August 25-26 -- Croton to Marlboro to Kingston -- 29 and 20 NM

First a notice: Since the publication of the most recent post the "page views" garnered by this blog reached to 200,000 mark. Divided by the 9 3/4 years since debut, this means it has averaged 2150 page views per month. This is not "going viral" but shows a steadiness that impresses me. I had wondered whether the 200,000 page view or the 700th posting would occur first. And the page views won the race with this the 699th post. This means that winter and summer I have posted about once every five days.

Anyway, two days northbound on the Hudson. We have sailed ILENE up the Bath River in Maine and the Potomac between Maryland and Virginia, the Savannah to Savannah Georgia, and the St. John's to Jacksonville Florida as well as briefly up two rivers that flow into Chesapeake Bay, the York (in the SW) and the Chester (in the NE). All were one day trips except to Washington DC, up the Potomac, which was two days. So far we have been three days up the mighty Hudson, with more to come. This river was originally thought to be the passage from the Atlantic to the riches of China, but those dreams were short lived.

I'm reminded of the history lessons I had long forgotten. The Hudson was the major means of transport of goods from the American wilderness to Europe. After canoes it was sail powered boats and I would have been daunted by trying to sail even a modern sloop like ILENE up this river, except she is equipped with an inboard engine and electronic charts. With the river channeling the wind, it was largely on our bow and while each day we tried to sail, first with the small jib and then with the main, these efforts proved fruitless. When the wind was not on our bow it came in brief strong puffs that upset the boat's stately progress up the river. The engine ran the whole time. 

The sailboats were supplanted as cargo vessels by Robert Fulton's steamboats and later by the railroads. But both modes continue to move large quantities of freight at low cost per ton per mile.

American Elm, about 650 feet long, appeared suddenly from around a bend, heading south. I looked up her name via AIS and called on channel 13 for a starboard to starboard pass, which was accepted cheerfully. The railroads were more constant. the eastern side of the river in lined with tracks on which speedy passenger trains run frequently.

On the west side are tracks used by lengthy freight trains, moving slowly but loudly.

We were particularly reminded of this on our mooring at the Marlboro YC in the sleepy little town of Marlboro. A very nice friendly club and only $25 for the mooring. But the road to the club crossed the railroad tracks, less than 100 yards from our mooring. Such "grade crossings" are dangerous for collisions between trains and cars. So the trains blow their whistles  long and loud on approaching. Our kittie crew did not like the noise at all and it interrupted our sleep.

One lesson learned so far is how little I know so far about playing the tides on the River. Both of the days described in this post we had adverse tide most of the way. It is the difference between 4.5 or 5 knots and 7 or 8. Obviously, the tide runs upstream, "floods", during the six hour periods between low tide and high tide. But the high tide occurs at different times at different places on the River. Also, a lot of the problems we experienced result from my recent illness: if we had started this cruise a week earlier, the flood tides would have occurred more during the times we like to move, let's say during the day between breakfast and dinner. On the 26th the tide turned foul at 8 a.m. and for at least six hours. We considered leaving at 6 a.m. to get two hours of fair tide under our belts, but elected to leave at eleven a.m., suffering from at least the last three hours of the foul tide.

We passed a lot of  beautiful rugged scenery, some elegant homes and a fair amount of heavy industry.

We passed a number of beautiful pleasure boats, a ketch broad reaching with the tide and 

Vibrance", 164 feet long on anchor where we had considered anchoring, in the river behind Esopus island.

We passed under West Point

and Hyde Park. Having visited FDR's summer residence at Campobello Island off Maine a few years ago, we wanted to at least see Hyde Park too. I recall shaded lawns running from the house down to the River from a visit, by land, in my youth. But we could not identify the house from the River -- maybe the trees grew larger.

We went under many bridges. Lene performed a confidence building exercise. She has stood night watches for up to five hours at sea. But that is with autopilot steering the course shown on the chart plotter and the only potential problems being other ships, which show up  infrequently out there -- and she knows to wake me if they do. On the 25th she had the helm for 50 minutes while I was below. And this on a curving river with lots of traffic to watch out for.

We passed Shadows on the Hudson Marina at Poughkeepsie, where we will be stopping on the return trip.

The two bridges at Poughkeepsie reminded me of the pair between the Bronx and Queens at Hellsgate: One is for autos and the other, built earlier, was for railroads, though now the Poukeepsie railroad bridge is used by pedestrians.

At Kingston we took a dock at the Hudson River Maritime Museum -- a long wooden dock on the north side of Roundout Creek, directly across the Creek from to Peter Seeger's sloop, "Clearwater".

Sadly, due to Covid the museum is open only on weekends-- and we were here on Tuesday. But we watered the boat and strolled the very old city, took in a good art gallery and a fish dinner at one of the good restaurants in town.

This is my favorite photograph and sadly the camera could not do justice to the reality: Esophus Meadow Light warns boats off the "meadow" -- of seaweed on shallow water --  between it and the shore, with sweet hills behind it and majestic mountains further off.