On the morning of June 28 we left New York City. And three hours and 20 miles later we were still leaving New York City. :) That is a huge city. As we headed farther north on the Hudson River the scenery began to change. The banks became cliffs on each side and heavily wooded. We anchored the first night in a bay off the Hudson at Haverstraw, NY. There were several boats rafted together that afternoon, but some of them left that evening and it was quiet for the night. I looked at our atlas and it showed that we were still at the very edge of what's included in the New York City area. Amazing. Late that afternoon we were sitting in the cockpit and I was on the phone with my mom, when there erupted a really loud "scream" and smoke that went on for a couple of minutes from the smoke stack of the nearby power plant. Scared us to death!! We assume they were either letting off excess pressure or cleaning the stack. We were just glad there was no huge explosion like we first expected. We took the dinghy to shore on Sunday morning and walked about a mile to a small Church of Christ for worship services. There were only about 20 people but it was a very friendly church. The young preacher has only been there about 2 months and the focus is reaching out to the low-income area around there. The church meets in a portion of a strip mall, thus the sign. :) Randy thought Fred Burrow would love it. 

Shore line of the Hudson River.

Power plant that we hoped wasn't exploding!

Church sign. Income tax?

   The next morning, still heading north. It was interesting to us that there are train tracks on each side of the Hudson along this area. On the east bank are commuter trains and on the west bank are freight trains. It's beautiful country here. We traveled as far as Hyde Park and "picked up a mooring ball" at Hyde Park Landing. That's boat speak for tying a line from your boat to a floating ball that is anchored to the bottom of the river. The river is so deep here that there are few places to actually anchor. This was the first time we've moored to a ball and we caught it on the second try. Yea, us! This town is known for the Frederick Vanderbilt summer mansion and for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's home. We took the dinghy to shore next morning and spent the entire day visiting these sights. 

Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Garden pool at Franklin Vanderbuilt's summer home.

Gardens at Vanderbuilt summer home.

Fredrick Vanderbilt's summer home. Two people lived here only a couple of weeks a year. It truly was the "gilded age".

   The next couple of days we spent at Riverside Marina in Catskill, NY. This marina had been recommended to us as a good place to have the mast of the boat removed. To traverse the upper Hudson River and the Erie Canal the height of your boat from the water line must be less than 15 1/2 feet. This is because of the low bridges all along this route. Randy spent the first day and a half (in between thunder storms left over from Hurricane Arthur) constructing three "cradles" to support the mast above the bimini of our boat. There was a pile of lumber left there from other sail boaters that had their masts put back up at that location and had no further use for their "cradles", so we only had to purchase a few things for our rig. When we removed the front sail, we noticed a few small tears in the fabric and found a sail-maker, James Dobb from Athens, who was nice enough to take a short-notice repair job. He came and picked up the sail and even worked on the 4th of July holiday to finish it for us. After we had left the marina and were back onto the Hudson River, we realized that with all the mast wiring disconnected we no longer had a communication radio. Not good. So we made an unplanned stop at a marina along the way to buy wire and a connector to temporarily hook up our radio. I'm certainly glad Randy knows how to do these things. :) 

The mast goes down.

This is how we carried the mast on up the Hudson and on the Erie Canal.

This lady and her son have been feeding these ducklings at Riverview marina since they were born.  Very cute.


   

   After this delay, we weren't able to make it to the Troy lock before they closed, so we anchored at the edge of the Hudson River, out of the channel. The next morning our anchor line was wrapped around our keel -- again! This had happened to us earlier in the trip. It's when the reversing current and wind swing the boat over the anchor line instead of pivoting from the anchor point. This time it really didn't want to come loose. After trying several things, Randy was able to get the boat swiveled around and pulled the anchor straight up from the side of the boat. This meant he wasn't able to use the windlass (winch) to help and he pulled his back, as well as the anchor. But we were free and proceeded on to the Troy Lock. This lock is just south of the junction of the Hudson River and the Erie Canal. We docked at the public (free) dock at Waterford, NY and stayed there 3 nights to give Randy's back a rest and get groceries and do laundry before starting up the Erie Canal.

This big boat passed us on the narrow section of the Hudson. JP and Karen Hulett, is this your next boat? :)

Saw it again later. That's one big tourist boat. He left a wake that rocked us around.

     Hopefully, in a few days I'll be able to post about our trip along the Erie Canal. Very different from what we had done so far.