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.

Guess where

People who side the train to New York know this sight well.

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Hooray a Monarch

Hudson River
41 28.96 N 073 59.90 W

Hooray! A Monarch butterfly is flying right beside me. First one we've seen migrating south in two years.

We love Monarchs.

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Uncooperative Weather

Hudson River

42 07.42 N 073 55.02 W

The good news is that the mast is back up.   The rest of the news has to do with weather.

I thought we had a good plan.  We would put the mast up Tuesday morning in Catskill, move on to Kingston overnight, pick up Jenny's friend Nick  from Vermont Wednesday morning, sail to Storm King Mountain Wednesday, then to the statue of Liberty on Thursday, and drop off Nick when we get there.

The plan started unraveling as soon as we got to Catskill.   The marinas don't put masts up and down in the rain, and it was raining heavily.   It rained the day before too, so there were two big boats ahead of me.   It could have been a  24 or 48 hour delay.  It wasn't that bad.  The rain held off, and by 1600 Tuesday we had our mast up.   

Should we depart for Kingston right away?   I turned on the VHF weather radio -- tornado warnings for our area.  No thank you.  We tied up at a slip at the marina overnight.

Today, Wednesday is beautiful.   We set out at 0630 to meet Nick.   However, checking the weather, Thursday looks very very bad.  There is a storm, almost a tropical depression, working up the coast.   We'll have to find an anchorage secure for SE winds and sit it out Thursday.   

I just got a call from Nick.   He too saw the weather forecast and he called to cancel.   Too bad for Nick, perhaps another year.

My next plan was to depart NYC on Friday bound for Norfolk.  The wind forecast looks favorable.  However, we'll have to put that back a day too to allow the seas to settle down after the storm has passed.  Perhaps midnight Friday or early Saturday we can depart.

What am I complaining about?  It's a lovely fall day today and we should have a spectacular ride past West Point.

By the way, I really screwed up handing the mast down/up this time.  I'll tell that story another day.

Indulgence

Waterford, NY
42 47.22 N 073 40.76 W

Well, we had a car over the weekend and this area is our former stomping ground. Therefore, Libby and I indulged in nostalgia for the past few days.

• We visited West Charlton and our friends Bud and Nan.
• We ate king steak sandwiches at Morette's restaurant in Schenectady.
• We went to a movie at Scotia Cinema, our former neighborhood theater. Wouldn't you know it, we encountered friends in the lobby.
• We visited John and Mary Ann in Glenville.
• Our friend Pete from Guilderland came over for a visit.
• I drove to nearby Cohoes falls, following a tip from Pete. I never saw it before. It's quite beautiful. (Picture below)
• We picked up my sister Marilyn at her group home and took her out for a day.
• We ate at Oliver's in Glenville; home of the world's best home fries. I've written about Oliver's several times on this blog.
• We had a visit from Libby's cousin Susan. We also had a separate visit from Susan's daughter Beth and Beth's daughters Katelyn and Kristen.

Cohoes Falls

The local area where the Mohawk River splits into 4 branches at the confluence of the Hudson River.

Tarwathie and other boats at the Waterford Visitor Center. Libby and Marilyn are shopping at the farmers market behind Tarwathie.

They had a tug boat festival here a couple of weeks ago and some of the tug boats are left over.