The Nearly Perfect Full Moon

Waterford, NY
42 47.26 N 073 40.80 W

It was a nearly perfect day.   We lazed here at the Waterford waterfront.   As as special treat we had lunch with my first boss and mentor Paul, and his wife Marge.

In the evening our friend Pete came to take us out.  Pete is a colleague from NYISO.  We used to work together.  Since then, Pete has been my longest and most faithful reader of this blog.  He never misses anything.

After dinner we were relaxing on the boat.  I remembered that this should be the night of a full moon, so I checked the chart plotter.  Sure enough, sunset right here was scheduled for 19:35 and moonrise at 19:39.  That's only four minutes difference; nearly a perfect full moon.    Pete and I walked up the hill to a bridge where we hoped to glance the moon rise.   Well we had to wait and wait.  You see there is a big ridge just east of the Hudson.   It was a full 30 minutes after the official moon rise time before the moon peeked over the top of the ridge.  When it did though, it was worth the wait.  It was spectacular.

Back at the boat 30 minutes later, I checked online and I see that Bill Martin on SV Sunshine posted pictures of the moon rise seen from his vantage point near Barnegat Bay in New Jersey.   Another 15 minutes and I got a text message from David in Zebulon, North Caroline.  "Check out the moon," he said.   It's fun to think how we're all separated by such great distances but we still share the same celestial experiences.

Tomorrow we move on to Lock 7.

By the way,  Tuesday morning turned out to be the coldest, wettest day we've seen in more than two years.  Wow was it nasty.  It was unexpected though.   However, this is summer, the nasty weather passed by in eight hours, then it got nice once again.   It was a dramatic reminder though that we're not in Florida any more.