7. New York - 79th Street Basin

We left Nyack and headed down the Hudson to New York City We could tell that we were getting closer to New York as both sides of the Hudson changed from grand homes in the hills to built up denser areas. We stopped at the 79th street basin on a mooring ball. You can stay there for up to a week at $30:00 per day. This includes a free dinghy dock, free laundry machines to use and security 24 hours/day. There is a great waterfront park that runs right along the Hudson River for miles. When you come out of the 79th street basin, you can see the wide walkway used by runners, walkers, bikers, and even skateboarders. Many just sit on the many benches under the trees and just enjoy the view. It really is wonderful and a different picture we had of New York.

We walked around the first day just looking at the area around us. To our great delight we found out that we were only two blocks from Broadway. We walked along Broadway and everything was just humming with activity. It was quite something to see everyone scurrying about to work and know that we could slowly take in the sights. At Broadway and 76th street was a huge grocery store “Fairways” which really was a series of stores which opened into each other. It looks like a small store just kept buying the store next door and connecting the stores. You go from room to room just like in a house and in each room there are different things - a bakery, a meat market or a cheese area. It is not easy to find your way around and several times we seemed to be going in circles. It was a maze of short aisles going every which way. The produce was dear but top quality. People came from all over New York City for the selection of fresh meats, cheeses, fish, produce and the baked goods were exceptional. And all of you reading this know how I, Olha, love my baked goods.

We took a subway to 42nd Street where all the Broadway shows are as well Times Square. It is really a large square. One of the things that we had wanted to buy in new York was a good SLR digital camera. Years ago Roman had bought his 35mm. Minolta near 42nd St. We walked from store to store comparing prices. Many of the camera shops were boarded up and closed. We met a professional photographer who advised us to go to B&H Camera Store on 35th Street and 7 th Ave. They would have the best selections and prices. We walked all the way there only to find that they were closed for the Jewish holidays and would not open until Sunday. What a disappointment! We spent the rest of the day sightseeing and were exhausted when we got back to the basin.

I have mentioned that one of the best things about boating are the people you meet. At the 79th Street Basin we met Pam and Don from Shadowfax and Joanne and David from Mermaid IIwho we had met off and on all through the canal system. Pam and I have traded books at different places. This is the second trip for both Shadowfax and Mermaid II. Both couples, who are travelling together went south to the Bahamas in 2005 and that is their destination this year as well. We met Joanne and David as we were finishing our laundry on Friday and they showed us a camera they had just bought at a camera superstore called J&R.

On Saturday, we decided to go to the electronics store on Broadway again and to the camera store that Joanne and David had told us about. It was in the oldest part of Manhattan near Park Place. Here the streets are named and not numbered. To get there we again took the subway. The subways are quite an experience in New York. On the same route are trains that stop at every stop and express trains that only stop at certain stops. It is a very efficient system. On the weekends, there are no express trains in the downtown area, at least not when we were there. We used the trains every day we were there. Tickets are $2.00 each or 6 rides for $10.00. You could use them consecutively so it was great for us.

We went to J&R and found they operate several separate stores on an entire block- camera, computer, music, etc. Quite the outfit! Their prices were good and Roman bought a Nikon D40X camera with a 18-200mm lens. I bought the Olympus Waterproof Camera in bright orange so I can see it if I drop it in water. You can take pictures underwater up to 10 metres and rinse it off in water if you drop it in the sand. It sounds like the perfect camera for me!

J&R is very close to St. Paul's Chapel which used to have the twin towers just behind it.
St. Paul’s is the oldest operating chapel in the United States. George Washington was inaugurated here.








Many believe that it is a miracle that St. Paul's was completely untouched on September 11. St. Paul’s was used as a command post during the chaotic days after September 11 and there are photographs of those who died not only in the collapse but also those who tried to rescue others. I read the moving stories, letters and memorabilia with tears in my eyes





We had thought that Ground Zero was all cleaned up but apparently not.
They are just finishing the last of the clean-up. It is all fenced in with tall sheets of plywood but Roman took a picture through a hole in the board and you can see that there is still work to be done.
























This is what the rescuers found close to St.Paul's. It is a cross shaped form the remnants of the steel girders that were part of the twin towers.


















We went to the Memorial built in memory of all those who died. Their names are mounted on plaques all around the memorial and people are still leaving flowers. We said a silent prayer for all those who died.




This is a picture of the 79th Street Basin docks at sunset. Amazingly there were several people living aboard on power boats. I say amazingly because it is soooo expensive to dock $3.00 to $4.00 /ft./day and only a small discount for longer periods of time but if you compare the cost of renting apartments in New York, it sounds cheap.

6. Still down the Hudson

C-Drifters and Moya Mreeya left early together with the tide heading for Nyack Yacht Club. When we got there we found out that they call their club a boat club and not a yacht club. We have found that in quite a few places in the States. We both tied up to a mooring ball. Ray and Irene rested on board while we went by dinghy to the Boat Club and then walked to town. Nyack is filled with antique shops and we had a hard time finding a supermarket. We had clam chowder and shrimp at the cafe which the club operates. We found the people at the Boat Club very friendly. They could not find their register book and told us not to worry about paying the $20:00 mooring fee and to consider ourselves their guests. We met a Torontonian who had gone to work in the States in the early 70's and he never went back. He still has a cottage in Muskoka but his life and family are in the U. S. We sat around talking until after 10:00 when we finally got in our dinghy to go back to our boat. This is a picture of us at Nyack with the boats in the background.

Nyack was right near the Tapanzee Bridge where our regular boat insurance stops and now we have an extra rider that covers us south to the 23.5 latitude. This was taken by Ray on C-Drifters with a camera on his phone. It is quite remarkable the quality he gets with his little phone which he brought with him from England.

5. Along the Hudson

One of the many old lighthouses on the Hudson River

We left Waterford bright and early on the 29th of September. Happy birthday Irene! We didn’t forget, just couldn’t get to a pay phone. These are few and far in between as everyone in the States seems to have a cell phone. We went to the Price Chopper Dock to load up on groceries. Imagine the business from boaters if they put a dock in! We went through Lock #1 which is at Troy, New York and officially on the Hudson River. Now we have to watch out for tides! This will be a new experience. Lock#1 was the worst lock for us as they don’t have ropes just a big pipe to put your line around. We couldn’t do that as the lock was crowded and we were between pipes. We had to put a rope around the railings and let line out as we descended. It was pretty tricky especially as my line was just long enough! I had a few anxious moments when I thought it would be too short. Some of the locks were 33-34 feet high. Fortunately this was about 18 ft. Sulis caught up to us in the lock but we never saw Falcon’s Nest.

I had not been able to find a copy of Skipper Bob’s "Anchorages along the Intercoastal". Skipper Bob died this summer and his books have been in great demand as no one is sure if his wife and daughter will continue the tradition. I located one in Coeyman’s Marina which we would pass along the Hudson as we were going south and this was their Last copy. They promised to hold it for me. I was our scrubbing the fenders on the deck and not paying attention to what where we were and we passed it before I remembered to tell Roman. We decided it was important enough to backtrack for.

Unfortunately it was low tide. The water rises and falls an average of 4.6 feet every 6 hours. Coeyman’s turned out to be a power boater’s marina and you guessed it. We went aground not once but twice! Fortunately Roman is whiz and got us off both times. We did pay the Boater’s U.S. tow insurance package but we hope not to have to use it.

We decided to drop anchor at Stockport Middle Ground which is a little bay off the Hudson. (Of course we were using Skipper Bob’s) We did a great job. We had practised hand signals so we would not be screeching at each other! It is hard to hear one another over the engine! I remember one cove we were anchored at in the Thousand Islands and a boat came in late at night. Everyone in the cove could hear the couple trying to communicate except for the couple involved! If you look at the picture you will see our mast supported along the deck.


Roman is having great fun trying to figure out all the Raymarine possibilities. He splurged on a huge C120 unit. It is quite interesting to see our journey all plotted our in colour. I get a real thrill out of using it! Every new thing has a glitch and ours seems to be the inability to set our clock to the correct time. I know it seems like a simple thing but we follow the instructions and it seems to be fine and then we go to check the tides and everything is 4 hours off. Roman has worked on it for several days but to no avail so we have sent an e-mail to Raymarine, Now we have to wait until we get internet access again!

Stepping our mast

We were going to have our mast stepped at Hop-a-Nos. However several boaters we met along the way sang the praises of Riverview Marina. It was much cheaper not only for the stepping but also to stay there. We arrived there on Sunday, the 30th in the afternoon and our mast went up on Monday October 1. Everything went smoothly! Roman spent the rest of the day connecting everything and by then we figured out the tide was against us anyway and he was tired so we stayed another night at the marina. First place since we left home that the showers have been really hot!

Here we are cruising along the Hudson with the mast up. It is wonderful to get the mast off the deck and to be ready to sail again. The river is very crowded and so far we havenot had the opportunity to raise the sails at all. I finished the book The Kite Runner and thought it was by far one of the best books I have read in a very long time. Now I am browsing A Consultation with the Back Doctor by Dr. Hamilton Hall. Very interesting views presented and some very different from his original ideas. It only proves that we all live and learn! It was great to learn that I am doing all the things I should for my back except for the daily exercising which is sporadic.

We have heard that the Canadian Dollar is higher than the U. S. YEAH!
We are going to need every little bit of help that we can get as the marina prices are about $3:00/ft. and higher around New York City which we should reach on Thursday. At the 79th Street basin apparently you can stay at a mooring ball for $30/ night. That’s where we are headed.

Meeting with C-Drifters

Last night we stayed at Mariner’s Restaurant on
the Hudson. If you buy a meal you get to stay at their docks free for the night. Their Clam Chowder was excellent! At the dock we again met Ray and Irene, an wonderful English couple who sold everything and bought this beautiful 44 ft. Toshiba boat, C-Drifters. It is all hand-crafted teak on the inside and even the decks are teak! It is very roomy and luxurious! We had dinner with them last night and joked that their boat was like a penthouse suite in a hotel and ours like the budget basement room in comparison. They spent 2 years looking for a boat. They had very specific requirements as this was going to be their home. Last year they travelled over 20,000 miles in the U.S. looking at boats. They found their dream boat in Chicago, of all places. They have sailed it from Chicago
through the Great Lakes and the New York Canal
system and are on their way south as well.

4. Still Waiting at Waterford

The skies have opened up and it is pouring rain. Yesterday one kind woman took us all around looking for a screw for Phil's engine. I hopped out at Walmart and in ten minutes bought a toaster for the propane oven. Like you, Cheryl, I am very excited by my purchase. Can you believe it was only $2:00 and it was made in Canada! It must be made specifically for the U.S. market as the box was in English and Spanish! I also got a fold-up steamer, dehumidifier crystals and large Ziploc bags. All in ten minutes! In the U.S.Ziplock bags come L, XL and XXL. The XL are big enough for large chart books (2 ft by 20") and you can even get bigger ones! What a great idea. I plan to put put sleeping bags in these huge bags when we no longer need them. Not that we have needed them the last few days. The weather is a topic of conversation around here as the temperature is 20 degrees above the norm!

I have put everything in ziplock bags on the boat. This will protect things from the humidity and mold which is a problem when living on a boat.

When we were going through the Mohawk Valley, the waterlevels were very low so the locks opened only on the hour going east and on the half hour going west. What a difference from last June when the Mohawk River flooded the banks after several days of rain. The lockmaster told us that the water was so high it went up about 25 feet over the highest point of the lock. Boats ended up on the highway and on the hills of the valley. Lots of dredging still going on and resurfacing around the locks as part of the clean-up. On a boat you realize how strong the force of nature can be. That is why we are staying put in Waterford until the weather is better.

3. Through the locks

We have to be careful with spreaders in the locks as they extend over the sides of our boat. We spent the night just past Lock 1 ready to go in the morning.

Our trips through the locks have been pretty smooth. The walls are not as dirty as we read in all the books and we rinse off the dirt off the fenders after every lock. That means lowering a bucket into the water while we are underway and pouring bucket by bucket over the fenders.

When we were in Brewerton just before Lake Oneida, we went for a walk into the little town. The local firemen were having an "all you could eat roast beef dinner" We met so many great people. The food was delicious and I had three homemade pies and squares -- you know that I love my sweets! The fire captain gave Roman a old fire hose which Roman cut up for chafing pieces and shared the rest with the boats we were travelling with at the time- 2 boats out of Ashbridges Bay. The forecast was rain in the afternoon the next day so we left at 6:45 to get across the lake while it was still calm. We were in Sylvan Bay on the other side of the lake by 9:45 - great timing! and no rain for the rest of the day.

Since Ilion we have been travelling with Falcon's Nest out of Barrie which is captained and crewed by one man. He has a unique system all rigged up to go through the locks. Neccesity is the mother of invention. Everything went well until Lock 4 when Phil on Falcon's Nest lost power. Roman towed him through the last 2 locks as there are no anchorages or stops allowed between Lock 6 and lock 2. It was pretty tricky because I had to untie him just as the boat went into the lock so he could drift to the port side. We always used the starboard side as our motor (5 hp dinghy motor) is on the port side. Then we had to drift towards each other and catch the line to tow him again. Of course as I write this, Roman is helping him to bleed his engine. The other boat is a home built trimaran called Sulis out of Pictin. It took Ken, the owner, 17 years to build this boat and this is her maiden voyage. He had just hooked up the stove at Ilion where we met them and still has the water tanks to hook up. It is a work in progress. The family doesn't seem to mind. They eat out all the time we are in port. The son who is a software engineer is trying to work off the boat. A little frustrating as we have found little WIFI access. Usually the libraries are closed when we get to port. The daughter just graduated from university and is taking a year off to sail with her parents. The mom has it easy as both the kids are crew!

2. Toronto to Waterford

In the rush to leave we forgot our computer at home and didn't realize until we wanted to take a picture of Old Orchard Yacht Club which is a very picturesque spot about a mile inland from Lake Ont. at Point Breezes. I went back to the boat to get the camera which Roman said was with the computer. What computer??? We searched the boat - no computer. After several phone calls, our son, Evan, discovered that the computer was sitting on our kitchen table at home where Roman had left it in a plastic bag. We arranged that we would sail back to Niagara- on-the-Lake. We are so grateful to our daughter, Katya, who drove after work the next dayto Niagara-on-the-Lake with our computer.

We left Old Orchard at 6:00 in the morning and had time to walk to town. While strolling through the picturesque streets, we met a friend of our commodore at Lakeshore Yacht Club. Roman had met Stan several times at the yacht club and Stan introduced us to his girlfriend, Andrea. We chatted briefly as we were expecting Katya and were on the way back to our boat docked at Niagara-on-the-Lake Yacht Club where Stan said they were staying as well. We planned to meet later on. We took Katya out to dinner and by the time we got back, it was late. We were tired from our long trip and all the walking we had done so we went to bed. The next morning Roman went down to see Stan while I was showering. I noticed that there were all kinds of men in suits, ties and dress shoes which you do not often see around boats. When I got back from my shower, Roman told me that Stan was there with his daughter and that he was all shook up as Andrea had fallen overboard at night when they went for a moonlight cruise. What a tragedy! I was all shook up for days after as that was the first time I ever met anyone who died so shortly afterward. We heard that the coast guard was still looking for her as we left about noon on Tuesday back to Old Orchard. We never heard anything else about this. Apparently she was not wearing a life jacket. This tragic event just underscored how much we have to pay attention to safety.

We travelled along the southern coast of Lake Ontario to Rochester where we stayed at the posh Rochester Yacht Club. When I introduced myself to the head waitress as olha, she reprimanded me, in a very pleasant manner, that " we go by Mr. Mrs and Miss here". In Rochester we were lucky to make a new friend, Ken Nott who drove us around Rochester showing us the sights and West Marine, Radio Shack, to mention a few. He also introduced us to this fabulous homemade ice cream at a place called "Abbots" which is unique to Rochester. We had a great time together and had dinner together aboard our boat. Here we are relaxing after dinner.


After Sodus Bay, we finally made it to Oswego where we had our mast unstepped and it now lies across the top of our boat on a cradle that Roman had made beforehand at Lakeshore Yacht Club in "his" office as those at the club called the workshop. He labelled like it like a jigsaw puzzle and proceded to pit 1 with 1 and 2 with 2 etc. The guys operating the mast crane were impressed by his expertise. When I looked around at other boaters who were rigging up cradles with rope, I could see why. Our mast unstepping went very smoothly and very quickly and now the 50 ft mast lies atop of our boat. We have to be careful with spreaders in the locks as they extend over the sides of our boat.

With the exception of the tragedy at Niagara-on-the-Lake, it has been a great trip so far. Everywhere we have gone we have found the locals extremely helpful to all boaters. Below is a picture of our boat going through the Erie Canal with our mast down. We are grateful to Craig and Maria Wesley who were visiting the canal and snapped this picture and then sent it to us via e-mail.

1. Waiting at Waterford

Greetings from the high seas!

Well, not so high yet as we have not made it to the Atlantic Ocean. We are in Waterford N.Y. It is HOT! The forecast is scattered thunderstroms, perhaps severe with high winds so we are moored at the Welcome Centre at Waterford. They don't have WIFI but I can hook up and use the computer at the Welcome Centre so I have just finished inputting all the addresses that I could. I left all my addresses at Rochester Yacht Club.

Our trip so far:
Lakeshore Yacht Club
Yongstown
Point Breezes
Niagara on the Lake
Point Breezes
Rochester
Sodus Bay
Oswego, Lock 8-1 Oswego Canal System -Then there are 23 in the Erie Canal
Brewerton
IlionLock 12
Waterford (lock 2)