After breakfast, we started getting ready for weekend trip to visit family. After we pumped out, I decided to hose off the boat but I was wearing crocks (the type where the forefoot slips in). As I stepped off the side deck down into the back on the boat, my wet foot slipped through my crock and I lost my footing. I bounced down the two steps and landed on my butt. I was sore, but thankfully, no broken bones. My biggest problem was that the crock had slid up to my calf and it took awhile to force it off.
We waited a half hour for our scheduled Enterprise car pick up. When we finally got to Enterprise office, we were "upgraded" to The Beast's American cousin...a huge pickup truck. There was some confusion with our reservation. They said we had reserved it for a week (it was actually for 3 days). They said that the rate was $59/day and then said that since we now had a truck, that the mileage was limited to 125/day. I promptly showed them our email reservation confirming that it was for a small car at a rate of $23/day for three days with unlimited mileage, which they honored with the truck uograde. With that out of the way, we were headed to the Berkshires. We arrived at Greenwater Pond within an hour. Matt dropped me off and continued to Enfield, CT to have dinner with his brother and sisters and to spend the night at his brother's. I spent the evening visiting my family.
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For breakfast, we had the cinnamon raisin nut bread that our "commune-ity" friends had given us yesterday. We buttered it and grilled it on the stove. It was very good. At 9:15, we picked up the anchor and headed to Castleton-on-Hudson. At 10:30, we were approaching the docks of the Boat Club. No one had responded to us calling them on the VHS, so we pulled up to the fuel dock. The deal here is that when you get 50 gallons of fuel (or use their crane to remove your mast for $50), you get the first two nights at the marina for $1/ft, then it's $1.50/ft after that (including power). We needed 60 gallons of diesel today. At first we thought the diesel price of $2.70/gal. was high, but we found out that the surrounding marinas are charging $2.90-$3.00/gal. After we paid for the slip and fuel, I packed up the laundry and we walked across the train tracks to a public laundromat. The club doesn't have a laundry, but the public laundromat was closer than some of the on-premise laundry facilities at marinas that we have visited. It had been 10 days since our last wash day, so there was much to be done. After the laundry was finished, we continued with our boat chores including filling the boat's water tanks. It had been 9 days since we'd taken on water, so our tank was pretty empty. Finally, it was time for a land shower. I was looking forward to this as it had been 10 days since our last one in Nyack. It lived up to my expectations. The Boat Club is located right next to the train tracks and since there is a railroad crossing at the boat club, every train that goes by repeatedly blows its whistle as it approaches the RR crossing. A train goes by every 20-30 minutes. Next on the agenda was happy hour on the back porch. Then we walked 1.2 miles up a steep hill to Scarnato's Ristorante where we had meatball and chicken parmigiana torpedoes (grinders/subs). They were very good and very filling. We ended up bringing half our torpedoes back to the boat. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing and reading. Trip Log-Day 66: 8nm, 1.5 hours, 60 gal diesel Trip Total: 1648 nm, 257 hours, 439 gal diesel. The Castleton Boat Club
Matt was up at 6:00 this morning while I slept until 7:45. We had decided to go into Coxsackie for breakfast. At 8:15, we lifted the anchor and went a mile south to the Coxsackie town dock. There were no signs indicating that it was a town dock, but it was at a park and it looked like all the other town docks that we have visited. There was plenty of water under our keel and it had cleats, so we decided to stop there. There were no signs that prohibit overnight stays, but I wouldn't want to spend too much time here as passing boats' wake caused the dock and boat to rock. Once Blue Moon was secure, we headed off to find a place for breakfast. There isn't much on the waterfront in Coxsackie. A man in a truck stopped to see if he could help us. We told him that we were looking for breakfast and he pointed to The Yellow Deli. The sign on the door said "closed", but then a woman came running out and said that they open at 9:00, but to come in. She was in her early 30's dressed in a conservative dress, had a long braid down her back and was soft spoken. The place had a nice atmosphere and was nicely decorated in a rustic, hippie way. We enjoyed the egg sandwiches and shared a cinnamon roll. The cook, a guy in his upper 20's, came out to chat and we discovered that the deli is owned and run by "their commune-ity". Several other members came in while we were there. They were all very friendly, but their dress and mannerisms reminded me of the characters in the HBO series "Big Love". The people who lived on the Mormon compounds. When we left, they gave us a loaf of cinnamon raisin nut bread to take with us on the boat. We walked a mile or so up the hill to uptown Coxsackie, before we turned around to go back to the boat. We left the dock at 10:15 and headed towards today's destination. Tomorrow, we have reservations for a slip at the Castleton Boat Club for 4 nights. We are about 15nm away, so tonight we'll anchor half way to it. We went to Houghtaling Island which is on Schodack Creek off the main river. There wouldn't be wakes from passing barges and boats here. We arrived at 11:30 and dropped the anchor, but it didn't hold. We picked it up, moved to a different spot and re-anchored. This is a quiet spot to anchor most of the time. The trains run along the river and the train engineers like to blow their horns at the boats anchored. On shore next to us, there were bald eagles protecting their territory. The was no/minimal internet signal here to entertain us, so we spent the afternoon reading, napping, and relaxing. Later, Matt barbacued some pork for dinner. Trip Log-Day 65: 7nm, 1.5 hours, Trip Total: 1640 nm, 255.5 hours, 379 gal diesel. Scenes in Coxsackie.
We were up and having breakfast at 7:45. At 10:30, we picked the anchor up and traveled the 1.3nm to Hudson, NY. and pulled up to their town dock. We had read in Active Captain that you could stay overnight on the dock, but it was posted be dock "no overnights", so we'll be leaving later today. We headed out to explore the town.
We walked along the waterfront park then to Warren St (which was their Main St). It was a mile long street lined with restaurants, shops, and galleries. By the time we walked all the way down the street, we were ready for an ice cream. I checked the Google Map app and found a couple places, but we were drawn to Stewart's again, even though it was another half mile away. At Stewart's, we splurged and we both got hot fudge sundaes. My sundae was made with Brew HaHa (coffee with chocolate covered expresso chips) and Chocolate Death ice cream. Matt chose Chocolate Peanut Butter and Brew HaHa. It was so good...one of the best ice cream sundaes that I've had in a very long time and it was only $2.75 each! What a deal! That is definitely going to be repeated the next time we come across a Stewart's. It was 1.8 miles back to Blue Moon. That was good, because we had a couple calories that we needed to walk off. On the way back, we stopped at the Hudson Power Boat Club. The door was locked but we knocked and someone was there. We asked if they had a pump out and if we could use it (they are a private boat club). He said that we could and to just pull up to their dock and pump away. Back on Blue Moon, we pulled up to the club dock where the pump out was located. A nice young man came out to catch our lines and help secure Blue Moon. Matt pumped out the holding tank while I went looking for that nice young man to ask him if we could fill our drinking water containers there. He took me to the kitchen to fill them and then I inquired about buying some ice. It was $1 for a bag which ended up being about 15 lbs of ice. We tried to pay for the pump out or make a donation to the club, but he refused and only wanted the $1 for the ice. We left the dock and headed north on the Hudson River toward Coxsackie. As we started up the river, we saw a big barge chasing us up the river. Matt pulled to the side of the channel allowing him to pass. At 16:00, we arrived at our destination and dropped the anchor. Since we had so much ice, I decided to make a batch of freshly brewed ice tea. We had been getting sporadic rain showers all afternoon, so Matt decided it was a good Soup Day and made chicken soup for dinner. The storms passed by and the sun came out again, but it had cooled down, so it was still a good Soup Day. Trip Log-Day 64: 10nm, 2 hours, Trip Total: 1633 nm, 254 hours, 379 gal diesel. Spent the morning hanging out on the dock. Nothing has changed... It looks exactly the same. Matt arrived at about noon after a very nice visit with his family.
\nWe spent the rest of the day sitting on the dock and visiting with my family. At 4:45, I noticed it was starting to get light outside, so I jumped out of bed to see if the sun has risen. It hadn't, but it was very peaceful looking. So I grabbed my phone and took a couple photos before returning to bed.
At 7:00, we were up and having breakfast. We lounged on the boat all morning, reading the internet newspaper, planning our next couple weeks, Matt playing his uke, and I researching info on Lake Champlain and other future trips. It is nice having unlimited internet on the boat and am so glad that we recently upgraded our plan. This past month, we used a whopping 20G of data! (And we don't do videos). I couldn't believe that we used so much, but then again, we did download lots of books and the apps seem to always be updating. At 12:30, we decided to go to Athens and check out the town. It was low tide when we left the anchorage, but we only bumped once. We traveled 4nm up the river to the Athen's day dock. Once we were secure, we did a walk-about. Athens is a very small town with only a few shops and a couple small restaurants. The few people that we saw in town made sure to say hello as we passed by. We wandered down the road to Stewart's which is part of a chain of convenience stores that sell their own ice cream. Matt and I shared a dish of three scoops for the low price of $3.45. Stewart's also carrys a good supply of staples such as OJ, eggs, bread, and milk at very reasonable price. There are a lot of Stewart's up here, so I'm sure we'll be visiting them again some time in the near future. We walked back to Blue Moon, departed the dock and traveled across the river where we anchored in yet another peaceful spot for the night. Soon it was time for happy hour and dinner where we enjoyed our left-over pizza, which Matt heated up on the grill... Grilled pizza! Trip Log-Day 63: 4nm, .75 hours, Trip Total: 1623 nm, 252 hours, 379 gal diesel. We awoke to a beautiful morning. The sun was shining, the temperature was 65°and 55% humidity. For breakfast, we enjoyed our French Toast outside on Blue Moon's back porch. After breakfast, I did my boat chore of cleaning the inside of Blue Moon. The Hudson River tide was ebbing with the current running at 2.2 kts. We decided to wait to leave until noon when the tidal current was going north and we could ride the tide to Catskill. We spent the morning hanging out, reading, researching and basically doing nothing. At 12:00, the tidal current had switched and was running up the river, so we prepared to depart. Just then a dark cloud came over us and treated us to a short rain shower. Ten minutes later, we were on our way. At 13:45, we arrived at Catskill Creek. The anchoring area was small. In addition there were a half dozen permanently moored boats there. We tried to squeeze in next to them, close to a shoal, but we couldn't get the anchor to even try to bite. After our third failed attempt, we gave up. Later, a local boater told us that the bottom is "hard pan" which means it's difficult to get any holding. We moved further down the creek. Plan B was to set the anchor in the middle of the creek and tie our stern to a tree on the shore. The wooded area adjacent to the creek was very rocky, so we used a trip line on the anchor, just in case. We dropped the anchor and couldn't get it to stick there either. We gave up. Time for Plan C. We went to the city day dock and tied up there. We had spent 1 1/2 hours fooling around with the anchoring and it was time for a well deserved beer. From the city day dock, we walked a mile uphill to downtown Catskill. The town looked a lot like Saugerties, except Catskill was a little larger. It was Sunday so most the businesses were closed. With Google Map's help, we found Village Pizza and had a very tasty Sicilian pizza for dinner. It was so big that we brought half of it back to the boat for another day. We walked back to the boat, untied the lines and went in search of an anchorage for the night. Since it was close to 17:30, we figured that the boat traffic would be minimal and we could anchor in the river without fear of too much bouncing. We crossed to the east side of the Hudson and dropped anchor just south of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. It caught right away which made me very happy. I was tired. We had anchored five times plus did one docking manuveur today. Once settled at anchor, we took showers and then cracked open a beer. The rest of the evening we relaxed on the back of Blue Moon watching the barges and trains go by. Trip Log-Day 62: 14nm, 2.75 hours, Trip Total: 1619 nm, 251.25 hours, 379 gal diesel. There are a lot of cats in CATskill.
At midnight, Matt jumped out of bed and closed the v-berth hatch over our heads. It was raining hard and it continued to rain intermittently throughout the night. We didn't get out of bed until 8:00 when the rain stopped. We were able to eat our breakfast on the back porch, but then the skies became gray and the rain returned. I took advantage of this down time to make arrangements for next weekend when we go to CT/MA to visit family. We arranged for a slip at the Castleton Boat Club for 4 days and a car for the 3 day weekend. My family's cottage is only 50 minutes from Castleton and then Matt's family is an hour or so further. Our reservation in Castleton-on-Hudson isn't until Thursday, so we have 6 days to travel 35 miles. At 11:00, we were trying to decide where to go today. It was Saturday and the weather was now beautiful with bright blue skies, so we anticipated more boat traffic. Our next planned destination, Catskill, has a small anchorage and most likely would be crowded today. Our choice was to either anchor in the Hudson for the night or to stay where we were. We decided to stay. We were comfortable here and the locals didn't seem to mind us anchoring in the middle of their creek. Also, I knew of a good ice cream shop nearby. At noon, we dinghied to shore and walked the 1.5 miles uphill to town. We wandered through some antique stores, then went to the Saturday Farmer's Market. Adjacent to the market was the Saugerties Historical Society building, so we went inside to look around. On the walk back to the town center, I spotted a hair salon. I desperately needed my bangs trimmed, so we went in. Our next stop was to the hardware store to replenish our stove alcohol supply. Finally, it was time for ice cream. We went back to Stella's because the ice cream there was so good. After returning to Blue Moon, we got to work attempting to remove Blue Moon's full beard of tannin stains. I've been wanting to do this since we got past Poughkeepsie and into the fresh water. We worked for 2 hours applying lemon juice to the hull. The lemon juice removed a lot of the stains but it wasn't yet good enough to wax. A local cruiser came by and recommended "On and Off Hull Cleaner". We usually use that product at home, but we were attempting to be "green". While we were working, another cruiser came by the chat. He was from Brazil. He and his wife keep their boat in the USA and have returned every year for the last 7 years to cruise here. They completed the Great Loop in 3 years. He said they can stay only 5 months then they have to return to Brazil (we assume that's due to their visas). After two hours working on the hull, my arms felt like they were about to fall off, so we quit for the day. Any way, it was time for Happy Hour and dinner. Tomorrow, we move further north. Two hundred year old trees in front the Historical Society house in Saugerties
Wow... Can't believe it's been 60 days. We have traveled through nine states, have visited many charming towns and a couple big cities. We've been able to connect with old friends and have made new ones. It's been a great two months.
We had breakfast out on the screened back porch then spent a couple hours reading and researching our next stops. About 9:00, we decided to start moseying along. We picked up the anchor and headed north to Saugarities. It was a nice cruise today. The waters were flat and the temperature was 85°. We dropped the anchor in the middle of Esopus Creek. When we were sure that Blue Moon was secure, we went to shore. We found a dinghy dock at the park, tied it up, and hiked 1.5 miles uphill to the town of Saugerties. This is a small town but it had a number of restaurants, many shops including several antique shops and three book stores. Plus it had four different places to buy ice cream. Our first stop was the hardware store. Matt was looking for something to use to cap the head discharge hose. In Lake Champlain and in Vermont waters, the waste overboard discharge hose must be disconnected completely. Locking them in the closed position isn't good enough here. After finding what we needed at the hardware store, we checked out the ice cream shops and chose Stella's. The ice cream was very good and they served a generous portion (ice cream #16). This was our first ice cream since our ice cream bing in Baltimore two weeks ago. We walked downhill the 1.5 miles back to the water and went exploring in the dinghy. This time we found a big waterfall. Back on Blue Moon, Matt went to work on the head project. He managed to get the hose disconnected, so now hopefully, we're legal. After happy hour, Matt grilled some chicken for dinner. The rest of the evening was spent sitting out on the back porch enjoying the view. It's very peaceful here. Trip Log-Day 60: 14nm, 2.5 hours, Trip Total: 1605 nm, 248.5 hours, 379 gal diesel. We didn't wake up until 7:00. It had been very cool last night... blanket weather, so I dug them out of storage again.
Last night, I discovered that we were only 10 minutes from where my college room mate, Joann, lived. We had roomed together for all four years in collageband hadn't seen each other for 35 years. So Matt and I decided to spend another day here in Kingston, so we could visit with her today. At 11:00, we dinghied the two miles to Ole Savannah, tied the dinghy to their dock and met up with Joann. She took us the the old section of Kingston called the Stockade and showed us around. Lunch at Stella's was delicious and enjoyable. We caught up with each other's lives. She has been a busy lady having raised 5 boys and helping her husband run their golf course business. It was really good seeing her again. After lunch, Joann took us to the grocery store. We were in need of our daily staples including OJ, meat and cheezits, so we really appreciated it. After saying our good byes at the dinghy dock, we traveled the two miles back to the boat and stowed the provisions. Then we set off in the dinghy to explore further down the creek where we found a small waterfall. We weren't hungry after having the big lunch, so we skipped dinner. The remainder of the evening was spent reading and relaxing. Tomorrow, we move on. |