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.

Leg #5 -- 9/19/13 to 10/1/13 -- Hampton, VA to Baltimore, MD

We arrived in Nor­folk early and drove to Vir­ginia Beach which looks like all of the other beach towns along the Atlantic.  We had lunch and went to Whole Foods for pro­vi­sions.  Back to boat at Salt Pond Marina.   Ken took the rental car back while I veg­ged with a book.  We had din­ner at the Marina and took off early the morn­ing of the 19^th head­ing  to Cape Charles.

Old cement ships used as a breakwater.

On the way we took a look the inter­est­ing break­wa­ter at Kip­topeke State Park that is made up of ten cement boats built around 1940.  After they were built, some­one decided that they were not work­ing out, and then used the shells out­side the ferry land­ing at the park site as a breakwater.

Cape Charles turned out to be a very charm­ing town with a cou­ple of nice restau­rants and a sprin­kling of shops.  The town has many his­tor­i­cal houses that are very well main­tained and the whole town was very pleas­ant.  We hit the cof­fee shop for lunch, then later to Shanty’s for appe­tiz­ers and Kelly’s Pub for another beer and snack.  The sail­boat next to us had four men on it and they were doing a “Boys on Board” trip !
I walked all around the town in the morn­ing after mail­ing Vail’s 2^nd postcard—the last post­card in town for this sea­son ! (Vail has a project at school that has asked for post­cards from wher­ever any­one is traveling.)
We left Port Charles at 8:30am head­ing to Tang­iers Island about 45 miles north.  The weather was beau­ti­ful and the water was flat—great.  We made a quick trip of it.

A pic­ture per­fect shot of the crab shacks on Tang­iers Island.

“The Mr. Parks” of Parks Marina

On to Tang­iers Island and a stop at Parks Marina.  Mr. Parks was very inter­est­ing and help­ful.  The lit­tle town has quite a his­tory and now has a small museum and infor­ma­tion cen­ter that tells you a bit of that tale.  The local accent is fun and the peo­ple are very engag­ing.  We took the $5.00/15 minute local golf cart tour and learned where every­thing was.  We are a lit­tle off-season so din­ner was a bit early—dessert first and a take-home.  One of our crew needs to want to cook !

We left Tang­ier Island and headed up the Potomac.  We’d had a few dis­cus­sions on whether to include this river because of the time involved get­ting to the north end.  We finally agreed to go ahead and head to Alexan­dria for a few nights.  Our first stop was Colo­nial Bay Marina.  We rented a golf cart and headed off to see what else was around.  We had lunch at one of the 3 Ori­en­tal restau­rants in the area, an ice cream at a lit­tle stand and just drove around to get a feel of the area.  We had din­ner, along with music, at the restau­rant at the marina.  I did find a post­card at one of the local art shops to send…so far, so good on the “Vail Post­card” project.

Mt. Ver­non atop a hill over look­ing the Potomac River…Gorgeous !

We left early and headed north to Alexan­dria.   We were not able to dock at Mount Ver­non because there were fer­ries at both sides of the dock so we kept on going.  We thought that we were going to stay at the National Har­bor Marina on the east side of the river but were able to get into the Alexan­dria City Marina.  It turned out to be a great loca­tion for see­ing the city.  We were straight out of the Tor­pedo Fac­tory which is now filled with great artists’ stu­dios.  There are lots of local restau­rants, 

shops and won­der­ful his­toric neigh­bor­hoods to walk.

Rose and Pel from home.…we ran in to them at Mt. Vernon.

We rented a car and drove the 8 miles south to Mr. Ver­non.  It’s a beau­ti­ful spot over­look­ing the Potomac.  Again, lots of inter­est­ing his­tory.  The small world that it is, we ran into Rose and Pel from home.  We made arrange­ments for later and they came to the boat around 5:00 for a drink and then off to dinner.

We met some boat neigh­bors on a Ranger Tug and they gave us some local knowl­edge of the Potomac and Chesa­peake mari­nas.  We just hung around and toured Alexan­dria for another day.
We took off in the morn­ing at daybreak—6:40am head­ing south on the Potomac.  We were head­ing to Cobb Island but got there so early that we kept going to Pt. Look­out.  This was an absolutely quiet spot espe­cially after being under the flights going into Ronald Reagon Wash­ing­ton National Air­port for a cou­ple of days.
We left Pt. Look­out and headed to Soloman’s Island and stayed at the Spring Cove Marina.  We walked to “town” and had an excep­tion­ally good lunch at the CD Café….walked fur­ther to have a drink at the infa­mous Tiki Hut Bar.  We took a walk to West Marine later and then spent a short Happy Hour at the Water­front Restaurant—back to the boat for left­overs for dinner.…remember.…eat and drink.…..

Light­house at Cam­bridge and smoke­stack from boat that brought Roo­sevelt here to open the new bridge.

We left Solomon’s after my morn­ing walk and headed to Cam­bridge, MD on the East­ern Shore.  A charm­ing lit­tle town that is the Dorch­ester County Seat.  Quite a con­trast of extremes in hous­ing around the town.  There is enough here to make an inter­est­ing visit.  We stayed a bit longer in the morn­ing for break­fast since it’s only 11 miles across to Oxford.  The wind is blow­ing a bit stronger this morn­ing so it might be a lit­tle rough.

Well, the water was fine and the sun came out but we decided to head over to St. Michael’s and go in the back way via Broad Creek to San Domingo Creek. We anchored out for the first time in quite awhile.…it was beau­ti­ful and so quiet.  I had for­got­ten how nice it is to be at anchor.  Well, until we had a few prob­lems with the batteries/electric.  Ken slept on the couch watch­ing the bat­tery bank light.  Every­thing was fine in the morn­ing though we did have to run the gen­er­a­tor to make coffee.

St. Michael’s is a beau­ti­ful lit­tle town full of fun shops and restau­rants.  It was really busy since it was Sat­ur­day.  We heard that a lot of peo­ple come here on the week­ends from the D.C. and Bal­ti­more areas.  They are all here today.  We walked around and had ice cream first, stopped at Alva’s for pizza and drinks and a nice con­ver­sa­tion with a cou­ple from the other side–the West­ern Shore.We went back to the boat for a rest and took the dinghy back around 8:00pm for din­ner.  We made it back to the boat with a tiny, lit­tle flash­light.  Luck­ily, the stars and anchor lights led the way home.

We left the anchor­age early in the morn­ing and decided to go to Rock Hall for a night.  We went through the Knapps Nar­rows and Knapps Nar­rows 12′ Bridge on Tilgham Island.  We went north through the East­ern Bay to the Kent Nar­rows then on to Rock Hall Marina.  After tying up and check­ing in, we hailed the local trans­porta­tion and took a tour of the penin­sula.  We got off “down­town” and walked around.…ending up with a great lunch at a restaurant/soda shop.  With full bel­lies, we walked back to the marina.A din­ner at the Water­man next door while watch­ing the sun­set made another great day.In the morn­ing, we headed out to our final port.…Baltimore.  We are keep­ing the boat at Hen­der­son Marina at Fell’s Point.

We went under the Fran­cis Scott Key Bridge into Bal­ti­more Har­bor.  This is a very large port with a great deal of com­mer­cial activ­ity.  There is a red, white and blue bouy on the west side of the bridge that marks the spot where Key wrote the poem dur­ing the war of 1812 that would become the “Star Span­gled Banner”.

We are keep­ing the boat in an area of Bal­ti­more called Fells Point–a funky, his­toric area filled with 180+ bars and restau­rants.  Sev­eral peo­ple at the marina imme­di­ately through that num­ber around.  We fig­ured we were going to have a hard time pub crawl­ing to all of them.  The first day, we walked around and hit a few of the rec­om­mended places. Also, found Kil­wins in Bal­ti­more! The sec­ond day, we walked to the Pres­i­dent Street Sta­tion to catch a local trol­ley tour.  We’ve been on a lot of bet­ter lit­tle city tours but it did give us an overview since we are not get­ting a car this trip.  We also did the Water Taxi and went to the Amer­i­can Vision­ary Art Museum.  Din­ner back at Fells Point and Ken got his oys­ters.  Wednes­day was a clean­ing and orga­niz­ing day–and then we left for home.