Let's catch up or MAKE IT STOP RAINING

TIME TO CATCH UP or MAKE IT STOP RAINING

Getting the boat out of the slip at Marlboro Yacht Club was tricky and I was afraid we may have sustained some damage while leaving. It seems the permanent resident of the slip we were in left a vertical pipe on which a dock wheel had been attached the prior summer. The current took us in that direction and we did hear some noise as we rubbed past that pipe. After checking the underside of the boat gunnel (where the top and bottom of the boat come together on the sides of the boat) I was relieved to find no damage to the fiberglass. At least it was only a scare. The current is very strong in both directions on the Hudson River in late spring due to not only the tide but also the amount of water flowing down towards New York City

Our stop after Marlboro was the town of Kingston. We moored at the Hudson River Maritime Museum where we had free entry with our moorage fee. The dockmaster was taking a group of folks out on the water for a lighthouse tour at the entrance to the creek. It was the third lighthouse built in 1913 for the entrance and was manned by a woman light house keeper for over 40 years. She got the job when her husband went into town for supplies and fell in the river while intoxicated on his way back home. We made it to the top where an led light sits that can be seen for over 5 miles. On our way to Kingston we had passed a lighthouse sitting in the middle of the river that was built in 1871. The small towns on the creeks and rivers that branch off of the Hudson would ship their goods downstream to be loaded onto larger barges for delivery to NYC. The canals were specifically built for this purpose. We really enjoyed our stop in Kingston.

The Erie Canal is still closed to through traffic, however the Champlain route up to the St. Lawrence River is open. The maximum air height for that route is 17 feet. We have decided to not take down all of canvas and the radar arch and will wait for the Erie Canal to open instead. There are about 14 boats heading up the Champlain route as we write this. There are another 14 boats still hanging around south of Albany either relaxing or waiting on the Erie canal repairs. The news is that the NY Canal system has repaired the damage on the Erie Canal and are slowly raising the water level on the damaged levee to see how it handles the additional pressure and weight. If all goes well, the anticipated opening will be in about 3 weeks.

We continued up the Hudson as we had made a reservation in Coeymans, NY for a month of moorage while we wait out the canal repairs. We passed two interesting places, first was the Culinary Institute of America and the other was West Point. We plan on visiting both of these places during our month stay in Coeymans. While we were going by West Point there were 4 picket boats (2 State Patrol and 2 Coast Guard) patrolling the waters in front of the academy. Later we saw two helicopters take off, fly over us and 4 Osprey vertical takeoff planes following. Hmm, something was going on there. It turns out that the commencement ceremony had just finished and the President was leaving.

Most of the marinas on the Hudson River have no protection from passing boats and barges. As a result, the moored boats are rocked quite a bit. It turns out that at least twice a day the marina we chose is protected by a breakwater. Yay, we only get rocking twice a day at high tide when the breakwater is covered. This has been a very friendly marina where we have been accepted as liveaboards instead of weekend warriors. The marina has a mascot: Hudson the swan. He has his own Facebook page. Hudson spotted one of the liveaboards coming out of her boat around feeding time. He started swimming faster and faster towards the food basket. Kevin felt the sheriff should have given Hudson a ticket for speeding and leaving one heck of a wake. She filled the food bowl and lowered it down to the water. Sure enough, he had his face into the bowl.

One of the other liveaboards, gave us a ½ hour ride to Enterprise car rental to pick up a car for our drive back to Maine. We figured that we might as well have our van in NY with us for site seeing and transportation to the grocery store, etc.

Did you know that Thursday night is double lobster night at the Weathervane in Kittery, Maine. Oh my, what a deal. We wanted to spend some time with Kevin’s sister before we left New England. This sounds like a win-win situation. We drove up on Wednesday, spent time with Eileen and our niece Maureen over a seafood dinner. We returned the rental car on Thursday, cleaned up our van, and did some shopping at West Marine. It was Lobster night. Normally, there is 3 to 4 ounces of lobster claw meat in a lobster roll. On Thursdays, the roll has ½ pound of meat at the restaurant for less than purchasing the same amount in a lobster store. Yum, was it good. We left in our van on Friday morning driving 241 miles back to NY.

Now we are in wait mode. We traveled 341.5 miles during May from Cowesett, Rhode Island to Coeymans, New York. Our average cruising speed was 6.8 knots. At that speed, we are getting good fuel economy.

We received our first Amazon package yesterday, so Kevin has some projects to work on. We had had them sent to our friends Greg and Robin’s house in the Albany area. We drove up there last night to spend some time with them. Did you know there is a 30 foot statue of Nipper the RCA’s masters voice logo that could be seen at the beginning of older movies in downtown Albany.

Culinary Institute

West Point