Sunday, September 22, 2013

Down The Hudson


Monday

Left from the Whitehall town dock around 8:00AM. Cloudy. There was a trawler on the wall overnight with us, but we never saw the owners. Just as after we left another south bound sailboat appeared behind us in the distance, then followed by the trawler. We slowed down our arrival to Lock 11, since we would all be locking through at the same time Another easy lock up at Lock 11, although rather crowded by Champlain Canal standards, never had to share a lock before. Still rather cool and overcast, forecast was for sun in the afternoon after a front came through. We did so well at Lock 11 we decided to skip right over Lock 10. Actually the canal planners discovered after establishing the lock numbers they did not need a Lock 10 after construction commenced.

A couple miles before Lock 9 the cold Front came through. Winds were clocking 30 miles per hour. The wind chill made it very cold, had on my fleece jacket and foul weather jacket, although the temperature was probably in the mid 50's. Coming up on Lock 9, which has a long open fetch to the north wind, we started to get some wave action. The lock was not ready for us so we tried to slow down as much as possible. Had the engine in reverse numerous times to slow down our wind driven speed. Would have to put it back in forward to maintain steerage as the wind driven backend of the boat was pushing us off course. After the lock open we had the same problem going in. How to slow down without slamming into the exit doors ? I managed to slow the boat down and keep near the wall, but once I put the engine in neutral, the wind was driving us fast forward again. I quickly grabbed one of the hand lines, but could not hang on, because of the force of the wind. So I put a couple wraps on the rear cleat to bring us to a stop. Normally a no-no, but it did save our ass. The sailboat behind us went through the same drill. The trawler came in third on the right wall, it was then we found out the owner was by himself. He did not have a stern line, but he did have a bow line. He tossed the bow line to the lock tender. Of course once the lock keeper tied it off the trawler spun around and was now facing in the opposite direction, but at least safe from hitting us, our first thought. Once the lock doors closed the wind abated somewhat. Unfortunately as we rose in the lock we were becoming more exposed again to the north wind. And with the rising water the cleated hand line could not hold us as tight to the wall and there was no way to pull it in tighter. As we rose the stern started to pivot away from the wall and there was too much force for Linda to push the bow off the wall. Fortunately the front end of our mast was over six feet off our deck, so at this point it cleared the wall, but our bow anchor did scrape the wall, no damage to either.
Going wrong way
 
Boy were we happy when the lock door open to let us out. We were even more happy when we managed to clear the lock walls without any further contact. The port side of the boat was a mess. The lock hand lines which spend much of their time under water are more like slimecycles, which we managed to get wrung out all over our decks. Our fellow sailboat behind us had the same problem. We suddenly looked like we had been at sea for a year without a mop.

Fortunately by the last up lock at Fort Edwards the wind had died down to a reasonable level. Our Trawler friend had enough and called it a day and tied up to the town wall at Fort Edward. Gee, it wasn't even noontime yet !
The rest of the day by comparison was rather uneventful. Unfortunately, we were getting down into the GE PCB dredging area of the canal. When we brought out boat up four years ago they were just starting phase 1. Now they are well into Phase Two and the dredging operations are vastly expanded. Well, guess who has rightaway in the locks, not us, so we had to tie up and wait a number of times for our turn. Greatly slowed our progress for the day. During one of our tie ups, as we waited we got to meet our fellow sailors, Bunky Bernstien and Carol Hanley in their C&C “Luna” also heading for the Bahamas.

Both boats spent the night on the wall at Lock 5, since it was closed before we arrived.


Tuesday

Woke up early to be ready for the lock opening at 7:00 AM. Was very foggy, both boats locked through then tied up and we waited 45 minutes or so for the fog to lift.
 
 
 
Since we were beyond barge land we made it through the rest of the NY State locks quickly. The Federal lock was having electrical problems so we had to tie up for 30 minutes before they let us in. Then it took them another 15 minutes or so to fix another issue to let us down. Made it to Catskills just before sunset. We went to Hop-in-Nos and Luna went to Riverside Marina.


Wednesday
Sean was there at 8:00 AM and the mast was up by 9:00AM. Since he had no one else scheduled for the day, we took off to Lowes and Walmart pick up a couple items. Late afternoon Sean came back to hang me up in the bosun chair to install the radar. By the end of the day we were finished.

Mast going up
 
Had a couple good dinners at the Creek Side restaurant at Hop-in-Nos.

During Sandy they were completely flooded out. Boats they pulled for the Hurricane floated off their jackstands. The water was one foot below the roof gutters. All the parked cars were totaled.

Thursday
Started backdown the Hudson as a sailboat. It was so nice to have room again down below. It was like having a whole new boat. We stopped for the night at Mariners Restaurant in Highland NY, just north of Poughkeepsie. Free dock with dinner, but our real goal was to hike up and do the “Walk Way Over the Hudson”, http://www.walkway.org/, an old railroad bridge turned into a walk way. Pretty cool.
Mariners Restaurant from Bridge

 

Food was OK at Mariners, nothing special. The view from our outside table was impressive as the full moon was rising.

Moonlight over Hudson
 
The dock we tied up is where all the local seagulls hang out, it was a mess. Cleat to Cleat S**T. Had to wash off the bottoms of our shoes.


Friday
Another nice sunny day. We spent the night in Haverstraw Bay, by Croton Point Park.

Saturday
Headed down to NYC and picked up a mooring at the 79th Street Marina. Now we had to pay for that full moon. The currents from the full moon high tide were ripping and with an opposing wind gusting to 30 knots it was somewhat chaotic, especially when the southerly winds started sending 2-3 foot swells up the Hudson early in the evening, when the out going current had our stern to the incoming waves. I was prepared for a wave to climb into our walk-off stern. Fortunately that did not happen. It was to chaotic to even consider lowering the dinghy. Linda had to resort to her back up drugs to combat all the motion.


Sunday

Things calmed down somewhat overnight. Ran into “Luna”, Bunky and Carol, they were also staying at 79th Street. We headed into NYC to do some sightseeing and food shopping. Came across a street fair along 20 blocks of closed to traffic Columbus Ave. Munched our way up the street on our way to pick up some parts at ACE Hardware. Tomorrow we plan to head overnight to Cape May after a fuel stop. North or Northwest winds should allow us to sail most the way.

On the mooring




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