Do we stay or do we go... After looking at the charts, and listening to the weather I made a sausgage and eggs breakfast and we decided that we could move down the river a bit more (~11 miles) and knock off some miles the following day. It looks like we'll be going against the currents and tides. We anchored up Esopus Creek around 3:30pm on the western side of the Hudson River. There's a shallow sandbar on the southern part coming in, but past that there's a small cove on the south side between a fuel dock (Getty's) and Lynch's marina. Three power boats were jockeying for position where we were trying to anchor and they ended up rafting together for their Sunday swim and dinner 12 feet from us. We figured they weren't staying long because they had kids enjoying the water (school tomorrow). It turned into a beautiful evening. We saw a car drive by us in the water and the cutest little day sailor came by with more shear than most of the modern boats (guess I'm a traditionalist). It's quite warm and muggy but this is a beautiful, peaceful little hamlet here. Anchored: N42o 72.659 x W73o51.408

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Work, work, work, sweat, sweat, sweat... The humidity is killer today. Lazy Jacks up, main sail, stay sail, yankee up; dingy put together and inflated; laundry done; boat 1/2 de-algaed; Greene County Sheriff's boat rescued; pizza ordered, shower, one more load of laundry; Did I mention we saved a sheriff's boat from sinking? While scrubbing down the side of the boat to remove the grime from the Erie Canal, we were checking out two powerful looking motor boats with dual 225 outboards. The sheriff's props were barely above the water. Wayne said, does that boat look like it's sinking? Nah, it's just lower in the water... duh! So he went to tell Mike the proprietor of the marina.From the boat, I could hear a huge belly laugh, then bam... 3 guys came running over (Mike & 2 of his employees) and sirens started wailing, and 3 police cars showed up. Mike tried getting the pump going before the police cars showed up. Plug it in, run to the boat but the extension cord's to short and unplugs. So when they plug in, the pump it didn't work. Run back, plug it in again, but in doing so, unplugs the pump because the cord is still to short. Live cord goes into the water. Kid goes to fish it out. Mike yells "don't do that" but kid came out okay - circuit breaker tripped. They go for a longer cord, plug in, but the pump doesn't work. Boat is getting lower in the water. Mike yells to us "it's about to sink" laughs, you guys wrecked my day, laughs again. The pump starts to work, but very slowly. Police officer asks should we call the fire dept? Yes, they have a faster pump. Okay, but tell them only one pump. Sirens wailing again. Two firemen show up, the police and sheriff are called away because a house is filling up with gas. Mike and crew, have everything under control. Sheriff and police show back up, as boat is finally being emptied and rising. While they're cogitating this, a young man walks up with camera, and pad and pen (local paper) and asks, "whats' going on here?" Mike, after making a big fuss about the boat about to sink, turns and says, "nothing - A boat just filled up with rain water, no big deal. False alarm." I was dumbfounded. "Mike - this was your big chance Headline: Riverview Marina saves sheriff's boat from sinking" He say's "no - they'd crucify me..." All I could think was you can't buy good publicity like this. All he could think was - that the locals would crucify him for saving the sheriffs boat... Interesting how we have different perspectives.

Anyhow the police talk it over with each other, and with others on the phone (saying it was 2 minutes from going under). One officer was saying they need to find a different spot to tie up the boat. This is the 3rd one that's wanted to sink in this spot. Hmmmm. They found that the batteries on the boat were dead, so the bildge pump ran and ran until it drained the batteries and couldn't pump anymore. They did manage to get the boat started finally and the water pumped out. It appears there was a faulty gasket where the swim ladder attaches to the boat. So they got the boat out of the water to search for some marine grade silicon sealant. Hmmm... aren't we at a marina, with a very fine ships store? Hmmm... The remaining officer thanked us. I ordered pizza. Entertainment over for the afternoon, and only one side of our boat got de-algaed... Waiting for pizza from the Rip Van Winkle Bridge (Tory G's Delivers Ha ha ha -No cooking for me tonight.) Eats then shower, then laundry, then bed...

The picture is of the sheriffs boat as they were about to take it out of the creek for repairs. I didn't think fast enough to get a picture of it sinking... (just as well)

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Today was spent putting the mast back up, boom, and rigging, then wiring for the mast (since the rain chased us in). The sails will have to wait until the rain stops. But she's looking like a sailboat again! Yay!!! The cradles are gone and soon we'll have the decks cleared of our sail bags and other stored items. We moved from the main dock where the hoist is before low tide occurred, otherwise we'd have been stuck in the mud. Pretty shallow there.

The guys here are amazing - very helpful and friendly. They know their stuff too.

It looks like tomorrow we'll get a weather window and if we time it right with the tide and current we should be able to get to Pollepel Island and anchor off there - then the following day we'll go past West Point and we're going to try to get to Liberty Island and anchor off there. From there, we need to go out to the Atlantic (this is a long day - 22 hours straight if we can do it - then back in to Cape May, then up Delaware Bay up to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. We need to go out shore around New Jersey because it's to shallow for us to stay in the Inner coastal waterway in that area. That's the plan, weather permitting, so we're going to try to get to the SSCA Gam coming up Sept. 20th before the Annapolis Boat Show. So there may not be any posts for a week or so since we'll be anchoring until we get near Annapolis. All things are tentative depending on the weather.

Tested out our new lights on the mast tonight after dark and the %*#&$ deck light that didn't work before, still doesn't work (new bulb $12.00, me swearing at it - priceless). All the others are working pretty good so Wayne's magnificent wiring job (match up all the pretty colors in the right order) worked once again. It also helps, we found, to take pictures of the schematics before taking them apart - it's no fun shoving a large framed body down near the mast. My little hands came in handy today too J

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