Craunological II -- Great Lakes Cruise 2023

Monday, September 4 -- Newburgh, NY to South Amboy, NJ -- 83 miles This was our last day on our cruise. We dropped off Zach, June and Avery at the North Cove Marina near the One World Trade Center, then proceeded out under the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge and ran along the south side of Staten Island to South Amboy, NJ where we tied up for the night at Lockwood Boat Works. We flew back to Naples the next morning (Newark airport was less than half an hour by Uber), and Captain Dan came the day after to have the marina put Craunological II on his trailer so he could drive it back to Florida. We were still smiling at the end of a long day. What a great cruise we had! Of course we had wonderful sights along the way today. Here's West Point from the water, the Bear Mountain suspension bridge for US Route 6 (opened in 1924), Sing Sing Prison at Ossining, NY, which goes back to 1826 (though not these buildings), the underside of the I-87 Gov. Mario Cuomo Bridge (opened in 2017), which crosse...

Sunday, September 3 -- Saugerties to Newburgh and West Point -- 41 miles We had a relatively short trip on the river today so that we could spend time visiting the US Military Academy at West Point. There is no marina at West Point, so we left the boat at a marina in Newburgh about ten miles north. We made the run to Newburgh in the morning, had a nice lunch along the waterfront, then took an Uber to West Point. Unfortunately, the Uber took a while to book and arrive, so we didn't have time to visit the museum before our 3pm bus tour. But the tour was excellent, with a very knowledgeable guide. Here are scenes from the tour, starting with Zach and June and the view north up the Hudson, looking across The Plain (where the cadets march) to one of the barracks buildings with the Cadet Chapel on the hill in the background, and the altar wall in the Chapel.  West Point is the oldest continuously operating Army post in the US, dating back to 1778, when Washington had the Continental Army...

Saturday, September 2 -- Troy to Saugerties -- 50 miles This was a special day because our son, Zach and his family joined us for a Labor Day weekend ride down the Hudson back to their home in Manhattan. They took the Amtrak train up to the Albany-Rensselaer station and then an Uber over to Troy in the morning. We all had lunch at the Dinosaur BBQ right next to the Troy Downtown Marina, then took off for the first leg of our trip. Here's a picture of Avery showing Mimi the slime that she made with her chemistry kit. We saw many interesting sights on our run down the Hudson. The building in the background with the red pyramidal towers is the New York State Capitol building in Albany, which was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, a late nineteenth century architect whose style was so distinctive that they named it Richardsonian Romanesque.  The only destroyer escort still afloat out of 563 that saw service during World War II, the USS Slater, is a museum ship tied up at Albany....

  Friday, September 1 -- Schuylerville to Troy -- 31 miles and 5 locks We left the Schuyler Basin Marina a bit after ten under clear and sunny skies with temps in the low 60s that rose into the high 70s by late afternoon. It was a beautiful day on the Hudson River -- dead calm, with hardly any boat traffic. We saw one other cruising boat underway all day until we reached Troy. The other cruising boat that we saw was a couple from New Zealand (you can see that on their transom if you zoom in) who spend up to ninety days (the US visa limit) every summer (their winter) cruising northern waters out of their base on the Erie Canal in Brewerton. We had a chance to visit a bit while locking through Locks 3 and 4 together. They pulled off for the town dock in Mechanicville while we kept going.  Lock 2 was interesting because they emptied and filled the lock twice before letting us pass through. This is an attempt to try and keep invasive Goby fish out of the upper reaches of the Hudso...