November 1, Saturday

Saturday November 1, 2014

Today is a cold, crappy day. Gale force winds are forecasted for today and Sunday in New York and we are in Ossining, just up river by a day. Temperature is supposed to go down to 25 tonight... need the heater, so we sucked it up and paid $2.00/ft plus hydro. Odd that people here don’t know what ‘hydro’ means.  They call it power.

It’s only 3:30 but if we didn’t stop here we would have to anchor, and there are no plug-ins in the anchorages. We are in the middle of a boat yard surrounded by shrink-wrapped boats, but according to the owners there are still other idiots traveling down river, so we are not alone.

So Ossining changed its name a few years ago when people didn’t want to stop and visit here. It used to be called SingSing, and yes, the prison is next door. When we were tying up we heard a siren going off...like the one they use in the movies when there’s been a prison break. We’ll let you know how that works out. Personally, I wouldn’t want to escape in weather like this!

Of course we are also beside the tracks, so we won’t miss the nightly passenger flyers running through, although with the noise of the floating docks, we may not hear the trains. It sounds like we are being boarded constantly.

We passed some more castles today, one in particular was neat. It was on Pollepel island and we had anchored behind coming up 10 years ago. It was built by Frank Bannerman in the early 1900’s (naturally... that’s when they all had money and remembered their English heritage). I have no idea who he was but if you really want to know, google him. [Who knew that word would ever become a verb!]

It was just too cold and windy today to do much photography, besides when you’ve seen one castle...but there was one old buildong on th river edge. It was the entrance to the aquaduct that supplies New

New York water taxi

Train tunnel under bridge: bridge goes into tunnel up top

west point

west point

More west point

How big? check out the school bus!

Remains of bridge around castle

Aquaduct entrance

Bannerman castle

York City with 500 million gallons of water every day!

Now West Point was something else! Staggeringly awesome buildings built on the river.  There were a few new ones that looked really out of place. Boat tours and bus tours every day, didn’t see a lot of officers walking about.

So I called HS when we stopped. I had to spell the name of the town: he had no idea where we were even when I told him it was where the prison is! What kind of history do they teach these kids?!?!?

Rick picked up a brochure aimed at boaters about reporting suspicious activity around marinas, tank installations, plants on the river. He figured we should participate or at least show some concern since we are guests here. I had to laugh when I read it: suspicious activities by other boaters (uh...traveling in the winter?) dressing oddly (because we have on everything we can get on!) taking pictures (we’re tourists!). The only thing we’re not doing is hanging out around bridge abutments! Please don’t pass this on!!

Supper is ready. Not sure I can eat with the boat tossing like this. There are white caps on the river, and the winds are getting up there, so we may not have anything to report tomorrow, unless there really is a prison break. I would SO love to get on a train and ride into the “City” and back. Ah well, another time.

Enjoy the few pics we did take today!