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Hudson River Current Location: Portsmouth NH Date: September 22 to September 26 Mile: 2588-2728 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Albums: Haverstraw, Kingston, Catskill, Waterford |
Haverstraw (Sep 22)
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I think they get to bring
their own beer too!
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Given the distance to Haverstraw and the tides/currents, we
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Those are people all over
this it is huge.
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| General Grant Memorial |
Finnish Line followed suit, and after a little while we were on our way. As was our arrival in the East River, our exit up the Hudson was lumpy and bumpy because of all the ferry, barge and other traffic. It took a few hours before the water began to calm down .
Our passage to our anchorage at Haverstraw was straight forward. There were a few barges we had to keep clear of, but the river is wide and navigation is easy. We passed mile after mile of housing on the north-west side of Manhattan, and similar, but more modern-looking equivalents on the NJ side.
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New Tapanzee bridge with the old
bridge piers being removed
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Between the two bridges are The Palisades. The impressive cliffs on the west side of the Hudson.
Rail tracks follow the east side of the Hudson shore here, and passenger trains pass here regularly. Tarja surely passed over these tracks on her way into the city. Not a bad view for the train traveler.Our anchorage for the night is a small, nicely enclosed bay right near the town of Haverstraw. There is no depth information on my Garmin chart, but Navionics has some detail and the sonar option shows things quite well. Good thing too, because there are Active Captian reviews that report that the "obstruction extends well further into the harbour than charted". Bob had some track information from "Pokeepsie Bob" that helped ensure an event free entrance and anchoring.
We set anchor with a few other boats in the bay, most of which left by sundown. The anchorage was peaceful all night until my anchor alarm went off. Luckily this was only due to floating in sort of random directions due to lack of wind.
Not long after, a series of very loud horns at 7am woke everyone up anyway.
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| Sleepy Hollow Lighthouse |
Anchorage near Kingston (Sep 23)
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Firmly aground on the brick pile
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Today we continue up river. We may push for a 40 nm day, but depending on current and weather (some rain and thunder storms predicted), we may stop short.
At this point the river is about 0.5 nm wide, sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less so the navigation is easy. For many stretches, there is good water from edge to edge. At other times, when the river takes a bend, you have to be a little more careful. But it is well marked and straight forward. The traffic is less here, although there is regular barge traffic. We also passed a handful of Canadian boats heading south to enjoy a winter (or more) in warmer climates.
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| Bannerman Castle |
West Point Academy, the Newburg-Beacon bridge, an enormous gravel plant (no doubt the source of many of the barges we've seen), the Culinary Institute of America (a huge fancy building), Bannerman Castle (on it's own island), various other large estates and mansions, and lots and lots of trains. The tracks go down both sides of the river around here, and passenger trains rumble passed quite regularly. |
| Good old American engineering ... Concrete piers to hold the mountain up! |
We tucked in to an anchorage just south of Kingston NY, and rafted together for another pizza-on-the-BBQ dinner. We had been keeping an eye on the weather this afternoon as thunderstorms were predicted Most of the initial bands of storms dissipated before getting to us, but we expected to get something at night. While we barely received any rain, nor had any electrical activity, we did get some strong winds. At 11:30pm, the winds came up quickly, similar to a line squall. Once on deck, we quickly realized that our anchor had started dragging. The four of us hustled to separate the two boats. With the cloud cover, it was a dark night. Combined with a knot and a half of current perpendicular to the wind, it took a moment to get our bearings before we set our own anchor.
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| Tracks run down both side of the Hudson |
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| Anchor, drag, separate, re-anchor all equals a bad night's sleep |
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| Culinary Institute of America |
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| This is where all the gravel barges come from!!! |
Catskill (Hop-O-Nose) Sep 24
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| Houses with "lights" all along the Hudson River |
The day was pleasant with a mix of sun and cloud. I continued to tackle small de-rigging tasks while the auto-pilot did the hard work! (not so much). The wind was up a bit, then gone and then blasted us from a valley in the hills.We again passed under some major bridges, passed lovely lighthouses in the river, and regularly saw the Amtrack trains pass by just at the waters edge. We passed a number of old brick smoke stacks along the shore. Some without any other structure, and some with accompanying buildings or other structures. At one point there were over a 130 such factories along the shores of the Hudson River. Now there are none. Only a handful of tell-tale smoke stacks remain to hint at the industry that once filled the shorelines here.
The marina is located down one of the smaller "creeks" we've seen. Finnish Line lead the way as they have been here before. We took our sweet time getting to the marina because we had to wait for two boats to clear the docks at the mast crane. Most of the eight or so Canadian sailboats going south that we passed, likely were here and had their masts put up yesterday, were now working their way south. |
| Remnants of old Brick Factories |
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| Awaiting mast lowering |
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| R.J. and his team |
Sep 25
Weird feelings today--some sadness as the mast coming down makes the end of the trip seem real, yet also looking forward to getting back home. It already feels like fall with a morning chill in the air and the leaves are starting to drop from the trees.
The mast crew arrived early. R.J. and his crew of 4 other guys showed up ready for business. Finnish Line was in the "mast slip" so he went first, We'll then swap slips and our mast will come down. R.J. and his crew are on top of the process. While highly questionable in the "workplace safety" department, they were efficient and knew what to do.
First, one guy goes up on the crane hoist with one foot in a loop of line. When he gets to the first set of spreaders, he proceeds to tie off the lifting line. Coming back down, he just slides down the mast freehand. The rest of the crew then secure the lower end of the lifting line to the mast just under the gooseneck.R.J. operates the crane, and he uses a combination of the electric motor and hand spinning one of the gears (when he needed fine-grained control) to manage things. He applies a little bit of hoist tension and the rest of the crew releases the turnbuckles and keeps things steady. Then a final lift to bring the mast off the deck. I check the wiring to be sure it's all free, and then they lower the mast into the supports we installed yesterday. All was done very quickly and with low stress. Quite a relief to have it all done.
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| Masting crane of unknown age!! |
We treated ourselves to dinner at the New York restaurant. This place has been in operation for about 100 years. It has interesting decor including an original tile floor. Out front on the sidewalk there is a small observation window down to the basement. You can look down to see the old hand- cranked lift used to raise and lower things into the basement. It looks sturdy and would have been used to lower ice blocks, used for refrigeration, into the basement. The current owner found this by accident when knocking down a wall in the basement.
Our plan is to leave early tomorrow morning because we have go 40 nm, which includes a fuel stop and our first lock!
Next Stop .... Erie Canal
Tomorrow we head to Waterford. We'll stop for the night on the wall just before the first flight of locks (5 locks in about 1.5 nm). The locks open at 7am, and we'll try to get into the first set as soon as they open.
Delightful read.
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