A Day Sail From Kingston

Kingston, Rondout Creek, NY
N 41 55.013 W 73.59.060

Friday night we stayed over at the complimentary dock at the Mariner's Inn restaurant on the Hudson across the river from Poughkeepsie. As an extra bonus we had a ring side seat to the Friday night fireworks display from Poughkeepsie.

Ayhow, it turned out to be a very noisy place. First it was the disco music from the tiki bar at the restaurant right beside us. Then, when the restaurant closed, we realized that we were only 150 feet away from a railroad crossing. All night long, every 12 minutes, a fast freight would come roaring by and blow his whistle when he was right beside us. We didn't get much sleep.

On Saturday we motored up to Kingston and anchored out in the river right near the lighthouse. We had lots of ambitions to use the dinghy to go ashore and to clean off the brown mustache that Tarwathie picked up along the waterline and then to wax the hull. In reality, we were both so tired from lack of sleep that we just napped the day away.

Today, we had a visit from Bud and Nan from West Charlton. We haven't seen them in more than a year so it was great fun to get together. They drove down to Kingston and we met them at the water front. Then we went out in to the Hudson for a little sail, and headed down river towards Hyde Park. There was very little wind. By the time lunch was ready the wind had died to zero, so I just took down the sails, we motored a bit, and then we just shut off the motor and drifted. We didn't drift very far because it was nearly slack tide but it was nice and peaceful.


After returning to Kingston, the four of us walked to the visitor's center and spent time looking at the exhibits of the local history of Kingston and Rondout Creek. The creek was the terminus of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The D&H canal has a history rather like the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. It was dug by hand with private money. When it was complete, Kingston became a real hub of commerce. Shipbuilding, concrete, coopers, bricklaying, ice harvesting, and blue stone quarrying industries all sprung up here because it was a hub of transportation. Also, the D&H railroad started here, and the railroad eventually made the canal obsolete. All this local history is, I think, very interesting.

We finished up the day with drinks on the patio of a Mexican restaurant on the shore of the creek. Thank you Bud and Nan, we had a very fun day.