Hudson River Valley, NY

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

041-49.200 N
073-56.760 W

Ahoy from the Hudson Valley region of NY!

It's about 5:15 AM as I'm starting to type this. I really love the early morning hours aboard the boat while the rest of the world is asleep. These are the hours when the sounds are filled with fish jumping and birds calling to one another and the sky takes on that rosy hue of the sun trying to make an appearance. As I sit here, I can feel the occasional puff of wind send cool air cascading through the porthole and down my neck, accompanied by an occasional shiver. As much as I love sunsets, the energy of a day yet to be born is so much different from that which is drawing to a close.

The Hudson River Valley is a beautiful area with high hills surrounding the river, many of them adorned with beautiful homes or mansions. When you leave the NY City area, it's surprising how quickly you leave the dense urban congestion and move into miles and miles of tree lined hills. The lower Hudson River is quite broad and relatively straight and stays that way until you get up to the West Point area, where it quickly narrows and makes a sharp turn. One can easily see why this was a strategic location. The Hudson River is also tidal, with the tides and currents being felt as far away as Albany, which is 125 miles up river! We were very lucky as we had 1-1.5 kts of current going with us for all but the last hour of our journey and we made the 68 mile trip in about 9 hours. Considering that we could have had the current against us, this allowed is to make 15-30 miles more than expected, which is sailboat terms, is huge.

As we moved along we were trying to figure out where to pull in such that we could rent a car and explore the area and that's a lot harder than you might think. While there are a lot of marinas in the area, many are private or too shallow for BlueJacket. Some of them are in small towns with no car rentals in the area or are on the "wrong" side of the river, meaning that it's a long haul from a car rental to a bridge to get you across the river and then to the marina. We finally settled on the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club, which is actually in Hyde Park...and is somewhere that we had pulled into in the past and we enjoyed.

We picked up a mooring ball and settled in for a relaxing evening. That was a good plan until 0-dark:30 when the winds picked up and were blowing strongly against the current. That pushed the boat forward of the mooring ball and when we'd get to the end of the mooring lines, we'd end up sideways to the wind and waves and the mooring ball would noisily bump along the hull. Then once the ball was half way down the hull and the lines were tight, it would slide under the boat and suddenly we'd yaw off at a 45 degree angle to the other end of the mooring line arch, and then the process would repeat itself. Sue said it sounded like being in a bowling alley and though it was like a roller coaster ride. That kept up until the winds and the current subsided, which was several hours later. Needless to say, it wasn't a restful night.

Thankfully the day dawned beautifully and we headed off to explore the area. Our first stop was West Point as we've seen it from the water but have never visited it. It's quite a facility, but access to it is highly controlled as compared to a facility such as Annapolis. As a result you're on a tightly orchestrated tour with all kinds of restrictions as to where you can film and what kind of media you can use. But it was very enjoyable and very beautiful.

Our next stop was at the Vanderbilt mansion in Hyde Park. I was highly impressed, especially considering that this was the smallest of the 40-something mansions that the Vanderbilts built. Then we ran down to the FDR home and library, but it was already closed, so didn't see much.

To top the day off, we had made dinner reservations at the Culinary Institute of America. This is one of the top chef/food industry teaching schools in the country. They have 4 restaurants which are run by students and we picked the Italian restaurant. I was expecting good things and my expectations were vastly exceeded. The campus is beautiful, the restaurant was wonderfully decorated, the staff did a great job and the food was outstanding. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who's passing though the area.

Today we're headed to Catskill, NY which is about 25 miles from here. This is where we'll have the mast pulled and shipped to Buffalo, as it's too tall to go through the Erie Canal system. Today is going to be a busy day, as it's a LOT of work to de-rig the boat.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser: The Poughkeepsie Yacht Club is actually in Hyde Park, which is about 7 miles N of Poughkeepsie. Mooring balls are $20/day and dockage is $1.50/ft + $5/30A. The docks need a lot of work, but the people are very friendly. There's a nice club house with showers and laundry. If you pull onto a dock, try to do so at slack tide as the current really rips through here.

Log ID: 1360