The Mighty Hudson
03 September 2013
The Hudson is a huge ditch of a river flowing south (the wrong way) though for periods each day it reverses direction. The river is tidal all the way up to Albany, 150 miles north of New York City. In the early 1600's, about the ssme time that Samuel de Champlain was poking around Quebec, Henry Hudson sailed up it all the way past Albany in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. Alas, China was not around the next bend and he eventually sailed north, almost making it before his crew mutinied and set him adrift in the bay that also bears his name.
The Hudson was crucial in making New York the prosperous port it became. It provided easy transportation into a huge hinterland rich in resources. By 1830 the state had constructed the first Erie Canal that stretched from Albany to Buffalo on Lake Erie. There was now a continuous water route between New York and the west. Grain and coal came east, settlers and manufactured goods went west.
This is our route home. We travelled up the Hudson for several days, dodging large tugs with loaded barges and powerboats out for one last fling on the long weekend. The scenery was quite spectacular through the sections around Bear Mountain and West Point with large mountains soaring right out of the river. We stopped at Poughkeepsie Yacht Club on Friday evening for two nights. Folks at the club were very friendly and helpful and the place was very laid back. The docks, however, are very exposed to wakes from passing traffic. The worst offenders were large power yachts running at top speed.
On Saturday morning we jumped into the dinghy for a one-mile run to West Park Monastery where the Order of the Holy Cross has its main house. The prior, Br. Scott, is an old work colleague. We went to Diurnam in the chapel and then had lunch in the stunning refractory, a modern, round structure cantilevered out over the valley slope with great views of the Hudson below. We had a tour of the place and a great chat with Scott after lunch.
Sunday we travelled up to the town of Catskill where we had a Monday morning appointment to have our mast in-stepped. We arrived at Riverview Marina in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day removing sails, the boom, loosening and detaching shrouds and building a cradle to hold the mast out of free wood left by other boaters having their masts put back up. It was a very hot, sticky day and after a refreshing shower we headed to a waterside restaurant for a great dinner.
Next morning was slow getting started, there were a few staff who didn't make it in and we were delayed, so Heather and I got a cab to the grocery store and did a major re-provisioning. We finally got to the mast about noon and were on our way north by about 1pm.
We stopped for the night at Coeyman's Landing Marina which is unusual among Hudson Marinas in that it has a break wall! The entrance is a little tricky and the depth is only a out seven feet at low tide, but they were welcoming and it's a great little facility. We got takeout from the great restaurant next door.
Tuesday we motored up through Albany. There are no marinas anywhere around Albany for quite stretch, which is the reason for our stop a Coeyman's. We arrived at the first lock in Troy around lunchtime. Licking though was smoot and quick and we were on our way up. No more tide. We stopped briefly at the visitors centre at Lick 2 on Waterford on then proceeded on up the Erie Canal.