Leg #8 — 6/5/14 to 6/15/14 — Albany, NY to Chambly, Quebec, Canada

We flew into Albany on June 4, rented a car and headed for the Albany Yacht Club Marina in Rens­se­laer across the river from Albany.
While Ken worked on some boat issues—the air con­di­tioner is flip­ping the breaker, I went to the gro­cery and hard­ware store.  We both always seem to miss look­ing at that list of things to buy and bring from home.  Ken wants rub­ber gloves that are fit­ted around the wrist.  I don’t find those at the gro­cery so instead I buy two pairs of house­hold rub­ber work gloves.  Then I go to the clos­est hard­ware store….of course, right across the street, where­upon I find great gloves for han­dling the lines through the locks.  I also buy two more pair, one for me and one for Ken when he loses the expen­sive pair.  I paint mine with pink nail pol­ish on the fin­gers so that I know which pair is mine.
We have not spent any time check­ing out Albany so we head down­town to see some of New York State Capi­tol sites.  “The Egg” is a huge arts and cul­ture space.  The state capi­tol build­ing is beau­ti­ful.  There are a lot of great build­ings down­town though the city looks like it is strug­gling.  We drove down Lark St. since I had read that it had a lot going on…..well, we didn’t see that part though you can see where they are try­ing.  We didn’t get out and walk and didn’t find a restau­rant that we wanted to go to.  We did find a lit­tle pub on State Street and stopped to have a late lunch/early din­ner.  Then back to the boat.  We went up to the club for Happy Hour and talked to a cou­ple of mem­bers.  We went down to talk to Bill and Amy on Mar­cat, a Looper out of Hert­ford, NC, who I had seen on the AGLCA Loca­tor App.  They are doing a sec­tion of the Loop over on the Erie Canals.  Back to the boat for me to relax and Ken to take the car back to the airport.

Uncle Sam — Sam Wilson

In the morn­ing, we head out around 7:30 and stop in Troy, NY around 8:30am.  Ok, this was a sur­prise to me.  Ken had known that he wanted to stop but it never came across my wave­length.  We stopped for break­fast !  It was good to get a glimpse of the city and we did find a nice break­fast spot.  Troy, NY is the home of Uncle Sam—Sam Wil­son.  Troy has a large statue of Sam and has also done the smaller depic­tion of Sam by var­i­ous artists located along the streets.  Back to the boat (after buy­ing large trash bags to cover the round fend­ers to keep the slime off as we tra­verse the locks).

On to the Troy Fed­eral  Lock.  Our first lock since the Oka­chobee Water­way in Florida!  This is the only lock run by the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment instead of the NY Canal Sys­tem.  All went very smooooothly.
When we hit Water­ford, NY, the deci­sion for every Looper is now.  We are head­ing North on the Canal while a great many Loop­ers turn west on the Erie Canal.  It’s a deci­sion based on time, boat height and which area you want to explore. 
On to Locks 1 through 6.  All went well, most quite quickly except Lock 6 where we had to wait a good hour for a barge to go in (and take up the whole lock), pick up some­thing and come back our way.
A storm was in the sky and we did not beat it in to Fort Edwards.  As usual, I am the one who ties up the boat in the very heavy rain.  This one should have been in a video because the wall was quite high so there are lad­ders to climb up the wall…but instead I just crawled up.  Great visual.  I accom­plished the nec­es­sary very quickly and back in the boat.  We are safe, sound and sit­ting still.  Hur­rah !  A long day and 7 locks.  Tomor­row we will have Locks 7 thru 12.  Din­ner was in a his­toric restau­rant a short walk away—not noteworthy.

That is the bot­tom of the bridge at the top of the page–the the top of the boat pictured.

After a morn­ing walk and, of course, break­fast at 2Momma’s, we headed out of Port Edward to Lock 7 at 8:00am.We had to wait on another barge to lock through before us and we came out of the Lock at 9:00am.  Now Locks 8 through 12 (there is no Lock 10) are “down” locks.  By 1:00pm, we are in White­hall for a brief visit.  We walked around Whitehall—not much to com­ment about.  We did take a pic­ture of the 1812 Ticon­deroga pieces of the old wooden boat. White­hall, NY is the birth­place of the U.S. Navy and the gate­way to the New York Canal Sys­tem.  Back on the boat and in to Lock 12.  Most of the locks have been sim­ple and fast.  When you have to wait for another Lock through, it prob­a­bly takes a half of an hour.  The bridge height on this canal is 17.5′ mean water depth–which to me means on aver­age.  Our boat is right at 16′ so the squeeze under a few of them brought us both to attention.The scenery between Locks 8 and 12 was beau­ti­ful.  After Lock 12, you really were see­ing the Adiron­dack Moun­tains but with spec­tac­u­lar marshes in the val­ley.  You might think you were in Geor­gia except for the moun­tains.  The chan­nel was very sim­i­lar to the Dis­mal Swamp in width and was serene.  We have only seen a cou­ple of plea­sure boats since we left Albany.  Three of them were head­ing south and one locked through with us in C12.
Yeah !  We ate on the boat after leav­ing C12.  The food now can’t all go to waste.  The scenery north is beau­ti­ful to spec­tac­u­lar.  When we reached the lower part of Lake Cham­plain the area opened up with moun­tains on each side.

Crown Point Lighthouse

This feels like the North­west cruis­ing we did on Sev­enth Sun II.  We ended the day at Van Slooten Marina which despite its’ glow­ing web­page, does not have all the ameni­ties known to man.  What it did have was a beau­ti­ful view to the Ver­mont side of the lake.  We had a bit of dif­fi­culty tying up to the short fin­gers in the wind and chop but finally man­aged with the help from the marina owner.
We trudged into town to look around and get a bite to eat, then ice cream, and back to the boat.  All of these lit­tle towns have Amtrack access and it appears that it would be a beau­ti­ful ride right next to the water.  We met a cou­ple of Cana­di­ans who had just bought their sail­boat and were return­ing to Que­bec  that evening.  They will come back and head to the Erie Canal, Oswego, TS and Geor­gian Bay when they come back in a cou­ple of weeks.
The next morn­ing, we left for West­port Marina, only 10 miles away around 7:30am.  We went slowly along the coast and into a few of the bays look­ing for eagle nests.  We spot­ted one who gave us some beau­ti­ful shots.
We need a new part for the air con­di­tioner and Ken arranged for them to order the part and put it in.  We arrived and refu­eled before Larry came aboard to look at sev­eral other small repair items.  We decided that since were going to come back here when the part arrived in a cou­ple of days that we would head to Ver­gennes, VT.
It was a long (8 miles at 5-6mph) and lazy wind­ing trip south­east on Otter Creek to the very charm­ing town of Ver­gennes, VT—Vermont’s old­est city.  The town dock is very small and the south end of it had room for us.  A group of peo­ple were work­ing on a wooden canal boat on the west end and their leader helped us dock.  The cur­rent runs a con­stant 1.5mph and the dock has large metal poles jut­ting out.  I later found out they don’t put the float­ing docks in until the first week of June and I should have called ahead.  I didn’t, so we dealt with what was there.  I was very grate­ful for the help as I could see those poles scrap­ing the side of the boat if things didn’t go well.  We tied up with­out inci­dent.  Ken spent some time on the bat­tery sit­u­a­tion.  On the way here, we had no 12V out­lets work­ing.  That means no recharg­ing phones or com­put­ers which con­sti­tutes a great deal of our being able to know where we are.  It’s not just a case of talk­ing to peo­ple or read­ing emails, we use the com­put­ers for nav­i­ga­tion besides our GPS Nav installed on the boat.  Both com­put­ers shut down because they were out of bat­tery.  The out­lets must have been off for sev­eral hours with­out our knowl­edge.  This is a big issue if we can’t get it fixed soon.
Ken spent some time read­ing and look­ing for the elec­tri­cal prob­lem and finally asked the boat behind us if they minded if we ran our gen­er­a­tor for a lit­tle while.  What­ever he did, the lights on the board for the out­lets lit up and we had juice to the out­lets.  I plugged every­thing in quickly to get all the bat­ter­ies charged.  Now we are good !
We have a beau­ti­ful view from the boat of the falls.  We walked around the park and up the hill to town at lunch at 3Squares.  I looked in a few shops and Ken went to the bak­ery for sweets and we met back at the boat for a very relaxed after­noon.  We took another walk through the park and up the stairs along the water­falls to inves­ti­gate the old his­toric pump house.  We had a very nice din­ner at the Black Sheep Bistro and then went to Anti­dote for a drink and a lit­tle music.  Since we’ve been get­ting up around 5:00am, only because the sun is up, it’s get­ting hard to stay lively very late.  We walked back to the boat and I headed to bed to read before crashing.
We left early the next morn­ing and headed to Burling­ton.  We got a slip at the Burling­ton Boat House Marina right at the bot­tom of Col­lege Street.

Front Row Seat at the Boathouse Marina in Burlington

Lit­tle bal­leri­nas enter­tained us on the dock

A mural of the par­tic­i­pants in the his­tory and suc­cess of Burlington.

Staff was avail­able and helped us dock—I’m almost get­ting used to this ser­vice.  We didn’t have this amenity while boat­ing in the NW and often times it causes a prob­lem in my rou­tine.  Since we started in Florida, it seems a very com­mon require­ment of most of the East coast boaters.  One of the big rea­sons that we bought this type of boat was the ease of get­ting on and off for con­stantly dock­ing in dif­fer­ent situations.
Burling­ton is a very nice city.  There are a lot of his­toric build­ings and it’s clean and vibrant.  Ethan Allen lived in this area so you see many ref­er­ences to him.  These two char­ac­ter­is­tics have been miss­ing in the towns we have been hit­ting since we left the lower sec­tion of the Hud­son.  We walked up to a diner for break­fast and walked Church St. where they have made a pedes­trian walk­way for four blocks. We took a free bus north up to the hos­pi­tal and stopped at Church street again on our way back to lis­ten to some music.  There was a music fes­ti­val going on so there were var­i­ous per­form­ers along the street.  I bought a CD of Sweet Remains and took it back to the boat to relax and lis­ten.  We walked to the Ice House for din­ner.  It was in the mid 80”s today, and remem­ber, we are wait­ing on a part for the air con­di­tioner.  It was time to think through how to get air into the boat with­out the bugs, which are very small gnats that can get through the screens, com­ing in.  We used the screens and read in the dark.  Luck­ily, we have screens that light up.   Hop­ing to switch our sleep­ing pat­tern, we stayed up a lit­tle later and didn’t get up until 6ish.  It gets light at 5:00am so it has been our wake-up time.  Between the lock slime and the bugs, the boat is filthy…mostly insect bod­ies.  Ken washed down the out­side that he can reach today while I sit and record our movements.
We’ve had a great stay in Burling­ton and would highly rec­om­mend this stop.  We changed our deci­sion to return to West­port  to have the AC part put in.  Instead, we are head­ing north and will either ship the part or drive down by car and pick it up.  The weather and our sched­ule have played a part in this direc­tion.  It does make it eas­ier since the lock sit­u­a­tion at Saint Jean sur Riche­lieu is restric­tive on the times that we can go through and time consuming.
We headed out on Lake Cham­plain around 6am head­ing to the Cana­dian Cus­toms stop just over the bor­der from Rouse’s Point.  Ken’s direc­tions  to me to try to get a 6 month cruis­ing per­mit didn’t sit well with the offi­cers.  They wanted a def­i­nite time that the boat would be out of Canada and my eva­sive hand move­ments didn’t make them com­fort­able.  I finally was able to explain that we would like to cruise as long as the weather per­mit­ted so they gave us until Nov. 1, 2014.
We fol­lowed a trawler north on the Riche­lieu River into St. Jean and tied up on the east wall.  The trawler, Phase II with tied in front of us.  They were Cana­di­ans bring­ing a boat that they bought in Florida back to their home near Ottawa.  They wanted to get through the locks that day so they sched­uled to go through at the 12:30 open­ing.  We went and watched the pro­ce­dure of 1 lift bridge, 1 swing bridge and then the very small lock.  There is a suc­ces­sion of 9 locks and they have a pro­ce­dure for each boat to go through.
St. Jeans is a nice town with plenty of restau­rants and his­tor­i­cal build­ings.  I took a nice walk in the morn­ing and was able to take in a lot more of the area.  Like a lot of towns these days, there are too many empty build­ings, but the town felt fairly clean and safe.  We met another Looper on Le Hooker from Florida.  They will be lock­ing through in the 12:30pm two­some.  Six boats were wait­ing to go through the Locks.  Four will go today and two will have to wait until 9:30am tomor­row morning.

In the morn­ing, we are told to lis­ten to the radio for instruc­tions at 8:30am from the lock and bridge ten­ders.  The radio didn’t buzz until after 9:00 and we didn’t get out of Lock 9 until 9:40.  We were the first boat in and we will go through all 9 locks to arrive at Cham­bly around 1:00.  These locks have room for us and a 40 ft. sail­boat.  In each lock we fol­low the same pro­ce­dure and the sail­boat fol­lows us closely the entire 12 miles.  The lock ten­ders were very nice and help­ful with their instructions.

Other boats lock­ing through the Cham­bly step locks.

We arrived at Lake Cham­bly with the Cham­bly Marina just a few yards away.  We were tied up within min­utes.  Of course, we took a walk and found a big, late lunch before Ken called a cab to go pick up a car.

We spent the evening qui­etly hang­ing around the boat.  It was rainy and chilly so it was nice to cud­dle down in the boat.  We have inter­net !!!  It is so dis­gust­ing how addicted we are to hav­ing access to communication.

Aus­able Chasm

We took the car down to pick up the AC pump in West­port.  The drive south was very inter­est­ing and pic­turesque. We stopped to take photo’s of Aus­able Chasm an absolutely beau­ti­ful set of falls.  We looped around Crown Point and crossed over to Ver­mont to head back north.  The whole area is very rural and lush with green­ery.  We went through Ver­gennes on the way back and stopped for cof­fee and choco­late.  It was too hot to buy any the last time we were there—it would have melted on the walk back to the boat !  Another AGLCA boat was tied at the docks but it didn’t appear that any­one was on board so we ate and drank and headed back out to drive back to Chambly.

We are right next to Fort Cham­bly which sits where the RIche­lieu River con­nects to the Cham­bly Lake.  We have seen, and vis­ited, our share of inter­est­ing forts all along this entire jour­ney.  We passed Fort Ticon­deroga in New York and Fort Ile Aux Noix in Canada. Cham­bly is a very nice small town about 20 min­utes from Mon­treal.  The small towns are not as bi-lingual as the larger cities so our lack of French has made it more difficult.

We drove into Mon­treal on our last free day to check out the two mari­nas down­town.  It was a dreary, rainy day but we accom­plished our tasks.  We suf­fered some map dis­func­tions on our way home and it took us much longer than the 20 min­utes to get back.   A lot of plan­ning these legs is get­ting back and forth, fig­ur­ing out the repro­vi­sion­ing (with or with­out a car), and when we can head out.  In this case, we have a lock with lim­ited open­ings on up the Riche­lieu River to con­sider on our way to Montreal.

Leg #7 - 5/6/14 to 5/14/14 -- Port Washington, NY to Albany, NY

Last week Cierra and I flew to Long Island, rented a car and came to spend five days in New York.  We had a great adventure going into Manhattan for three days.  We had to catch the bus to the train station (since we couldn’t get a permit to park anywhere nearby), took the LII train into the city and ventured about.  We shopped and found a new graduation dress at the overwhelming Macy’s, saw a Broadway adaptation of Cinderella, met Carolyn Gray for dinner one night, took the Hop-On and Hop-Off bus one day, walked through Central Park, visited the Statue of Liberty and several churches, ate meals and ate junk, walked the High-Line, took the subway a couple of times, & 

walked, walked and walked.  She knocked one off of her young to-do list.

 
Ken and I flew in to Long Island on May 6, rented a car and drove to Port Washington stopping at Whole Foods and for lunch in Rosyln.  We put everything away, filled the boat with water and fuel, and Ken met with Steve about the boat repair list.  We left the bay the next morning at 9:05 hoping to make it to Poughkeepsie.  We took the Harlem River shortcut which bypasses Manhattan and cuts off about ten miles.  The view is somewhat less impressive than going around Battery Park and Lower Manhattan.  We traveled under about 10 bridges-- the last one being the Spuyten Duyvil Railroad Swing Bridge which we had to request an opening.  We were quickly allowed passage and were heading north on the Hudson.  Immediately when you enter the Hudson you see the Pallisades.  They are beautiful cliffs on the west side of the river.
It is a beautiful  trip with many towns visible on the banks.  The variation of the buildings and the different areas is so noticeable.  There are areas of extremely large apartment buildings and then massive single family houses perfectly placed up on the hill.
We passed by West Point on the way.  It is amazing to see from the river.  The buildings are so massive and have the character of an old castle.

We made it Poughkeepsie early enough to walk into town for dinner after tying up at the Shadows Marina.  We ate at Mahoney’s Pub down on the waterfront and across from the train station.

The next morning Ken was picked up by Enterprise and came back with a car.  We took off to the town of Rhinebeck for breakfast and a short walk.
The area where the Vanderbilt Mansion, the FDR Homestead and the Culinary Institute are located is known as Hyde Park.  We drove to the Vanderbilt Mansion and took a tour of that magnificent house on an even more magnificent property overlooking the Hudson River.  They describe this property as “one of America’s premier examples of the country palaces built by wealthy industrialists during the Guilded Age.

 
After that tour we headed south and took a tour of the FDR Homestead.  The buildings on the Springwood estate were much less grand but the history reminder was worthy of the time.

Freedom Sculpture at the FDR Museum made by Churchill's granddaughter from the Berlin Wall.

Culinary Institue of America, Hyde Park, NY from the water

We then went to the Apple Pie Bakery and Café at the Culinary Institute of America for a late lunch plus some dessert.  It was interesting to ask the student workers questions about their studies and situation at the Institute.

After our very touristy day, we went back to the boat for some downtime and walked up to the restaurant at the Shadows sitting right above our boat for a late dinner.
In the morning, we took off early for breakfast at the Fiddlesticks Café in Cornwall.  It was on our way to take a tour of West Point Military Academy.  We took one of tours of the sprawling facility, its’ many beautiful and old buildings with all of its history and charm.

Afterward, we headed over to the Storm King Art Center which is a 500 acre outdoor sculpture park with over 100 sculptures.  The massive pieces placed throughout the park make a striking display.  We hopped on the tram and listened to the narrative of this park that has been growing over the last 60 years.

.

On our way back to the boat, we traveled through Newburg.  We had lunch at the waterfront which is very nice with a multitude of restaurant opportunities.  The city itself looked very depressed and rough.  Back at the boat, we rested so that we can be ready for dinner at the American Bounty Restaurant at the CIA tonight.  I had made a reservation on line last week.

My dessert !!

The dinner menu at the CIA was interesting and the service was excellent.  The presentation of their food was exceptional.  We have eaten at culinary schools before but decided that we need to make a special effort to search them out in our travels.

On Saturday morning, we decided to take a short ride to the town of Beacon and check it out.  We ate at a nice little café, Nature’s Bounty, and looked in a few windows.  This town is worth a visit as it has been able to re-establish itself after quite a decline.  The DIA: Beacon (art institute)was established in an abandoned Nabisco factory here a few years back.  This evidently brought artists here to live and work and has helped revitalize the town.  It’s directly across the river from Newburg and there’s a ferry between the two cities.
Back to the boat—well, really to return the car and take a taxi back to the boat.  I’m sure everything sounds faster and easier when I write it in this journal.  We are only going about 30 miles today so we are not in any hurry.  We took off from Shadows and headed north up the Hudson.

Everywhere you look on this portion of the river is majestic.  There are so many large buildings—mansions, schools, university campuses, religious compounds, up on the banks of the Hudson.  The view in all directions is always spectacular.

There are several beautiful lighthouses on this leg.

Roundout Lighthouse on the entry from the Hudson River into Roundout Creek

We arrived at the Kingston Maritime Museum in early afternoon.  The dockmaster and staff greeted us and we discussed last year’s Looper experience.  A group of boaters stayed here for an extended period of time waiting for the canals to open after the flooding of 2013.  This is where some Loopers who had planned on traveling the Erie Canal decided to take the Champlain Route instead.  This route is the one we have planned for our journey.
We had a beautiful day in Kingston finally seeing the sun.  We sat out back and enjoyed the river traffic. Of course, we ate lunch and dinner at local eateries.  I’m not sure why we buy groceries.  We eat on the boat when we are moving but the lure of new restaurants is something we both fall for. We visited the Marine Museum with the marina where we docked.  They have an extensive inventory of marine artifacts from the Hudson Valley.  We also took the old Trolly out to the point, listened to more interesting history of this area and then visited the Trolly Museum.  We had a nice dinner at Ship to Shore and left early in the morning for Catskill for a pump repair.
We had an easy ride north to Catskill on a beautiful and sunny day.  Riverview Marina's owner, Mike, was very accommodating with a repair to our water pump.  Fixed and in a slip shortly after arriving--then off to find lunch.  This was really a slow and lazy day, mainly because there wasn't anything that we could possibly find to do.  In the evening, we walked to have a nice outside dinner on the point.  Later Ken helped a Canadian man, son and daughter figure out how to find a place to tie up for the night near our boat. They were bringing a newly purchased boat to Montreal and didn't spoke very little English. We also met up and shared bits of advice with them before they left in the morning.
We took off from Catskill very early and headed to our layover marina in Albany.  We are docked at the Albany Yacht Club just south and on the east side of the Hudson before noon.  We will keep the boat here until we return in early June.

Leg #6 -- 4/8/14 to 4/18/14 -- Baltimore, MD to Port Washington, NY

This leg of our Loop is a bit more challenging both with weather/seas and scheduling--that dirty word.  Ken got to Baltimore early and starting getting the boat ready to travel for the summer.  I came on Tuesday morning.  I didn't have to do much except go to get some provisions and do the usual walk, eat and drink.  We left Baltimore, our boat's winter home, on 4/9.  We both loved Fell's Point and Henderson's Marina with all of the historic properties, restaurants and bars easily available.  Henderson's Marina staff couldn't have been more helpful and Peterson's Marine worked hard to get us ready to take off this Spring.  Richard, our neighbor boater, kept a good eye on our boat all winter !
We left early and headed North on the Chesapeake to the C&D canal to end the day at Delaware City.  The canal was easy with little current.  There was absolutely no traffic on the canal.  We only encountered a few boats while cruising up the Chesapeake as we are really early in the season.  Delaware City was a pleasant stop with their boardwalk and historic building tour.  We were the first Looper of the 2014 season !!
We left Delaware City early and headed South to Cape May on a glass-like Delaware Bay.  This water can be very rough so we were amazed when it was so smooth.  Part of the way down, the water started to get a little rougher but still within our comfort zone.

We got into Cape May and Ultch Marina around noon and proceeded to find out that they didn't have water yet (too early in the winter season)......oh well, we were their first Looper also.  After a nice long walk into town, having lunch, walking around and seeing all of the spectacular houses with Victorian architecture which included a large number of B & B's, we hiked back to the marina.  We hung around the boat, except for dinner next door, trying to figure out the best way to proceed north--NJICW or ocean--neither sounding great at the moment.  The NJICW has always been rather difficult but now even more so after Hurrican Sandy with more shoaling and debris in the waters.  The weather is making going outside not quite what we'd like today.  Tomorrow should be a better weather day.  Cape May is a beautiful coastal town so it makes for a pleasant stay.Well, we didn't stay.  After talking to the Coast Guard, SeaTow, the Coast Guard, some locals and fishermen, we decided to stick our nose out and see if we could handle the waves.  My issue is taking the waves on the beam.  I can stand the bucking effect from the bow or stern--but the leaning over on the water thing gets me thinking we all might roll over.  When we got out there, we decided it wasn't too bad so we headed north.  Ken did almost all of the driving since I was trying to distract myself with other thoughts.  We made it into Atlantic City right after noon to the Golden Nugget (Farley) Marina.  After settling in, we went over to the casino for lunch.  We took the shuttle that takes you around town and headed over to the boardwalk.  The wind on the ocean had kicked up severely.  We walked the boardwalk for a little while and then headed back to the boat.  We ended up taking a cab with two other people back to the casino.  We had dinner again at the casino.  The marina manager had made it pretty clear that we would be safe in the casinos but to not go walking around downtown even in the daytime.  That didn't make us want to wander anywhere at night.  We left Atlantic City around 7:00am heading to Manansquan Inlet and Hoffman's Marina.  The swells were similar to yesterday at around 4 to 6 ft. but not choppy at all.  It just makes you feel like a bobber out in the middle of the water.  We got into the marina at around noon after going through the crazy mouth of the inlet.  We've had a lot of boating experiences and some really rough waters but we were both surprised at how wild the water was for about a half mile coming in.  We refueled and then tied up to extremely high docks with outside pylons.  This is the first time we've had to get off the boat from the upper deck. After checking in we, took a walk to check out the location and find lunch.  Brielle, NJ is a cute little town on the river with Manansquan to the North and Point Pleasant, NJ to the South--both beach communities. To avoid the churning waters tomorrow morning, we are planning on leaving at 8:25am--slack time.

Great location at North Cove Marina.

Plans changed--just a little.  In the morning, the webcam showed calm waters in the channel and the owner of the marina came over to help us off.  His advice was appreciated as there was quite a current and our nose was directed at a railway bridge.  We backed off of the T, turned around and headed out into the Atlantic for another day of ocean travel.  The day was calm and the waters were great.  We came straight north to Sandy Hook, headed east into Raritan Bay and then north up to Manhattan and North Cove Marina.  We had been trying to decide if we would go straight to Port Washington and take the train into Manhattan or try to stay closer.  We were a day ahead of schedule so we decided on downtown.  The wind started to pick up as we came up to the Statue of Liberty. 

We hung around a bit and took pictures but had to work to stay out of the way of the many tourist boats.  We got into the marina, and since it was a Sunday, no one was around.  We had been told to go ahead and tie up and get with the Dockmaster in the morning.

We headed out to "tour".  The 911 Memorial was very close but the long lines and the fact that we hadn't bought tickets ahead of time sent us off in another direction.  We had never visited Ellis Island so that was our goal for the day.  First, we ate breakfast at a nice cafe near the boat.  Then we started walking, down Broadway, over through the Financial District and down Wall Street, over to the various ferry piers on the east side of the island and then south to Battery Park where the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Ferries are located.  We both enjoyed the history and architecture at Ellis Island.  The whole area is crowded but comfortably safe feeling.  The marina is in a very residential area with lots of condo's/apartments where everyone is out walking the dog or running all of the time.  The location was very enjoyable.

Our second day was spent primarily on the Hop On/Hop Off bus.  We were tourists !!!  We've learned to like using these buses because it give a great overview of an area.  We took both the Downtown and Uptown tours so now we know were everything is !  We got off at Central Park and ate lunch at The Plaza Mall--a neat concept of small eateries at the Plaza Hotel.  There is so much to explore that it is almost overwhelming.  So many beautiful buildings, churches, museums and a zillion places to eat.  We touched on all of the multitude of neighborhoods with their special charms.  It was lively everywhere we went and only an area or two that looked like we wouldn't want to "hop off" and look around.  We ended around 4:00pm and then headed back to the boat for a rest.  The Dockmaster was there waiting for us--the sole boat in the marina.  We filled out the paperwork and paid for our water room at the inn.  A lot of people don't like to stay at the marinas that are close to downtown because the wake from the river and ferries is so strong.  We both love the easy access of these kind of locations and are willing to sacrifice the constant movement--and sometimes it's quite comforting to roll to sleep.  We had dinner at a nice restaurant close to the marina, took a walk around and found Ken something sweet to take back to the boat.  People are still walking the dogs and jogging at 11:00 at night.  We are really pleasantly surprised how much we liked the area.

Ice on our steps in Port Washington !

A very cold and rainy trip up the East River.

We left downtown early Tuesday morning to head to our lay-over marina in Port Washington.  There was a little confusion about the weather.....  We knew that there was a large storming coming toward us and the plan was to stay in front of it.  Somehow, a little round blue cloud of rain and wind followed us once we got out of the marina and headed over to the East River.  On the NOAA map, you could see this little bit of storm out ahead of the other huge front.  It rained and the wind blew quite severely all of the way.  Luckily, there wasn't a lot of traffic once we passed the ferry terminals at the bottom of Manhattan.  A few barges loomed in the fog on occasion, some anchored and a few moving.  We were met at Brewer Capri Marina and were helped in tying up in the rain.  It was nice to get warm, dry and settled in for a couple of days.  Ken took a cab to LaGuardia to pick up a rental car so that we could get chores taken care of on the boat.  A few trips to the hardware, West Marine, grocery, etc. and numerous eating adventures before we headed for home on Friday.  The best food experience was the Mediterranean Restaurant in Port Washington for breakfast and a exceptional dinner at Le P'tite Framboise.