Cold Spring Harbor, NY - Around 1400 hours, we began our orientation with two of the Mid-Lakes Navigation staff. They had a thorough checklist and explained almost all facets of the boat's operation. We then left the dock to begin some on-the-water demonstrations and checkouts. They had us maneuver the boat, stop it from full steam, turn around in the canal channel, and dock. Two or three other boats were going through the same drills nearby.
The next phase consisted of motoring to lock
24 at Baldwinsville
where we locked through on 
our
own under the watchful gaze of the instructors.
After that drill,
we docked at the west end of lock 24 for
some final paperwork,
then they let us go. They won't leave you
until both you and they
are satisfied you can handle the boat. We
were asked repeatedly
if we had any more questions. We did, but
they didn't occur for
a couple of days.
We signed all the necessary papers and checks, bid goodbye to our instructors, and we were on our own at 1630. The checker-outers said many people spend the first night tied up at lock 24. However, the day was beautiful, we had a good 4 hours until sunset, and we were anxious to use the boat, so we were determined to go somewhere.
Here is the able bodied crew locking us through our debut.
At this point, we could have used some more help. We felt we could handle the boat, but we weren't sure where we could spend the night since we were unfamiliar with the territory. We had been told that we could tie up at (almost) any lock, but we couldn't reach the next lock westbound before sundown.
I chickened out and phoned a marina on Cross
Lake, about 2 
hours west. It turned out there were
lots of anchorages on the lake, and the dock
space was unnecessary.
However, we did take advantage of the restaurant
adjacent to the
Cross Lake Marina where we had a quite good
meal, better than
we expected. The Shrimp Diablo was quite
good, about 2-Tums on
the heartburn scale (from the spices, not
bad cooking).
After dinner, we were entertained by Frank's boys at the marina who happily demonstrated their spud gun. My wife suspects our dock fees were used to purchase the bag of salt potatoes used for projectiles, but I accept no responsibility. When we arrived, they were spud less; an hour later, the artillery was blasting away. The carp probably enjoyed the spuds, though. They were very busy spawning, so they probably were hungry.
We spent a quiet night, interrupted mainly by the splashing and thrashing of the carp spawning in the shallow waters nearby.
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