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| Sunrise in Kingston NY |
The events in this post took place during the month of July 2020.
As I did every morning my day started with the same routine as always with special attention to the repair that I had made the previous day. Tank and I went for our usual morning walk, engines were started, the power disconnected and as a courtesy I let the members to the rowing club know that we would be departing shortly. The rowing club ladies were kind enough to hold off on launching their shells as we pulled away from the dock turning around in the river. With Kingston behind us, we continued up the Hudson.
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| Leaving Kingston behind, we can't wait to get back here. |
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| The lighthouse that marks the entrance into Kingston |
The Hudson river is still very much a working river with barges pushed by tug boats carrying fuel, gravel, sand and all sorts of other goods from scrap metal to natural gas. The Hudson is also dotted with some of the most beautiful lighthouses I have ever seen. We continued to make our way up river towards Shady Harbor Marina at a slightly lower speed. Our original plan was to pump out before heading to our dock for our week long stay.
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| Such beautiful structures. |
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| Another Hudson River Lighthouse, they are all different! |
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| A paddler enjoys the calm river with a small working harbor in the background. |
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| Yet another lighthouse. |
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| Commercial barges are still working on these waters. |
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| Everybody shares the waterway. |
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| An abandoned factory of sorts. |
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| Mansions dot the shores. |
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| Also along the Hudson, many public wharfs. |
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| More commercial traffic. |
From our vantage point it was difficult to figure out where we were heading to, but the dock became obvious as we approached. With a current and wind working against us, I let Karen know that we would be docking on our starboard side. This required me to turn around in the river in order to have the wind and current pushing against us.
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| Shady Harbor in the distance. |
We made it to Shady Harbor, radioed our arrival and were directed to the fuel dock for pump out. Our arrival timed perfectly with an opposing current and a strong crosswind. As we approached there was a smaller boat that arrived at the fuel dock and decided to tie up in the middle of the dock leaving no room to maneuver the 49 Tons of Tropical Horizons II. We decided to head straight for our dock and leave the pump out for another day.
As always my approach was slow and steady. I managed to keep Tropical Horizon II's bow pointed at about a 30 degree angle towards the dock and with short pushes from the engines, we slid sideways along the river approaching the dock nice and slow. Shifting the engines in and out of gear and short pulses of the thrusters made for a calm and controlled approach. By this time we had quite a crowd on the dock come out to help us.....the pressure was on, I had better make this a good docking! We approached the dock and Karen called out distances to me as she handed the lines over to the dock staff. The owner of Shady Harbor, Brian was there to greet us and welcomed us to his marina. He made sure we were well secured and plugged in our power cable. I shut down the main engines, then the generator and switched the power over to shore power, we had arrived!
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| Tied up and hard at work with boat cleaning chores. |
Brian is a great marina operator. He made sure we were looked after and he is a character who will leave you with a lasting impression. We had managed to rent two U-Haul trucks, one was in the town next to the marina, the other was at the U-Haul depot in Albany. Brian gave us a lift in his vehicle to each location. Steve and Diane would be leaving us at this point and continuing on to their boat further up the Erie canal and Karen and I would be spending a few days decompressing and packing things up on Tropical Horizons II since her next stop would be a few miles up the river to Scarano Boat Builders for a winter refit. The next day Steve and I took my U-Haul rental and drove back down to Maryland to pick up my truck that we had parked at Lippincott Marina, while Karen and Diane were busy packing up the U-Haul that Steve and Diane rented. The following day, we said our goodbyes and our friends were on their way. Karen and I took some time to meet with other "Loopers" who were at the marina, two couples were from Canada and were on the last leg of their journey. We had people over for docktails in small groups and gave many tours of Tropical Horizons II. With our time coming to an end we started packing up as well, wondering just how we would fit our belongings into the truck for the trip back home to Canada.
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| We'll never get tired of these picturesque moments aboard Tropical Horizons II |
Next stop, Scarano Boat Builders, Albany NY.
