Mike and Rebecca’s guide book additions
As we are now anchored behind Liberty Island in NYC, with the Hudson River portion of our trip largely behind us, I thought I’d post a couple of additions to the info contained in the Skipper Bob guidebook.
1. With respect to the free dock at Mariners on the Hudson restaurant, I have one word to add… FORGETABOUTIT!
2. With respect to the Pollepel Island anchorage… we don’t know if the weeds thing was a one-off occurrence or it happens regularly. The police officer who boarded us at Croton Point told us that they actually cut those weeds from creeks (Esopus Creek for example) to make the waterway passable. Perhaps they had just done some trimming nearby. Regardless, I would keep my eyes open and watch for it.
3. With respect to the West 79 St. Boat Basin mooring balls… here is a biggy: THEY DON’T ALLOW MULTIHULLS ON THEIR MOORINGS! We were told this by the harbor master there as we approached. This is a PRETTY HUGE detail! Good thing we had a Plan B.
4. With respect to the anchorage behind Liberty Island… I have two things to add here. First, although the anchorage is fairly protected from all winds except SE (the wind is blowing from the SE right now but we can’t blame anyone for that, can we?), it is not protected from the wakes of #$%#^% fishing boats which are zooming by us every 10 minutes. I’m sure many of them are waking us on purpose and the remainder are just ignorant. Secondly, and equally as important, it is a one hour walk (and we walk quite quickly) to the water taxi which can take you to Manhattan. The ticket was 7 bucks one way. After walking the hour to the taxi stand, and viewing the schedule which showed we would have to turn around and come back 2.5 hours later, we bailed on the trip and walked (one hour) back to the boat.
Sadly Rebecca had to listen to me bitch about this from the 30 minute mark onward. Sorry Rebecca!
Note: Smart me decided we should take a short cut around the back of the park because it looked shorter on the map. It might have been a bit shorter but it is through an industrial area with lots of fast moving cars and no sidewalks. Stick to the boardwalk; it is much nicer.
Also, Skipper Bob recommends against leaving your dinghy unattended on the dock here for long periods. Because of that warning, and our own initial recon, we decided to remove our engine, stow it inside ZTC and row over (our thoughts were that it would be a less valuable target like this and also, if it was stolen, at least we wouldn’t lose both the dink and the motor). Well, it wasn’t stolen and perhaps it wouldn’t have been regardless. We were prepared to swim back to the boat if necessary though. 🙂
Congrats on reaching lady liberty…..Mike, relax….99% of us have to go to an office with 4 walls and no view tomorrow morning and grind out another week before we can boat again……Leave Rebecca alone with your bitching……kidding…Congrats on this mile stone…..When you come out of the harbor, turn northeast…
Our boat’s rudders only point south. 🙂
Well, welcome to NYC! I think staying on the anchorage would be preferable anyway, but I’m not a city girl. There are temptations in New York, like the opera and the symphony and museums, but I’m not able to walk an hour to get to them! I’d have to sail across and tie up near the city, then take a bus or cab.
Not sure how easy that would be. There may be some places you could pay to tie up but no free ones that I know of.
Hey…You don’t sound very impressed. Your in New York City! That’s a major mile mark. Congrats guys…Miss ya’s lots. The marina is just not the same without you.
You’ve got to get a picture sailing out of NYC harbour with the lady of liberty behind you. Classic……..!
Paul
We’ve got that picture although we were motoring instead of sailing. You two get your acts together now and come join us!
79th St. Boat Basin doesn’t allow catamarans on moorings? Wow! That is a change for the negative. I can’t understand that restriction, especially for a small cat like yours. Even though you have more windage than a similar length mono, they have much bigger boats there.
When we were last there, there were at least 4 cats on moorings.
Fair Winds,
Mike
There were two cats there (1 lagoon and 1 other one) but they were both anchored (alongside the moored boats). I can’t understand it either!
Sorry you are not having such a good time coming down. 7 bucks is actually the cheapest ferry to NYC. Didn’t know that about 79th street and cats. I think if the little wakes behind the Statue bothered you, you would have been miserable at 79th street anyway. The wakes at the Statue are no comparison to the ones at 79th street. The Statue’s are baby wakes.
I don’t think Skipper Bob has been there for many years, since he passed a few years ago, but that area has improved a lot and I don’t think the dingy issue is what it once was. Of course, better safe then sorry.
Hope you guys enjoy NJ much better. Are you planning on stopping around Sandy Hook or just heading down to Manesquan? Manesquan can be a bit crazy with the boat traffic but it sounds like you will be stopping there during a weekday so it should be better then normal.
I think we will head from here (Great Kills) to Manasquan once we get a suitable weather window.
I think the next time we try NYC we will anchor behind the breakwater in Atlantic Highlands, NJ and take the fast ferry right out of the yact club over to NYC for the day. Might cost a little more but simpler and the piece of mind seems worth it.
We considered there as well.
Guys, been reading your blog the last few days. (found it when trying to find experiences about cruising a cat). Enjoyed your pics and stories about the canal and river. I did that trip in May 10 but was short on time as I was on a delivery from Hfx to Pickering so had to rush thru. You didnt get stopped by the cops? We got stopped twice, once just N. or the bridge from Manhattan to NJ and again just off West Point.
I will continue reading to catch up to current posts.
Congrats on making it from zero to cruising.
Steve
Hi Steve
Thank you!
We were boarded only once, in the Hudson River north of the Tappan Zee Bridge (Croton Point).