We are docked up at the Albany Yacht Club, nearing the end of the Hudson River journey. The Erie Canal is only a few miles north! Can't wait for the new adventure of going through locks on the canal, but I must say, I sure loved the Hudson River.
My last blog was the day we visited West Point Academy and ended at a marina in Marlborough. The next morning we went a short distance and tied to a guest mooring along the side of the river in Hyde Park. It was so beautiful there, with total green on the hills of both banks. We tied the dinghy to a small dock, walked across the railroad tracks, and were essentially on the Vanderbilt Estate. We walked through the "no admittance" gate and were soon up at the mansion and signed up for a tour. One of the photos shows a little lake/river in front of the mansion.
Despite its opulence, the guide said this was the least fancy of the 43 Vanderbilt mansions. There were lots of Vanderbilts, and they all loved building mansions in the late 1800s. The Vanderbilts who owned this one spent only a month or so every spring and every fall, and a weekend at Christmas time. The staff of 60 kept it at the ready the entire year.
A shuttle took us the 2.5 miles to FDR's home and presidential library. They were rich, let there be no doubt, but you could easily tell this was an actual lived-in home and practical and so much less opulent. He had to modify parts of the home after he became paralyzed in 1921, including an elevator shaft in which he pulled himself upstairs using a rope. He wanted to keep his upper body strong.
We took a taxi back to the water, and stayed the night there at the mooring. The next morning, I got to watch the sunrise over the water as I put the bike in the dinghy and went on a scenic ride, including an "abandoned" state park overlooking the river with dramatic views. When we were ready to depart, so many weeds and plants from upstream had accumulated on the mooring, we could not remove the rope to leave. I had to launch the kayak and go up there with a knife and cut away for 10 minutes until the rope finally could pass through. Going again, we soon passed two charming lighthouses. The first one, which is the photo, was the Esopus Meadows Lighthouse right out in the middle of the river, to mark a shallow spot (built in 1869). The next one was marking the Rundout River entrance to Kingston Harbor, built in 1871. We went in, tied up to a dock for $5, and visited the Hudson River Maritime Museum.
After a dockside lunch, we headed out to find an anchorage for the night. About an hour later, we were enjoying happy hour on the flybridge, beers in hand and chips
and salsa on the table! All to ourselves, again in so much beauty. Little did I know, the next night would top them all. Yes, on Saturday we cruised to Catskill, where the Rip Van Winkle Bridge is located. We got fuel and pumped out the holding tank, both for the first time since the day we arrived in Atlantic City. We used 130 gallons of diesel, which worked out to 2.6 gallons per hour, which I estimate means we got about 2.7 miles per gallon. We then walked around the quaint old town, which has at least 50 statuettes of cats, each with its own theme. See photo of one of them.
Again, we headed north late in the day to find an anchorage, and hit the jackpot near a town called Coxsackie. It was inside of two islands, which gave us not only incredible, idyllic scenery, but protection from the usual rocking and rolling from the boats and huge tanker ships traversing the river. See the photo of me sitting at the back of the boat. We took a fun dinghy ride all over the place, out across the main river, which was glassy, all around the coves where we were, and even landed and walked around on one of the islands. For the first time, lots of people were enjoying the river (Memorial Day weekend is the official start of the boating season here), with camping sites everywhere, jet skis all over, and fun all around.
The next morning, it was total calm and serene, so I took a long kayak ride, and lots of photos. It was surreal to be out there exploring the beauty of the morning, sun sifting through the trees and raising mist off the water surface.
I planned to stay another day and continue to relish the surroundings, but no sooner had we enjoyed our ham n cheese eggs than a HUGE wind came up and we started to drag the anchor. I let out more chain to make us secure, but the boat swung into three feet of water and the tide was lowering! I figured we'd better leave. When the boat swung back out into deeper water temporarily, we started up and left. We cruised into the strong headwind in tall swells, wondering what we would do next. It was too windy to dock anywhere. We soon passed a marina and it looked like calmer water and a slightly protected anchorage just past it, so we anchored there for the day and last night. We stayed on board a long time to ensure the anchor was holding, then took the dinghy in for an afternoon on their dockside restaurant to watch the masses having fun in the water and at the yacht club (where half-soused members can find hilarity and fun doing just about anything!!). After the wind calmed down and we returned to the boat, I put my bike in the dinghy and went back in for a lovely ride south to the historic 1663 town of Coxsackie. I could see where we'd been the night before.
Today we came the final 15 miles into Albany. The river continued to be beautiful, right up until we were about two miles from downtown. Then, it got industrially ugly. Luckily, though, it ended as soon as it started, and our view here is of the downtown skyline. I've never been to Albany, so we'll start our sightseeing tomorrow. Today we're enjoying the A/C in here on a hot and humid day. We should enter the Erie Canal in a few days, after which the boat will stay at a marina between Locks 6 and 7 while I fly to Seattle for Katie's graduation, and Bruce goes home for a week's break. Before I leave for Washington, Janet will get to visit for three days once her school year ends on June 7!
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