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Hi from New York City!
Two days ago we sucessfully completed our 155 mile trip down the Hudson
River and re-entered salt water. Indiscipline is in the Atlantic Ocean!
We have covered 1400 miles in 2 1/2 months since leaving Port Wahington,
WI, and we are a darn long way from our starting point in San Diego.
Tomorrow, we are headed for New Jersey and the begining of the Jersey ICW,
a planned 35 mile trip with about a 25 mile "offshore" passage in the
Atlantic (only a mile or two out).
Nothing has broken except our antenna masts due to hitting low bridges
(easily fixed and now 10 feet shorter) and a cooling hose on the starboard
engine. Our Cat 3208 engine's continue to start every time and pound away
throughout the day without missing a beat. I will have to adjust the
starboard stuffing box soon and it will be time to do an oil change in the
next few weeks. Fuel filters were just changed. Even with high fuel
prices (way over $2/gallon in Canada) and high marina fees we are still on
our $100/day budget - mainly because the Erie canal was so inexpensive
(many cities provide free docking and even some with free power).
We didn't consider the trip down to Hudson to be a whole lot of fun, but it
was interesting. We had a lot of sailboat friends from the canal and it
continued to be great to see them in the evenings. We had several days of
rain and for the first time kept on going through it. The river is deep
and an easy ride. One of the most amazing things is that tidal currents
reach all the way up river to the Erie canal. At times we were floating
downstream at 10 mph with the engines just over idle, only to watch the
speed on the GPS dwindle throughout the day to 9, then 8, then 7 and
finally in the 6's as the tidal current turned and I increased the revs.
We easily managed 40 miles per day, and pushed on for NYC with a couple of
days in the 50 to 60 mile range. The river was often rough, with lots of
barge traffic, and it was difficult for the kids to do school work while
underway, as we were used to on the canal. Westpoint was much larger than
we ever expected, but we couldn't stop because there was a cruise ship
there and a Navy Frigate on the way and the dockmaster wouldn't allow us to
tie up. I didn't want to anchor in the unprotected river as I was warned
against it by a couple of New Yorkers we met up river. Also interesting,
we have met up with two other Californian boats, much loved by their owners.
I used to count how many times we docked in a day. 3 times seemed high.
After doing 80 locks on two canals, some days were in the 15 to 20 times
docking range. After that, I stopped counting. The crew and I are
getting very good at it and rarely have a problem, even with strong winds.
Currents are something else, it seems you just can't fight them and you
must maneuver against them or else!
We spent two days touring the city, here at the Liberty Landing Marina we
are directly behind the Statue of Liberty and across the Hudson from the
World Trade Center. The marina has a ferry across the Hudson for $5 per
person (one way) but the kids are free. We tried the subway and made it to
the museums one day and to walk around Times Square the other. Today we
had planned to go on south but we are held up by bad weather. So we have
spent a totally slow and relaxing day watching the Olympics and reading and
walking in the park. It is surprising how good it feels to take a day off.
We are very low on food because there is no place to shop here. We managed
to pick up a few, expensive, items in NYC but to go shopping in Jersey City
we have to ride our bikes through some very poor neighborhoods and turned
around because we felt very uncomfortable.
Some people have asked about the price of fuel and here in New York we are
paying around $1.85 per gallon for marine diesel, however, Indiscipline is
getting about 2 1/4 miles per gallon at these slow speeds so we are making
up somewhat for the cost. NYC marinas are all around $2/foot so this is
the most expensive place we have stayed and the marina has virtually no
services. This was a mailstop for us and it was great to get news and
letters and photos from home. Please send some more!
So anyways, now, after 3 days here we are all ready to move on and our
travel fatigue is somewhat cleared up. All you friends out there, we would
love to receive some email from you!
