Waterford, NY
10 September 2008 | Waterford, NY
69 degrees, sunny & fair

After morning coffee and a shower one of the guys that works here came by this morning to tell us we needed to unplug from the power cord. They had stretched a few long lines for the Tugboat Rendezvous that they had over the weekend so all the Tugs could have power. Se la vi... There was a spot on the floating dock with power and water but we decided to stay where we were since we'd be leaving tomorrow. I did manage to take pictures (of course) of quite a few of the tugboats. They even had Bogie's African Queen here (or a rendition of it) that was a wood burning steam engine - pretty cool.
Walked into town. Nice walk - the houses here are old and there are a couple nice parks before you cross the bridge. One has a very nice memorial garden to our armed forces going back to the World Wars with a statue honoring the soldiers and sailors killed. They have an excellent grocery store here. For anyone needing provisions, I've been told that this is the place to come to for your stores and after seeing it - I believe. They're very accommodating to boaters and let you take the cart back to the boat (encouraging you to buy more?) after unlocking the wheels for you. Just tell them at the checkout that you're a boater. It's interesting because as you leave, once you start to leave the parking lot - there appears to be some sort of locking mechanism that kicks in. This prevents people from stealing their carts. So someone from the store follows you out with a control and when the wheels lock, they push a button, and wellla - you can go again. Pretty cool.
While I unloaded the groceries and straightened up (things have gotten a bit lax), Wayne went up top to work. There was an older fisherman up there that was quite friendly and it was neat to just listen to them chatting away - the fisherman talking about family, the town, and Wayne sharing our tale with him. The fisherman had made some comment about not being able to do much anymore but fish because, well, he was 70 and that seemed to say it all for him, when Wayne responded back - Well I'm going to be 70 next year and I'm still out sailing. My wife wants to sail around the world... It was cute.
Later when we were below (after dinner while I was doing dishes) I heard someone discussing the boat - "This is a Bayfield". Ya gotta love it when you hear someone talking fondly about Bayfields, and their merits. I shouted out from below - yes - ya gotta love a Bayfield or something like that and heard "oops, didn't know there was anyone below". Bruce (another Bayfield site member) had buzzed in on a pristine 1957 Chris Craft and was showing his fellow boaters what a Bayfield looks like. It was great chatting with them. Read awhile now time for bed.