catching up to us and passing on by. We have things to do and to be delivered so we will wait it out.

Included in the delivery from Ham Tyler, our Looper Class of '17 T-Shirts
These T-Shirts have been shipped 3 times to get to us ... they are the most expensive T-Shirts we own
But, I do like it, a lot!!

With the rain in the forecast and water levels already high; The Erie Canal closed Tuesday for approximately 2 days and the Oswego Canal closed Wednesday. Both are closed because the current is too fast with all the water from the rains coming down from higher lakes, creeks and streams feeding into the narrow rivers and canals that make up the Erie and Oswego canals. So, for the safety of boaters, they close the portions of the canals to traffic. Any boaters within the closed area have to stay put where they are or, if in the waterway itself, move to a marina or or town wall until they can move again. With all the folks ahead of us not going anywhere ... we are in no hurry to our next planned stop, because they are full already. We need folks to move on before we can move in.

Meanwhile, we are enjoying meeting other boaters and Loopers here. 2 Boats came in after us, then a group of 3 boats came in together for 2 days. Mikee Likes It, Miss Bailey, and Bajan Speed. Today they left and 3 more Looper boats pulled in their place.

Rain finally stopped ... time to play

Larry, Myron & Rip
Lab Partners peeking out from behind the tree

There is even a tour boat that comes into the creek ... funny to see a tour boat in a small creek like this one.

Tour boat from the Hudson comes into our creek

Not much room between the shoreline and our transom

Not far from us is a working marina that does a lot of un-stepping and stepping of masts for sailboats. Just north of here are bridges that we can fit under, but sailboats can not. So, the have their mast taken down (un-stepped) and stored on the sailboat to transit either the Erie Canal or the Champlain Canal. Some sailboats have come in to have their masts put back in place (stepped) to continue south and actually sail again.

Boat 3rd from left is in the process of having their mast dropped
There is a crane on land to lower the mast

Boat to left & boat 2 from the left have their masts down now.
Look close and see a cradle is built on each boat to keep the mast up off the deck

To slow us down even further ... we just made plans to stop at a yacht club between us and the Erie Canal (Troy/Waterford NY) that is having a weekend festival including LOBSTER!! The new Loopers aboard Kia Mae and Firestorm told us about it. So, off we will go on Friday with them. Stay tuned.