Position and Hold

Croton On Hudson

41 11.34 N 73 53.843 W

We're hiding out today from the storm called Nicole. We have one of the very few anchorages on the Hudson River that is secure against a southerly storm. It would be cool to visit Amy, my second cousin who lives near here, but we don't want to launch the dinghy in a gale.

We also appear to be lucky in that most of this storm's rain appears to be passing west of us.

I'm worried however about friends who decided to wait out the storm in Espous Creek at Saugerties, NY or Rondout Creek in Kingston. The mountains west of here may get a foot of rain thus making flash floods in those creeks possible. More than once in the past, floods have washed out all the boats moored there, most of them still tied to the marina docks that washed out with them.

Yesterday turned out to be beautiful. We traveled a long way from Catskill to Croton On Hudson, leaving at first light and arriving in twilight. Normally, we take two days to travel that stretch. The scenery getting here was spectacular. Around Catskill, we had about 20% color in the trees and they looked great. The percent color decreased gradually, reaching near zero around Newburg. If we had desired to continue until midnight, we could have had a beautiful night trip past a lit up Manhattan all the way to Liberty Island.

Looking at the weather, I think we'll move to Liberty State Park or to Sandy Hook, NJ on Friday. First light Saturday morning, we'll head out to sea and try for Norfolk. It may take us 72 hours rather than 48 hours to get there this time.