Ossining, NY to Catskill, NY via the Hudson River

Thursday, July 10, 2008

042-12.900 N
073-51.960 W

Hello from the crew of the BlueJacket!

I'm happy to report that the crew of Geoff & Sue is now underway! It's been a long haul to get here, but we've made it. I drove home to Marlborough, MA over the 4th of July weekend to pick Sue up and after packing the rental car to the gills, we drove back and re-stocked BlueJacket for the upcoming trip. I think that Sue overdid it a bit as she was sore from all of the bending that she was doing, but I think that we've worked out what she should and shouldn't do. Now if she only remembers what we've agreed upon...

I spent a good part of my day replacing my ProSine 2.0 inverter/charger. This unit charges the batteries when connected to 120V and also provides 120V from the batteries when inverting. I've had a lot of problems with the unit in the past and recently the inverter started making a bad noise and drawing too much power. I had a spare unit and home and brought it back with me. Swapping the unit out requires removing a lot of equipment, pulling out the water heater and swapping lots of wires. When I fired up the replacement unit, nothing happened! !@(#*& As a result I had to swap the old unit back in and we'll use a tiny inverter and/or the generator for our 120 needs. Boy, that was a wonderful way to spend 6 hours!

After a lot of rushing around, we departed from Ossining, NY and headed up the Hudson. The scenery along the first section of the trip was quite spectacular as the river cuts through the Appalachian mountain chain and has 1000' cliffs surrounding the river. According to one guide book, this section of river is one of the most beautiful in the US, and I would completely agree. My only complaint is the air quality. We've been having southerly winds which have been blowing the pollution from NY City towards us. That, combined with temperatures near 90 and high humidity, have made it very hazy.

One of the highlights was passing West Point and the spectacular view that you get from the river. Unfortunately they no longer allow access from the water so our only option would have been to pull into a marina a take a taxi, but we just didn't have time to do that. The cliffs cascading downward to the Hudson provide awesome views. Our biggest problem has been that the current was against us for almost the entire trip and at times it was over 2 kts. That makes for a slow trip!

We wound our way past lots of towns, such as Newburgh and Poughkeepsie and had great views of life along the river. Eventually we ended up at the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club which is about 7 miles N of Poughkeepsie and is in the middle of nowhere. The members were wonderful and provided great help with docking. Sue can't jump off the boat onto the dock when we're docking, and when you have 2+ kts of current with you and a 15 kt wind from behind, you can bet that it can be "interesting" to dock. However, I pulled off a perfect docking and required very little assistance. However, if I had needed help, I would have been very happy to have had all of the help that they provided.

Early the next morning we headed towards Hop-o-Nose marina in Catskill, NY where we were going to have the mast pulled before we can head through the canals and the associated low bridges. Clouds slid overhead in advance of a cold front, but we were still treated with beautiful estates on the eastern side of the Hudson. The western side had nice houses and industry, but the eastern side had the old money palatial estates.

We had a nice run up the Hudson and after dodging some barges we arrived at Hop-o-Nose marina where we were going to have the mast pulled. The owner and helpers swarmed the boat and quickly helped de-rig the boat. I spent the afternoon finishing the process and once again tomorrow morning, BlueJacket will be dis-masted and the mast will be shipped via truck to Oswego, NY. We decided to have the mast shipped because it's 62' long and the boat is only 40' long, so the mast would have stuck out 11' on either end. Considering that the mast would cost $70K+ to replace, I decided to have it shipped. The guide, which was published in 2003, stated that the cost was about $300. That seems to be very out of date, as the actual cost was an additional BOAT (Break Out Another Thousand) on top of that...

Today the mast gets pulled and tomorrow the shipping company will haul it to Oswego, NY which is past the low bridges. Between now and then we'll transit through a ton of locks. I'll keep you posted!

-- Geoff and Sue

Log ID: 1208