June 8-15, 2011
It’s hard to believe that we left New York City a week ago. The days seem to run into each other. I have to reach far back into my memory to be able to recall our trip from just one week ago. The pictures tell the story by themselves though.
When we left New York last Wednesday, the current was still going against us and the chart plotter showed us at 4.9 knots, which was about 5.6 miles per hour. (We walk faster than that!) But that gave us time to enjoy the scenery from the water until the tide changed later on in the day.
Along the Hudson River, we passed the Eos sailboat, owned by fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg and her media entrepreneur husband Barry Diller, which is the largest private sailing yacht in the world at 305 feet, length over all.
The Intrepid Museum is very impressive from the water and we regretted not touring it while we were in New York. It is home to the USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier that was hit twice by kamikaze airplanes in 1944 & 1945. The USS Growler submarine is also on display, as well as the British Airways Concorde, the world’s fastest commercial airplane (1350 mph). Next trip – we won’t miss it!
Right close to the shore of the Hudson River, on both sides, we saw passenger and freight trains and a gridlock of cars going into New York City. It was also a frenzy on the river as the ferries boats were kicking up wakes in front of us and behind us for miles.
The maximum-security prison, Sing Sing, in Ossining, NY, is an incredible piece of real estate, home to more than 2000 of our country’s finest inmates! So that’s what they meant when the police told the criminals in the old movies, “you’re gonna go up the river”.
Another massive piece of waterfront on the Hudson is occupied by the United States Military Academy at West Point. There are 4,400 students in attendance and when they graduate, they are commissioned as second lieutenants in the Army. This place is so impressive that if you didn’t see the fortress-like old buildings, you might think it was a fun location for a college, rather than a serious place where our country’s military leaders are trained and educated.
The further we got from New York City, the more rural the landscape became. The elevations and green trees against the water made for a serene and beautiful day. We actually started picking up some speed later in the morning and if you look at the picture of our chart plotter, you can see that we are at 6.1 knots (7 mph!!) and the river is very deep at about 161 feet. We had to watch out for logs and debris in the water. It wouldn’t be fun to confront one of those logs, even if it is in the shape of a wishbone (see photo). You’d be really wishing that you hadn’t hit it! We saw a little commercial ship traffic, but not nearly as much as we did on the inland rivers. We saw several very quaint, well-kept lighthouses on tiny little islands.
Our first stop after New York City was Haverstraw Marina in Haverstraw, NY. The marina was so huge (1000 slips) that we had to have a map to get off the maze of docks to walk the dog. It was just a quick overnight for us.
The next stop was in Kingston, NY, where we stayed for 3 days. The weather had looked threatening the last 2 hours of the trip there and we no sooner tied up at the dock and the sky opened up. It rained on and off for the 3 days. (We are traveling with Potest Fieri, Susan & Danny Godin, our Canadian friends that we met during our Carp Capers at the beginning of our trip in 2009. So when I talk about Susan & Danny in the blog, you’ll know who I’m talking about, so I won’t have to repeat who they are.) Anyway, 3 out of 4 of us needed an attitude adjustment about some of these less-than-first-class stops ahead of us—Roger was fine, but the rest of us were disappointed. Part of the problem was that we had at least 5 different cruising guides that gave vastly different impressions of the areas. The docks were so beat up and the marina wasn’t cheap so my feeling was that this was not a good value. And the weather didn’t help; it made everything a bit more dreary. But they ran a weekend special, so we were able to get the 3rd night for ½ price and we ended up going to the Farmers Market in “Uptown” Kingston via the Trolley ($1.00 each way) and had a great time. One of the booths had an enormous Paella pan and cooked it right in front of us. With that smell, who could resist? Not us!
Catskill, NY was our next stop and it also looked quite beat up. But the annual slipholders helped us with our dock lines and they couldn’t have been any friendlier. I had laundry to do and I took a $3.00 cab to the laundromat. I was able to do 6 loads of laundry in just over 2 hours, and walk across the parking lot to a Walmart Super Center to pick up some groceries. While I was waiting for the cab to bring me back to the marina, a friendly-enough guy who was doing his laundry next to me asked me if I needed a ride. He walked out to his white panel van that said “Enterprise Rental” on it and I was in disbelief why anyone would willingly agree to get into a vehicle with a stranger. Then the cab arrived, and what did I do? I got into a vehicle with 2 strangers (both were men) and of course I called Roger and told him to get up to the parking lot immediately and meet me at the cab! My logical mind told me that I was safe, but my emotional mind has watched too much “Law & Order SVU”! That evening we took a walk up to the village of Catskill and saw the street lined with sculptures of cats, each one decorated all-out. It’s funny because Roger always looks at things so optimistically and he said, “See, it’s all in what you make of these little towns. It’s in your attitude.”
We left at 5:45 the next morning to go the 42 miles up the Hudson to Waterford, NY. There is a “free dock” where you can stay for free for 2 days, and then it’s $10/day after that. We wanted to be sure that we would have a spot on the first come-first served dock, so we took off early to beat the other 4 boats that we knew were coming from Catskill. It becomes a little game some times!
We had to go through a lock for the first time this year (and in a long time!). Roger & I discussed the locking procedure and who is responsible for what. Of course every lock is different and this one had a pipe that I had to loop our dock line through. Obviously Roger had to get us close enough to the lock wall so that I could reach it. Got it – first try!! This is the first of a long series of locks that we will be going through this summer. Hopefully, this was a good sign of what’s to come as we lock up and down the various waterways that we will be traversing!
At the Welcome Center in Waterford, the volunteers told us about a restaurant a few blocks away that served great food for a great price. We went to Don & Paul’s and had lunch for $11. Roger & Danny have gone there for breakfast two days in a row! The volunteers also directed Susan & me to the grocery store. It was less than a mile away, but we could bring our groceries back in a shopping cart if we told the people in the store. The shopping carts have some sort of brake on them and they lock up if you take them any farther than the edge of the supermarket parking lot. A worker unlocked our cart for us, and Susan & I took turns looking like bag ladies pushing our cart over the bridge and down the streets! Roger took a 4-mile walk later on that afternoon and came back pretty somberly. He came across a neighborhood with houses that were in such a sad state of disrepair and people who were obviously too poor to take care of them, with rusted clunkers for cars out front. He said, “This hit home and makes me remember just how lucky we are!” I couldn’t agree more.
So we are now at the Crossroads. Waterford, NY is at the intersection of the Champlain Canal (that goes up to Lake Champlain toward Montreal) and the Erie Canal (that goes west through New York State). Our original plan was to head north, but unfortunately Lake Champlain and the locks have been under water for weeks due to flooding. The lake is full of debris and will be for quite some time, and the amenities (marinas) have been closed. So we have decided to turn left and make our way down the Erie Canal. We have only driven on the NY State Thruway and have seen the Erie Canal from the highway, so this will be new territory for us and as I’ve re-adjusted my attitude, we’ll take it as it is and enjoy it!
