OtherGoose: Thursday Oct 30

Thursday Oct.30

We spent the rainy morning finishing the servicing, hooking up the radio and lights and the last of the laundry. We had showers and breakfast and got away by 11:00 am. It drizzled and the wind came up fiercely [because the guys behind us were getting ready to raise their mast]. We got out of their way and moved down river with the tide.

We are now in brackish water...half salt, half fresh. It has no effect on the new engine because the water cooling system circulates around the engine block, not through it. You probably don’t care that much, but we do. It saves the life of the engine!

We had sunny breaks all down the river, and wind behind us so we were able to put up the small jib and motor sail. I’ve gotten used to the engine. Not sure I’ll be able to sail with just the sails! We decided that since the tide goes out in the morning and comes up river in the afternoon it makes more sense to take off early and stop early.

The Castle belonged to Robert Church, an artist early 1900's. I guess artists were better paid back then!

So we are in Catskill, the county seat, and very small town a half mile away and super Wal-Mart is a $4.00 cab ride away, so we are going up there, and today we are buying a heater for the boat. That should absolutely ensure that we do not have snow or cold weather!!!

We are at the Riverside Marina. It’s a real working yard; not much in amenities, but showers, bathrooms and laundry. Too bad we did all that this morning.

At least 6 barges passed us traveling up and down the river today. They are really cool, like having a matching truck and trailer. They come from all over the eastern seaboard. And it doesn’t pay to get in their way.

The scenery on the river was wonderful and we are getting more colour, I am hoping that the further south we go, the less colour there is...all the leaves will still be green!

We went to Wal-Mart and got the heater, along with groceries. We called the cab to bring us back but there was another guy waiting for a cab too. The driver stopped at us and he ran over, so we shared it. He talked non-stop back to the boat about how wonderful and brave we were, to be on a sailboat; did we stay out on the ocean, what did we do when we wanted to stop; he had a power boat but that’s not the same; he had an uncle who lived in Thunder Bay Canada but 30 years ago his twins sons were killed in a car accident, but he stayed there and loved it ; he played hockey and thought that the Canadian people were great, the health care was great and we never got a word in edgewise. He’ll probably think we were rude but he only let us answer one of his questions.

So we had a later dinner than we wanted and we still have some work to do. But here are some pictures. We aren’t at the run of mansions yet, but the Hudson River has some absolutely fabulous lighthouses, and we will be taking more pictures of them.

Tomorrow night is Hallowe’en and I do NOT want to be on shore. These people take it very seriously [although if you think about their history...Quaker and Salem and burning witches...] and the further away from them we are, the better!!

I couldn’t post this last night. The ‘County Seat” didn’t have internet access! ?

Robert Church artist, residence on Church Hill