Our Voyage

As was our preference on the Erie, we would take a free wall in the little towns as they were available to spend the night.  For many of these places, it is a last gasp effort to attract some kind of outside revenue.  The only one investing in the area seems to be the Federal Government, the same guys who provide flood insurance.  It’s not apparent the towns would survive without the Feds however.  Life is passing these towns by.  One town was founded on the paper bag, another Remington guns and another on Peppermint.  These places have a rich history of innovation and growth that didn’t make it to the current generations.  The successful have mostly moved on to the big cities or the next big discovery like Silicon Valley.  It’s sad to see the lack of adaptation.  But there is a legacy of here that isn’t in the rest of America and its there to be rediscovered. Typical homes for the eastern Erie Canal The factory that produced Beech...

It can be intimidating going into a big chamber, with huge steel doors being shut behind, looking up a 60ft wall or the doors in front of you that hold back the water above, and then hearing the deep noises of gates groaning and values opening around you.  You’re clearly not in charge as the water swirls catching the keel and shoving your 10ton boat around like it were a cork.  The movement of water is really amazing, to go up 20 feet only takes 5 minutes.  The power exhibited is awesome but then I’ve always loved water projects. The challenge to locking is staying put like we all expect to do when we take a place on a wall or a pier.  All you’re given to do the task is a rope attached to the top of the wall.  Pulling it does little to hold you like you’re accustomed.  The boat is only loosely held in a position and in many instances, you’re pushing off the wall more than your trying to hold your relative position.  Some boaters don’t worry too m...

Restaurants have a regional feel.  High end places are nice but it comes at a price.  The “normal” places tend to have a similarity that is boring and most low-end places are there for a reason (I never want to go into the kitchen of the Chinese restaurant on 25th street in Arlington next to the titty bar.  Nasty, nasty even though the delivery always tasted good).  But occasionally you stumble across a low-end place that isn’t, although the prices might indicate otherwise.  The fact that the menu hasn’t been updated since 1950 and the place is busy is a tell. We loved this place.  Ate there every morning our 4 day layover at Waterford NY.  My dad would have loved this place too, he used to go to “Ole Timers” in downtown Rockwall for the same reason we liked this place.  Patron’s mostly seem to know each other.  They would kibitz while we ate.  The place hadn’t seen any investment in years, they were likely just hanging on but the...

Marine and RV toilets are mostly gross.  Everything gets taken with you until such time as you can pump it out.  Due to the nature of the installation, the plumbing has to be flexible hose which tends to be permeable to some degree.  The potential for odors abounds.  It takes vigilance of to avoid odors but it is a task most would like to simply ignore.  Ands its not like there is definitive guide on how to maintain your commode, there is a lot of sound bites out there with little basis to support it.  For example, if it stinks you need to replace your hoses (not a trivial task).  Other remedies including flushing it out with clean water a couple times (what happens after that?), adding digesters to “eat” the odors (really, can they make it disappear before it smells?), adding laundry detergent and water softener (I guess this “cleans” it up), and adding vinegar (didn’t grandma use vinegar to solve just about every problem).  Salt water reacts w...

It’s an oldie but goodie folk song I was singing in grade school.   I love the Kingston Trio version best, it’s pumped.  I never dreamed I’d be living out that folk tune.  And frankly our crew has sung it so much that it’s stuck in my head every time we go under a bridge.  It’s enough to drive you crazy.  But in practical terms that low bridge is 15ft off the water.  It really is a low bridge, even for power boaters.  But for us we had to pull the mast and strap it on deck.  Our mast is 52 feet long and the boat is 42 feet giving us ar 10 feet of overhang; a ramming rod of sorts.  It’s shameful to do this to a proud sailboat but if we are to sail the great lakes it must be done. A marina was suggested in the tour book for pulling the mast that was said to be very competent; Hop-O-Nose.  I called before we left and liked that they seemed pretty casual and let you do as much of the work as you were willing to do.  But I strug...

The Hudson River is an amazing river in many ways.  It is very deep, tidal all the way to Troy (~160 miles), has very steep shoreline in some places making for dramatic canyon views, and it hasn't been developed like the Jersey shoreline.  In fact, it takes a natural look right from the George Washington Bridge in NYC where the British scaled the ramparts north of today’s bridge to attack General Washington’s revolutionary army.  It was not one of George’s better moments, he should have anticipated that one, but I digress. The Palisades the British scaled to attack George’s army. In the picture you can see the depth at 143 and we were only 100ft or so from the shore.  It is really cool but inhospitable to the anchoring leg of the boater’s tirade; sailing, motoring, and anchoring. We very much wanted to get out and tour the Military Academy at West Point but the charts and waterway guide didn't indicate anyway to do so.  I assumed we could scope it ou...

It is amazing to look at a road map and see all the roads and towns along the Hudson Valley.  Yet from the river, you wouldn’t know it.  In fact, the view from the water is mostly native as far as the eye can see.  Nothing like the Jersey coastline which is wall to wall development; where the only breaks are state parks!  Here on the Hudson it is easy to imagine the Indians and fur traders traveling the waters, and the British using the waterway to suppress a rebellion.  It is like stepping back in time and it starts at the George Washington Bridge and pretty much goes uninterrupted all the way to Troy.  Occasionally, there are the big estates with a vista overlooking the river; the ones that take your imagination on a dream of what it would been like to live the life of wealth.  Great Gatsby, Vanderbilt, Withering Heights (yeah, I know its Brit).  Of course, there is the Military Academy with its grey walls and stone, imposing and ominous on t...

I love the name, Halfmoon Bay, it’s so romantic sounding.  But this bay on the Hudson is also referred to as Haverstraw, the nearby town, which sounds so pedestrian.  But everyone’s boat is floated a bit differently.  I like traveling; sailing the wind, navigating, and watching the shore slide by.  Lucy likes quiet moments at the end of the day and shore excursions exploring “ruts.”  A “trigger” word for Lucy’s infatuation with wagon wheel ruts during the western migration.  Brian is activities based; he likes experiences like riding jet skis, snorkeling, driving the tender, sailing under full sailing with lots of wind.  Like anything else, it’s always compromises for the family who’s boat floats.  Brian got his moment at anchor on Halfmoon Bay where he swung on the halyard, paddled his paddle board, swam, drove the tender fast, and even dropped a fishing line over the side.  We ended the day playing board games after one of Lucy’s Meals-On-B...

It’s real, it’s not just a sweet children’s story!  I know the Great Gray Bridge as the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River and I didn’t know there was even a lighthouse at its base.  Sadly, the lighthouse is totally lost to all the goings on around it.  But there it stands, that is if you can see that dark spec at the base of the bridge. I don’t really remember the story that well but I read it to “the cousins” at their bequest.  They loved it and wanted it read over and over again.  I doubt you could sit down and create a book like that, it just happens, you can’t plan something like that in advance.  Anyway, I looked on-line to get a copy as we floated by only to be impressed how many people cherish the book.  Amazon had a huge variety to choose from, many costing in the low hundreds and some in the high hundreds.  Even the digital versions were popular selling in the teens.  Who could have predicted that one?  I kin...

What an amazing story, the building of the statue of liberty.  One Frenchman saw America as a hope from the oppression of Europe.  He drew this conclusion after touring the country for more than a year.  I’m glad he did.  It really is an inspirational monument and standing underneath it, you realize just how big it really is.  It’s a shame its not at the tip of Manhattan but its amazing it was ever made and that it has lasted as long as it has.  And it was paid for, as best I could determine, by private donations.  People who shared the dream of liberty and beacon of hope shelled out the funds to make it happen.  I like that.

NY harbor got me jazzed with all the boats, helicopters, jet skis, ferries, river currents, the Brooklyn Bridge, and grand buildings.   But all good things need to come to an end and in our case, we needed a place to call home for the night.  The few marinas in Manhattan were priced for the affluent; the high was $12/ft/night!  And we they don’t make the beds for that price.  As you would expect, the shoreline has been commercialized with piers, bulkheads, barges, ships, warehouses, and anything else that might make a buck except for one small spot just above Ellis Island.  It looks pretty big on the charts but in real life it’s not so big.  And even here it had remnants of prior attempts at commercialization with “underwater obstructions” noted on the charts, whatever that means (debris tossed over the side 100 years ago, rotten pilings from 150 years ago, Jimmy Hoffa’s concrete shoes).  But it’s too cool a place to pass the opportunity of watchi...

Sandy H ook, where we spent the night on the hook, is a beautiful natural harbor.  In the pic, you can barely see some houses on shore that looked somewhat Dutch.  They are part of the fort from before the revolution, so the Dutch influence was probably present.  They are in terrible condition but they looked great from a distance.  Lucy is doing what we do all too frequently in modern boating, relying on our electronic devices for comm, doing blogs, emailing, texting, looking at charts, checking weather – it’s an invaluable tool but it does put our head down verses looking where we are (I added 13 USB charging ports as part of the renovation and it doesn't seem enough at times). Had I just crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the 1600 hundreds and entered NY harbor, I would have thought I arrived in Heaven.   It is a really a remarkable place comprised of an outer and inner harbor.  The inner harbor is the one you see from Manhattan and is home to the S...