Sailing BrainWaves

Photos by Rod Evening Anchorage at Sandy Hook, New Jersey October 15 , 2017      After a light rain last night, we woke to cloudy skies and the megaphone greetings of departing charter boat captains to their customers. Deb & Don showed up with groceries and freshly laundered clothes. Deb and Karen spent the rest of the morning putting the new provisions away for the next crew of lazy men who sat in the cockpit and chatted. After packing their gear and final goodbyes, Deb and Karen headed out for Fred's home (in the car that we had driven down the day before). This would be a 4-5 hour drive.  The message we got was that shortly after they arrived they had a deluge of rain and the power went out. The captain and new crew readied the boat for the next leg of BrainWaves journey - Bermuda. We moved the boat out of the marina to a protective anchorage in the harbor. It was mostly cloudy all day but very pleasant and in the low 70's. At 4p...

October 14 Jake  and I drove down to Atlantic Highlands Saturday. Jake left Petoskey at 6 am.  I left Kalkaska in time to drop my car  off in Clio 15 minutes ahead of him. We left Clio and  arrived at the Sandy Hook area marina about 8:30 pm. We caught up with the stories of BrainWaves and crew (Don, Deb, Karen, and Fred.) With only two hours of sleep the night before, I was exhausted. I think Jake was also tired from the drive. We were all in bed by 10:30 pm. Despite the din  outside of the marina and awful singing, we managed to get some sleep. Deb and Don stayed at a motel nearby.  - Rod

Thursday, October 12 Up at 7:00, raised the Genoa, stowed the lines and got underway.  A light following wind didn't help much but we did get some lift when the tide went out. The cloudy day cleared up and we had a nice afternoon and evening.  We passed the Vanderbilt Mansion and the Culinary Institute of America.  We thought we would see FDR'S Hyde Park, but either we missed it or it wasn't visible from the river.  We saw many beautiful homes and equally beautiful scenery.  At 17:30, we anchored between Pollepel Island and the mainland.  The island was bought by Frank Bannerman, who purchased literally tons of Army/Navy surplus at the end of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War.  He built an edifice that looked like a Spanish Castle to store items that contained explosives.  It made for an interesting and curious backdrop to our anchorage. We must have been anchored on rock, because we heard the anchor chain growling much of the night....

Captain Bligh was up at 6:00, so the rest of us followed shortly.  It was a beautiful morning and we planned to do all the rest of the locks and get into the Hudson River.   We got to the first lock off the day very quickly and they just kept coming. We did seven locks before arriving at the "Waterford Flight", a series of four locks in a row that each drops about 35 feet.  We finished the "Flight" at 14:00.  The day was sunny and had gotten very warm.  Who would have thought we'd be in shorts and bare feet on October tenth!  The only lock left was the federal lock right after we got into the Hudson.  We were a happy crew. (Insert the theme from "Jaws").  This blog was getting a little boring and this IS a Roth trip.  We had to wait for a large tourist boat to exit the lock and turn around and then we were to follow it in.  As we entered the lock, it looked nothing like the other 34 locks we had done.  There we...

Wednesday, October 10 Cap'n had is underway at 7:00.  It took us an hour to get to Castleton Yacht Club.  (Yacht Club is a loose term here.). We came to check out the "gin pole" that is here to put the mast back up.  It is a do-it-yourself affair where boats wait in line.  You happy the guy in front and the next guy helps you.  Don and Fred helped out the guy ahead of us for awhile before Don decided he was just too unsure about the whole procedure.  We'd already paid our $50 but there was no one there to get it back from so we left for the next mast-stepping marina.  It was another five hours to Hop-o-Nose Marina.    On our way we went aground briefly.  Karen was driving and approached a light house at the end of an island in the river. There were no clear bouy markers and luckily she was watching our depths.  We're were able to power off without much trouble.  What's a day without going aground? We had been told by anoth...

We got off about 8:00 and headed the short distance to the next lock.  This was lock 17, which dropped us 40 feet.  It's one of the biggest in the world.  Instead of having gates that swing inward, it's gates are lifted from the top.  We hadn't figured out how to take pictures and fulfill our lock duties at the same time yet.   It rained all day, varying from drizzle to rain. After that lock, we did 6 more, mostly about 8 foot drops.  We've only done three up locks, which are a little more difficult. We've been in rather desperate need of a pumpout but facilities are few and far between.  We finally made it to a small marina and asked for fuel and a pumpout.  He said they'd already shut down the pumpout because the locks are closing in two days.  We couldn't figure out why that meant they had to shut down the pumpout two days before the closing, especially since any boat that enters by Oct. 12 can go through the whole system. ...

Hard rain during the night and many leaves to clean off the boat in the morning.  Raining when we left and windy.  We had fairly strong following winds all day.  Shows cleared up in the late morning and we are starting to see a lot more color.  Saw some more herons.  We did six locks today.  We seem to be done with the lift bridges. We docked at Little Falls at 4:30.  A cute, old Town at the foot of some very steep cliffs.  The marina was very nice, staffed by volunteer Rotarians.  The man there gave us a ride into town and dropped us at the grocery store.  We got groceries and walked the mile back to the boat.  We had a late dinner because of our wall, then took showers and watched some football in the marina building.  We've run into the crew from Compass Rose a couple of times since first talking to them in Fairport and they were docked behind us. Too late to play any Euchre tonight. - Deb