Welcome to New York

I am shocked that it has been more that a week since we have written a post, and its been a busy one!! So I will try to get caught up!

Since we left Catskill we have gone down the Hudson River and have now docked across from New York City for a whole week. How decadent!

The Hudson Valley is a beautiful sight, with amazing houses along the shore, including quite a few mansions, monasteries and lots of little towns with their church steeples rising up through the hilltops. We even saw West Point Military Academy!

Our first stop down the Hudson was Kingston. We really didn’t have a clue about the town, but found that it had a Marine Museum that had dockage if you became a member. So we are now members of the Hudson River Maritime Museum! This included a tour, which we did right away.  I learned quite a lot about the life of the keepers of lighthouses, of which there are several stately ones that we passed as we went down the river.

Rondout Lighthouse

There was also some information about Henry Hudson the explorer, and the area in general. Very informative! After the museum we walked around the historic lower town which is quite nice.

From Kingston it was a short hop down to Poughkeepsie. We had done some research on this town ahead of time and had discovered that it had the Vanderbilt Mansion, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Mansion and Museum, and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) all very close to the marina. (We have become quite the Uber riders!) So we arrived fairly early at the marina and decided that since we had limited time, and a reservation for a tour of the CIA at 4pm, we could only go to one other venue. So on the advice of the Dockmaster we decided to visit the FDR Mansion and Museum.  Good choice! The mansion has been retained as close to the original as possible, including original furniture and artifacts.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Mansion

The museum was excellent, with a lot of information on FDR’s life and the rise in his political life. We could have spent a lot more time there but had to move on to the CIA. This chef school is one of the most prestigious in the world, with several campuses throughout the States and now overseas as well.  We were taken on the tour by a student, and got to see a few of the hands-on kitchen classes, and even had a freshly baked almond Danish made by the pastry class. After the tour we had dinner in The Tavern, one of the many restaurants on campus, run by, and with cooking by, students. It was a great day.

Culinary Institute of America

The next day was a long one, going from Poughkeepsie to Haverstraw Marina, a huge marina with 850 slips, and not much else. Laundry was done and a quiet night had, as we had to get up bright and early the next day to catch the current/tide to get down to New York City.

We have been learning quickly about tides and currents, and the best way to get downstream is to catch the current running the same way as you are going, which gives you a little push and makes you go faster over the ground than normal.  Once the tide changes then you are running against it and this can slow you down by several knots, not a good thing if you need to get somewhere by a certain time. So that meant leaving the dock at 6 a.m. to ride the current into NYC.

Which was great, except we got there by 10:30, and our slip was not available until noon. So we turned off the motor, and slowly sailed into NYC Harbour, one of the busiest places I have sailed. You have to keep out of the way of all the ferries, which are coming at you from every direction. Of course it didn’t help that we arrived on a Sunday, which I'm sure is the busiest day of the week for boating. But we were able to get very close to the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, and got some great photos.

Statue of Liberty

We are at the Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City, which is a very nice and quiet marina away from the hustle bustle and waves of the harbour and across the river from Lower Manhattan. It has a ferry right at the end of our dock that takes us right into the World Trade Centre district.  We have been busy exploring the city, including two Broadway shows so far; School of Rock, which was really fun, and Beautiful, The Carol King Story, which was excellent. We have seen the 9/11 Museum, which was heart breaking, and even managed to find a rooftop bar on the 54^th floor of the Hyatt Hotel. Spectacular views!! We are getting very good at negotiating the subway and ferry system and walking, walking, walking!

Yesterday we went  to the Tenement Museum which gives you an intimate look at the lives of the German immigrants living in the lower east side tenement buildings and working in the area. We then walked down through Chinatown, little Italy and Soho, and capped the night off with a visit to Arlene's Grocery, a funky little nightclub in the Lower East Side that Hugh had read about in his guide book, and had a private show by two acoustic guitar singer-songwriters.

We are booked here until Sunday and then must make a decision on where to go next. We have decided that we are a little early to be heading into the Chesapeake, so are looking into going up into Long Island Sound. I think I am almost done with being a New Yorker!

The calendar says we have now been gone two months, and I can tell you its gone by so fast, we have done so much, and gone so far its really hard to believe. I have my moments of homesickness which I'm sure is very normal on a trip of this magnitude. We have become great friends with Bob and Sheila, our "buddy boat", and it is so nice to have someone to share the same emotions, frustrations and joy that come with this trip. We are very much like-minded and share the same vision of this journey. 

Sheila & Bob our cruising companions

So Stage 3 now is officially done ... we made it to NYC!

Stay tuned for the next stage ... one day at a time.