Month: June 2018

Another hardship the Pilgrims avoided was listening to an AC/DC tribute band at the end of their dock.  It wouldn’t have been too bad if we were thirty years younger.  And liked non-country music.  And didn’t have to wade through an ear-splitting mosh pit to walk the boys.  And didn’t need to go to sleep at 9:30 in anticipation of a dawn departure.  And were two-hundred miles farther from the stage.

Actually we might not have slept much anyway.  There just aren’t many places along the Jersey shore that can accommodate looping trawlers.  The general feeling of the group last night was that we could (1) try to enter Manasquan Inlet, face the railroad bridge in strong current, and likely perish, or (2) push through a long day to Great Kills, face afternoon winds and waves, and likely perish.  Listening to Highway to Hell multiple times on what might be our last night on earth was not at all comforting.

The Great Kills group left at 5:30, but we opted for Manasquan and left at 7 after enjoying a gorgeous sunrise.

At 8:01, Dana called the dockmaster at Hoffman’s to beg for a slip assignment east of the bridge.  He told us they assign slips as boats arrive based on current and wind, and couldn’t promise we’d avoid the bridge.  Well that’s a big no-go for anyone with insufficient life insurance or a desire to avoid having their next-of-kin make a claim.  That’d seem to eliminate Manasquan.  Time for Plan B.  Wait.  We got up too late for Plan B.  What’s Plan C?

After throwing up in our mouths a little, we called Jerry Taylor—who with his equally-experienced wife is delivering a 49 Kadey Krogan while leading the Great Kills group—to seek advice.  Jerry said go, so we ramped up to 2100 rpm and made a run for Staten Island, fully regretting the decision to leave late.  We’d been traveling with Second Wave and Karen snapped a photo of us as we zoomed by at about a 1/2 knot speed differential.  

Second Wave later decided to take advantage of the good conditions and press ahead as well, as did everyone else.

On a road trip to N.Y. in about 1987, Doug stopped at Old Barney.   It looks just about the same today.

Just north of Old Barney we hit a bump in the road.  And by that we mean we hit something submerged in the water and it went “bump.”  Sort of a chilling sound and feel when three miles from dry land.  We stopped and checked things out as best as possible.  No bilge pumps running, no water rushing in, rudder seemed to work, engine seemed fine.  So off we went again.  The gods of fortune smiled upon us as the anticipated three-foot waves never materialized.  Conditions were far more benign than Wahweap on a busy day.

From about fifteen miles away we could see the Manhattan skyline and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

We rounded Sandy Hook and beelined for Great Kills Harbor.  The dudes gave us horrible instructions and told us to dock stern-first in a slip that was “very wide.”  And by “very wide” they clearly meant “very narrow.”  After a couple of aborted efforts that saw us nearly ground on the
adjacent shoal, we put the bow in.  As Dirty Harry observed, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”  We later noted that nobody else in the entire marina backed in.  Not even the little maneuverable boats.

Dana and Karen plotted the trip up the Hudson River to Half Moon Bay tomorrow.  There’s a decent chance we’ll take more and better N.Y.C. photos on the way through town.

An action-packed yesterday means an action-packed blog post today.  We started pretty sedately, however, with a chance to sleep in.  Until 6.  Dana spotted a Black-Crowned Night Heron on the dock beside us and Doug spotted a regular old deer in the Great Kills Yacht Club garden.  Despite the fence we swear it wasn’t in a zoo.

Then off to the north.  The plan to leave at 11 looked sketchy as we bucked current through the Verrazano Narrows and into the main channel.  Back when Don Vito Corleone unsuccessfully tried to bring the Five Families together for the common good of organized crime, New York City was a different place.  At least it looks different from the water.  For one thing, there are a lot more boats.  Everywhere.  Huge boats.  

The purple areas that make the approach look like the Arizona state flag are Traffic Separation Schemes—superhighways for commercial vessels—each wider than Manhattan.

And the unofficial but practical Rule of Gross Tonnage says we need to stay away from those commercial vessels no matter what.  They go faster than we do, and as sluggish as Misty Pearl may be those 200-meter behemoths are much worse.  Becoming a cargo ship hood ornament would be an embarrassing end to our Loop.

Knowing that photo documentation would be critical to the mission, our team photographer got the bow assignment.

As we approached the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Coney Island passed off to the right.

Coney Island is famous for hot dogs and as the home turf of the Warriors, who Luther falsely accused of killing Cyrus and who then bravely fought their way back to their beach until the Gramarcy Riffs finally realized it was Luther all along.

We were lucky enough to be going past Manhattan on the day of a jet ski parade, which frankly seems like a really dumb idea for a parade.  There indeed were lots of jet skis but not many more than a busy day on Lake Pleasant.  The bigger issues were ferries, and tour boats, and tugs with barges, and sailboats, and power boats, and more tour boats.  Sully was a hero for landing a US Airway jet on the river and saving all the passengers, but what truly is amazing is that he didn’t wipe out 100,000 bug-eyed tourists.

We were traveling with Second Wave so that we both could get the obligatory photo in front of the Statue of Liberty.

 

Rumor has it that if a Looper boat fails in this regard, AGLCA repossesses the burgee and strikes your membership.  Getting a clean shot, however, is not that easy given the traffic, currents, and every other stooge looking for a good view.  The black line shows what we were supposed to do to get up the Hudson.  The yellow line shows what we actually did in order to photograph Second Wave.

Second Wave did the same, which yielded the photo above for which Karen gets the credit.  Cruising through Manhattan—even on a hazy crappy day—is something everyone should do at least once.

As cool as Manhattan was, however, we were glad to be moving on.  Karen and Dana’s assurance that the afternoon current would be favorable proved spot-on as we started picking up speed at the George Washington Bridge.  

The George Washington Bridge is famous for Bridgegate, but yesterday traffic seemed to be flowing nicely as we came up alongside Hoboken on our left.  The north end of the Harlem River is just beyond the bridge.  

The Harlem River is famous for making Manhattan an island.  We were surprised at just how big the island is.  The Natives who struck the deal to sell it must really have wanted those beads and trinkets.

Pretty quickly the scenery changed dramatically.  Huge building gave way to huge cliffs and shorelines.  

And trains.  Lots of trains.  We continued on north past Yonkers.  Yonkers is famous for being a fun word to say.

Just north of the Tappan Zee bridge is the place where Ethel and Julius Rosenberg lived and died.

The name Sing Sing comes from Sinck Sinck, the tribe that sold the land.   Hopefully the Sinck Sinck were a tad shrewder or less desperate for crap than the Manhattan sellers.

Second Wave led us into Half Moon Bay on the eastern shore of the Hudson, roughly 46 nm from Great Kills.  Bucket List helped with our lines, and we all took off together for dinner.  We plan to stay here for a few days to clean up Misty Pearl—this is the last time we wash salt off her until November—and explore Croton-On-Hudson and surrounding area.

As a Tennessean and a Texan, we never thought we’d admit it but part of New York State is awesome.  At least in June.  Except for ticks.

Off we went in our rental car to explore Hudson Valley areas not visible from a boat.  Much of the scenery along back roads in upstate New York looks a lot like scenery along back roads in east Tennessee.  Right down to painted barns, tractor warnings, farms, country churches, deer processors, and taxidermists.  It’s not exactly the same, of course, because the people in these parts talk kinda funny.  There’s also a notable lack of kudzu.

We stopped along the Bear Mountain Parkway to photograph a shallow and narrow pass that we’ll confront tomorrow by water.  Hopefully it’ll feel as peaceful as it looked from above.

Last year we visited Lubec, Maine, to watch the first sunrise in the United States.  Campobello Island was close by so we hopped into Canada to see Franklin Roosevelt’s summer home.  Public Service  Announcement no. 1:  Even though the U.S. Park Service jointly manages Campobello, your U.S. phone provider will start hammering you well before you get to the bridge.  Make sure to have an international plan or shut off your phones.

Springwood, where FDR was born, raised, lived during his presidency, and is buried, is up the road a short piece from the marina here.

PSA no. 2:  If you use Google Maps, don’t sucker for directions to “FDR Historical Site Viewpoint.”  And if you do, when your spouse says “Are you sure we’re supposed to cross the river” don’t confidently say “Yes.”  Because you’ll end up on the wrong side of the Hudson, miles from Hyde Park, at a private road with big No Tresspassing signs posted by someone who’s probably pretty angry with Google Maps.  Fortunately Dana wasn’t in a finger-pointing mood.

A little known fact about FDR is that he was a huge fan of fairy tales, to the extent that he designed his gardener’s quarters to look just like the cottage where the Big Bad Wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood’s poor near-sighted granny.

Ok we made that up, but it certainly looks looks like it could be true.

The roses in the private garden—where the former President is buried—were in full bloom.  Unfortunately an endless stream of elementary school kids on field trips literally prevented us from stopping to smell them.  That’s a true story.  In any event, we learned that for us at least, two FDR home tours is exactly one FDR home tour too many.

If there existed a list of bizarre things we’ve done that turned out great, visiting the CIA would be near the top.  Not the CIA that gave us Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal, of course, but the one that gave us Anthony Bourdain (RIP) and other great chefs.  That would be the Culinary Institute of America.  Our lunch was fantastic.  They don’t accept tips.  The massive grounds were pristine.  The views were better than FDR’s.  Everyone was running around in white chef aprons.  There were funny signs at the crosswalks.  What more could one want?

Actually, we wanted one more thing.  We wanted to buy some local wine, so we drove over to Millbrook Vineyards and Winery.  More beautiful grounds.

Despite the sign with the tick warning we walked the boys past ponds and vineyards before buying a few bottles.  We’re partial to the softer California grape so the bouquet may be a little too robust for our liking, but we’ll see.  (That’s the last quote from The Parent Trap you’ll read on this blog.  Promise.)

The New York State Thruway was not closed, man, so we drove the 90 minutes to what used to be Max Yasgur’s dairy farm.  That trip was, well, a real trip.

The Woodstock museum alone made the visit worthwhile.  Dana bought her first souvenir shirt.  We seriously contemplated going back from Albany to a Steve Earle-Dwight Yoakum-Lucinda Williams concert on Friday but concluded we couldn’t possibly stay awake long enough to drive home afterwards.  Regardless, walking where Arlo Guthrie, Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe McDonald, The Band, Janis Joplin, and others performed at one iconic event was way cool, even without the free love.

After seeing an iconic memorial to the anti-war movement of the 1960s, we turned to one of the iconic symbols of the American war machine on a visit to the United States Military Academy at West Point.  What a juxtaposition.

The Naval Academy in Annapolis is austere and cold.  Very intimidating, but not particularly beautiful.  West Point is just as impressive, but also with million dollar views.

We walked where George Custer, Jefferson Davis, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, and William Tecumseh Sherman—later known to history as the Bastard Who Burned Atlanta—once walked.

Way cool.  PSA no. 3:  General William Tecumseh Sherman should not be confused with Colonel Sherman Tecumseh Potter, who took command of the 4077th MASH unit (much to the lasting dismay of Major Frank Burns) after the departure of Colonel Henry Blake (RIP).  And his all-girl orchestra.

When they were kindergartners, Mallory and her friend Elizabeth Fountain were Ironbirds together.  In theory it was a t-ball team.  In reality it was a stare-at-clouds-and-search-for-ladybugs team.  A couple of years later the Fountains moved to New Jersey, reasonably close to Croton-On-Hudson.  Tom and Susan made the trip to visit us aboard Misty Pearl tonight.  It was great to catch up with them.

Really about the only negative thing about the stay at Half Moon Bay is that we had to carry the boys up to the road each time they walked.  Apparently the condo complex owns what grandly is named Riverwalk but really is just a poor-quality asphalt path with a construction cone in a pothole.

These people suck.  They also clearly have chosen to spend eternity with Satan and his dog-hating minions.

Tomorrow we’re cruising up the Hudson to Kingston.  The map doesn’t suggest that there’s too much to see from the water other than West Point, but maybe we’ll spot an eagle or something.  Dana will have the camera ready just in case.

PSA no. 4:  Poughkeepsie is just as fun to say as Yonkers.

After the thoroughly enjoyable dinner with Tom and Susan last evening, we checked the conditions again.  Sunny and warm.  A good tide and current window if we left at about 8:30, so not too early.  Wait, wind at twenty knots?  Gusting to thirty knots?  That’s nots for us.

We awoke to the sound of wind and waves, confirming that it’d be a scary day to travel.  Doug returned to sleep.  At about 8, however, Subject to Change met Dana on the dock.  They’d talked to a friend up the Hudson, they said.  The wind was bad at Half Moon Bay but no place else, they said.  No wind at Kingston, they said.  We’re going and you should join us, they said.  Twenty minutes later we were on our way out of Half Moon Bay.

We thought Half Moon was the shape of the harbor.  Turns out Half Moon was Henry Hudson’s boat when he explored the Hudson River in search of a northwest passage to Asia.  Of course, it probably wasn’t called the Hudson until later.  It seems unlikely that Hank would be exploring a river someone already had named after him, but who knows for sure?

Half Moon Bay really was blowing, but things calmed down pretty quickly.  We fired up some NGDB and urged High Cotton to leave as well.  Spread the love, right?  Things started off great.  We were congratulating ourselves on a shrewd decision as we reached West Point again, this time by water.

And that’s about where everything turned to crap.  Just past the place where we took the scenic photo in yesterday’s post, the wind whipped the river to an angry froth.  Subject to Change’s anemometer registered gusts of 38 knots.  It felt like 60.  We passed through what the Waterway Guide said was the prettiest stretch of river in the country.  We didn’t notice, and dang sure didn’t take any pictures.  After about two hours of terror, however, things calmed down a bit.  The CIA main building appeared right where it was supposed to be.  Still impressive.

The Esopus Meadows Light may be the coolest lighthouse we’ve seen so far.

And it’s fairly important.  It sits right in the middle of the river.  Going upstream, immediately to the right the channel is about eighty-feet deep.  Immediately to the left, the water is about 0ne-foot deep.  That’s a big deal when Misty Pearl has a five-foot draft.

Fortunately we guessed correctly and made our way to the Kingston City Marina.  When we landed, Kingston seemed like an artsy town with a cool vibe.

The museum already was closed but looked interesting.

After dinner with Second Wave, Subject to Change, High Cotton, and Nautical Dreamer, however, the vibe had changed to ghetto.  We may sleep with the flare gun out tonight.

The excitement the Hudson River provided the first few days wore off this morning as we left Kingston.  Maybe it was the gloomy weather.  Maybe it was anticipating the invoice from the service yard at our next stop.  Maybe it was the annoying dude traveling ahead of us who kept doing a Crazy Ivan, perhaps in an effort to defect to a different yacht club.  We thought that maybe we just gave New York too much credit much too early.  Even the lighthouses looked dreary.

About the time we reached Hudson City, however, the skies and our moods brightened considerably.  The lighthouses got cuter.   The river seemed clearer.  We turned off the funeral dirges that the morning required us to play. 

The big ships along the narrow channel were less bothersome.

Dana even finally photographed something that sort of looked like an eagle.

Everyone said the marina at Coeymans Landing was treacherous, and indeed it was.  One of our buddy boats—which won’t be identified here—grounded in unmarked silt for a bit.  We had to give it a try, however, because the mechanics at Shady Harbor never called us back.  Coeymans was kind enough to send Eric out in a dinghy to lead us around the submerged wall, past the tree in the water, around the no-wake sign, and into a spot along the dock.  Dinner and the view from Misty Pearl made it a great day after all.

We’ll be here until at least Tuesday to get some work done.  We need to get Misty Pearl’s height under 17 feet for the couple of weeks on the Erie Canal.  The fly bridge shifter is acting up.  Plus some other little stuff.

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*So says virtually every “clever” local at every stop we’ve made so far.