Peter, Bob and Tarja arrived at Riverview Marine on Tuesday. Peter helped Bob with all the tasks required to put up the mast stands and get the rig ready for the mast to come down. Meanwhile, Tarja hit Price Chopper to provision the boat for the final leg of Finnish Line’s trip, along the Erie Canal to Oswego – then across Lake Ontario to Kingston. Peter drove back to Kingston late Tuesday afternoon with hope in his heart that the crane operators strike will be settled soon and the boats at KYC will be happily floating at their docks.
The mast came down on Wednesday, we’ll leave on Friday morning to go as far as Waterford and will start along the canal on Saturday. There is still a lot of debris; branches, logs, in the water. The first picture shows stuff floating by when we arrived. The other pictures are of the mast down process.
Left the anchorage at 8am. This is the last day of travel until later in May. The boat will be left at a marina on Catskill Creek until the Erie Canal opens May 20th. Tarja is driving down today to pick Bob and Peter up and they will be home in Kingston tomorrow. By tradition, the crew will dine tonight at the New York Restaurant, a tradition started by Ursula Thorley and Jeb Thorley in 2016. This will be the crew’s 4th time there.
Riverview Marine Services in Catskill NY
Finnish Line arrived at Riverview Marine around 2:15pm having dodged all manner of debris in the river, large branches, whole trees and a dock! All this with a current up to 3kn against them. They ended up stopping at Riverview Marine at the mouth of the creek rather than going to Hop-O-Nose. The current at Riverview was 5kn this morning but luckily had dropped to 3 when they arrived. No docks were yet launched so Mike allowed us to tie to the small barge at their fuel dock. We were very fortunate that Mike could accommodate us as we had no plan B!
Tarja arrived around 3:30, in lovely sunshine, a lump of damp clothing was quickly hung up.
Dinner reservations were made at the New York Restaurant and everyone had a final meal thus maintaining their Catskill tradition.
The boat now stays there until latish May when the Erie Canal opens, and it can complete the final leg of the trip.
The crew slept well last night at home although Bob complained he had trouble getting to sleep as there were no waves slapping against the boat.
A non-eventful day but raining so stopped short of the usual anchorage just below Kingston NY. Instead, anchored on the east side of Esopus Island just north of the Poughkeepsie YC. The weather reports called for low winds but some gusting through the night over 20 knots. Also forecast was lots of rain with the likelihood of local flooding. The winds/gusts never appeared although the rain certainly did. As a result it was a very peaceful, calm night.
The journey is almost over. Bob and Peter left Portsmouth, Virginia at 7:30am on Monday and anchored at Haverstraw Cove on the Hudson River, Wednesday afternoon – 56 hours and 310 nautical miles later. They did 90-minute day watches and 3-hour night watches during the 56 hours which were filled with decent weather, not so decent weather and in the last 24 hours LOTS of rain. There was some sailing but, as like every other time on this coast, motoring. Dropped in mid-afternoon on the 2nd day to Atlantic City to refuel. Unhappily, on the way out the river was ebbing against large seas in coming making for 15 minutes of violent crashing of the bow as it plunged between the waves.
Peter Containing his Enthusiasm
Bob took over the watch at 2am on the Wednesday morning. As usual he first checked for any AIS boats/ships around and looked at the radar screen for any objects. He found one several miles ahead which was travelling toward them. No lights could be seen so Bob changed course 60 degrees to starboard and even with this “object” a few hundred feet off the beam he still couldn’t see anything. Maybe a fishing boat with their lights off? Happens more than you think (or wish).
They rounded Sandy Hook (NYC Harbor entrance) around 4am and passed under through the Narrows and under the Verrazzano Bridge at 6:30. As daylight appeared the skies were grey, the wind was up, the rain was raining, and, of course, they were fighting the out going tidal current. They started up the Hudson through NYC from the Statue of Liberty at 8:15 and under the George Washington Bridge by 11:00.
Liberty in Grey
Lower Manhatten
By mid-afternoon they were at the usual anchorage of Haverstraw Cove – a shallow entrance plus a sunken brick pile to keep clear of but the cove itself has plenty of room and water. Very calm which no one onboard complained about.
A calm and sunny day to continue on to Tidewater Marina in Portsmouth VA where we can provision and get ready for our 3 day sail to NYC. Stopped for fuel at the Atlantic Yacht Basin while we waited for the Great Bridge bridge and Great Bridge lock to open. Arrived at Tidewater about 1pm.
As Portsmouth is just south of Norfolk an enormous US Navy base the Elizabeth River has several large ship repair yards. This section is all very industrial, some of it now derelict.
US Navy repair yards
Weather window looks like we’ll have to wait until Monday April 4th so we had a good amount of time to provision and do some dining off the boat. Portsmouth is a charming historic town.
After a rocky night with 40 knot gusts, huge amounts of rain and warnings of tornadoes we left this morning at 7:15 with a forecast of 12 knot winds. Instead we had 20+ knot winds with gusts up to 34. Needless to say the crossing of Albermarle Sound with skinny depths was very rolly. In a nice anchorage now with “reasonable” winds.
Alligator River Bridge that couldn’t swing yesterday due to the winds
Winds weren’t as high through night as forecasted so we decided to make some progress. We went through an “endless” canal (18 or so nm). Unhappily the winds finally did come up and the Alligator River was well in to the 20s maxing out at 42. With winds so high the bridge at the mouth couldn’t open so Peter found a somewhat sheltered spot which still feels the winds. Nothing like anchoring in 32 knot winds but Peter did a great job. Forecast is that winds will start to drop after midnight.
After some pondering about moving we settled for putting out a second anchor which served us well.
The endless Canal which connects the Alligator and Pungo Rivers
Headed up Adams Creek to the Neuse River and then up Pamlico River where a line of fishing trawlers appeared out of nowhere on a canal with little else but wilderness.
Trawlers on the Pamlico River
Went many more miles than planned today (57 nm) as we were making good time. Starting late tonight and all through tomorrow is supposed to be some high winds. We have positioned ourselves to be fully protected for 2 nights with the option of making at least 36 nm through a long canal that is quite protected if we deem the winds not so bad. Will make this call in the morning.
The smoke we saw today turned out to be from a US military range. There were 6 plumages with this being the largest. As Peter opined, the US military practising their scorched earth policy!The last photo I thought was some sort of building but turns out to be an amazing stand of trees.
Went through a very large, live fire US Marine base. I had called yesterday to find out they weren’t firing today. Well not in our sector, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of cannons firing for hours. At the north edge of the base is a bridge that only opens every 30 mins. Luckily when I radioed the bridge asking if I needed to wait for the next swing the operator said to just keep coming. When through I expressed my gratitude and his reply was, “You did all the work all I did was press the button”.
Anchored now off Morehead NC. Pics below show the island that is near us and our nearest neighbour.
Off at 06:15 this morning as we had to cover almost 70 nm. Barely light, the scenery was beautiful although it took me several minutes to realize the river wasn’t that narrow, it was the shadows of the trees that made it look so. The waterway was very calm and gave interesting reflections.
Which are the trees and which are the tree shadows ??
Off Beat Reflections
Pork and Beans a la Peter
We are now in a marine at Southport NC to do some provisioning. Tonight we had “pork and beans”.
put up the mast stands and get the rig ready for the mast to come down. Meanwhile, Tarja hit Price Chopper to provision the boat for the final leg of Finnish Line’s trip, along the Erie Canal to Oswego – then across Lake Ontario to Kingston. Peter drove back to Kingston late Tuesday afternoon with hope in his heart that the crane operators strike will be settled soon and the boats at KYC will be happily floating at their docks.
