Fridays July 26. Day 21

We had a lot of chores this morning, and since we paid for a day at the dock, we thought that we would take advantage of it. Phil changed the oil for the engine, put in the cotter pins and taped them on the turn buckles, and connected the electricity to the mast. Lorraine walked to the laundromat, being careful to look both ways when crossing the high speed train tracks. Rob said the Amtrak trains go 90 mph. Even though they blow their horns, I don’t think a person would have time to get out of their way. Lorraine really wanted to get laundry done here as they are just on the other side of the tracks. They are one of the closest laundries that we have access to. Also traveling down the Hudson, we don’t know when we’ll be able to get to another laundry. After showers, filling up the water tank ( yes we did it in Waterford, but we seems to have a leak as we were down 2 lines but Phil can’t find the leak yet) and getting diesel, we cast off at 1136am having a favorable current of about 0.5 knots from the tide going out or ebbing. We take 1hr watches at the helm and Lorraine was up first.

In this section of the Hudson River we passed several barges pushed by tugs going north. Phil being who he is, took pictures of most of them going by us.

The tug close up pushing the previous barge.

These tugs show up on our AIS on our GPS. First the display shows warning and the boat’s MMSR number, which we could use to talk to them directly on our VHF radio. Then after we clear that screen, an icon on the GPS shows the boat and a line coming out of the bow. The faster they are moving, the longer the line. This is great, as we have a heads up they are coming even if they are behind a curve in the river and/or too far away to see and we can make sure that we are on the side of the channel they are NOT on.

We also passed our first lighthouse on the Hudson River.

By 230pm, our favorable current ended and now the flooding of the tide caused us to go slower than the boat showed. We ended up as the day progressed having the GPS speed going 4.1-4.3 knots while the boat speed showed 6.25knots. Not good for diesel consumption, so we decided to end the day going up Epodus Creek at Saugerties, NY, kind of where we didn’t want to go due to poor holding for the anchor. But there isn’t much wind and predicted to be 12 Kts from the south tomorrow, so we’ll be fine. We were anchored by 502pm.

Saugerties Lighthouse

Talking about anchoring, Phil bought a new galvanized hook for our anchor since the last one was corroded from it’s exposure to salt water. I’m having bad luck with the hook falling off the chain and remember this new design from Mantus Anchors, so Lorraine bought the 1/4″ stainless steel one and is having it delivered to our friend Chet in Conn. Thanks to ZTC for posting about it in their blog so I could find out about the new hook.

We are not sure if we’re staying here tomorrow since the wind is to be 12 kts from the south which is upwind (not fun slogging into the wind and unfavorable current) or if we’ll try to get to Nyack where we have cruising friends, Judy and Stephen on S/V Bentana who belong to the Nyack Boat Club. Whichever day it happens, we will go to Nyack next. Lorraine is interested in going to Carlos Bakery in Hoboken, NJ (the Cake Boss fame) and besides seeing friends, we can catch public transportation to get into NYC and NJ and know that boat is safe. We’ve also heard that it’s a cute town. So that’s our plans for the next few days, but of course open to change.

Lorraine fixed the last of the brats, cabbage, potatoes and sweet potatoes all together in the pressure cooker. We have been spending the rest of the evening talking to friends and family, reading, and catching up on the blog. We are looking forward to cool temps to sleep by.