06-19-09 Haverstraw Bay, NY

Rick speaks: We were happy to leave NY this morning. Not that it is not a happening place, but the 2.73 inches of rain yesterday coupled with the rolling and rocking while we were captive on the boat, made for a long day. The rocking and rolling was unbelievable. Any wave from a passing ferry, tug, or sailboat, goes across the deep Hudson, hits the shallow marina, wakes up, then hits the concrete wall and gets you coming back. It is like a tsunami. Even at that, we are glad we stopped in NY and did enjoy the visit.

As we left NYC, we passed the Palisades, rock cliffs 300-500 feet that go on for several miles. They are made of columnar basalt and are on the West side of the Hudson. Probably created by a volcanic eruption.







An old house boat, moored at the 79th st Marina was moved today. It had been at the marina for over 30 years. Apparently the city made the people move it, so the owners donated it to someone up the Hudson. They left at 0400, and we passed them on the Hudson. Here are pictures. The first shows the houseboat in its slip at the 79th Street Marina.



This shows the houseboat as we passed it about 1130. They had gone almost 30 miles, and were still chugging.







We only went about 30 miles up the Hudson to Haverstraw Bay, NY and we are staying at the Haverstraw Bay Marina. This is a huge marina, with 75 transient slips and over 300 total slips. It is in exact contrast to NY as it is dead calm. There is a pool, a ships store, a first class restaurant, and floating docks. Since tomorrow is to be a bad weather day, thunderstorms in the forecast, we will stay two days here and leave on Sunday morning. So, there may be no blog tomorrow, as we wait out the rain. We leave Sunday for Kingston, NY, where we plan to stay two days.

Because of our short length and limited facilities (20 gallon water tank, 10 gallon waste holding tank, and 6 gallon hot water tank), we depend on the marinas for a lot our comfort. As such, we look for certain things. An ideal marina will have:

Clean restrooms and private showers. Preferably a room with the shower and toilet in one private room, as described previously at Dowry Creek.

Floating docks with long finger piers.

Security.

A loaner car (or bicycle) or be very close to town and basic shopping.

Laundry facilities.

Protection from rocking and rolling from passing wake.

PumpOut for waste, preferably Free. (The only way to get people to not pump overboard is to make pumpout attractive to use. And charging $15 for a 10 gallon pumpout is not attractive.)

Gas/diesel.

Cable TV (free).

Wi-fi (free). We have found some marinas that charge $10-$14 for 24 hours of wi-fi. And guess what, no one uses it and they wonder why.

Captains Lounge where you can get off the boat and relax.

Most marinas have most of these things, and the really good ones have all of them. Again, the size and type of boat will dictate what you need. For example, a 40 ft Monk Trawler will usually have Direct TV, full head and shower facilities, and have little use for these at the marina.

There will be a test at the end of the trip……..