Update 9/20/2011 Lock 7 to Sandy Hook

Greetings from NJ!

We did in fact get moving and its been a quick trip down the Hudson! Our trip down the remainder of the Champalin canal was quick, relaxing at times and a nail biter a couple of times!

The dam at lock 2

The river was still 2-3 feet high and running at a good clip. This made it interesting leaving some of the locks below the dams and one had to be careful of debris and making sure we were in the right channel as we did not want to be swept over the dams.

 I had mounted a “bridge tickler” on the front of the boat. This is a (sacrificial if necessary) pvc pipe which if my measurements are correct the top is 2 inches higher than the boat. The idea is to ease up to a low bridge, make sure the tickler will clear and then proceed under it, being prepared to give he boat full reverse if the tickler hits. What I was wasn’t sure of was whether the props in reverse would overcome the current in time! As it turned out, there were only two real low bridges, both of which were 2-3 inches above the tickler! One was a railroad bridge that had a train passing over as we went under.

The bridge tickler as seen from the helm

We had planned to proceed to the Albany Yacht Club but the weather forecast for the next day was bad so we decided to stop at the Canal Visitors Center dock at Waterford which had just gotten back to being useable the previous day.

The evidence of the water damage there was everywhere. There was no power or water on the docks and there were broken wires lying in several places. They were cleaning the mud off the walkway with fire hoses and the next day they were power washing the mud off all of the furniture and equipment in the building. We saw houses with flooded basements and were told that several had been knocked off of their foundations and were no longer habitable. We also were shown where the waster had come up over 5 feet on the side of the visitors center building.  We stayed there 2 days, waiting out the rain on the second day.

Example of debris piled on bridge abutment

The next day we traveled in beautiful weather to Kingston where we stayed at the Kingston City Marina. There was quite a bit of evidence of the flooding there also and when we left the next morning we saw a boat pushing a section of docks back up the creek. The weather was nice again the next day and we passed through the Hudson Highlands, anchoring at Croton Point (just above the Tappan Zee) for the night. It was a beautiful, quiet night at anchor with an almost full moon playing on the water.

Sunset at Croton Point

Great Kills Yacht Club on Staten Island was the next stop. It was another gorgeous day as we passed down the Hudson along the NJ Palisades and the west side of Manhatten. However, as we started through the harbor, the wind and clouds came and it got cooler and a little rough as we made our way across the lower bay to the entrance to Great Kills Harbor. The picture below is the George Washington Bridge with Manhattan in the background.

 

We stayed 2 nights at the yacht club. The club was friendly and we were able to catch the last quarter of the Patriots game at the bar, kibitzing with some of the members. The second day, Larry and Sue drove up and we had an interesting afternoon touring Staten Island. Unfortunately many of the museums, etc were closed on Monday. We ended the day with a meal at an neat old German restaurant Larry remembered.

Today, we  traveled in a light rain to Atlantic Highlands where we took on fuel ($.75 a gallon less than we saw in New York state) and toured the town a bit.