Wednesday June 8: Kingston, NY

We left our anchorage behind the Statue of Liberty about 10 am yesterday. The picture from last night of the statue didn't turn out so great so you don't see it :-( - we were kind of disappointed that we didn't have a better view. Next time! Ellis Island was on our port side as we headed up the Hudson River. The internet is VERY slow but I will put additional pics on picasaweb if you are interested in seeing other sites as we traveled through New York City.

Saw some interesting things along the Hudson yesterday: the Amtrak trains that run along the eastern bank (Steve and I rode one from Cleveland to NY and spent3 days there with Rebecca - really fun time!), the West Point military academy and surprising to us: huge mountains and cliffs!! We really had no clue how fun this part of the trip would be as I guess we were not expecting to be in the mountains.

We didn't leave at the crack of dawn even though we planned a long almost 80 mile day. We didn't understand why but the guidebooks said a tide runs up and down the river twice a day and if you catch the current at the start of the Hudson River, you can ride the current upstream all day! Which is exactly what we did. Average speed for much of the day was 10 mph - 2 mph over our usual speed. Turns out that the Hudson River is not a river at all but an estuary - "arm of the sea" - as we learned in the museum today.

We ended up finally reaching our destination about 7:30 last night. It was a restaurant with a dock: eat there and docking is free - what a deal! Food was great and I didn't have to clean up :-) Downside: freight trains going by all night and since there was a road, train whistles all night. You could almost touch the train from the boat! Regardless, off we went about 6 am - saw the sunrise again ......

Only went 16 miles today to Kingston so we would have some time to relax before another long day tomorrow. Saw a number of fun lighthouses. We arrived in Kingston at 10 am and first thing was to take the mast down before the day reached it's expected high of 92 degrees. The clearance on the Erie Canal is lower than we can make with the mast up - so down it went. Then a quick bike ride around town to see what was around.

Couldn't resist the "stick you head in a hole" right next to the boat :-) Steamships on the Hudson (from New York City to Kingston and back) were a big thing - some of which were built here in this city.

At the museum, I tried out the chart table in a typical sailing vessel - roomier than ours! Steve tried his hand at the helm of one of the river steamships and then saw the poster that made him wonder why they never went on a steamship while visiting New York when he was a kid. What a deal on the price!

Tomorrow: up again at the crack of dawn to catch the current and off to Waterford - the first stop on the Erie Canal.