It turns out that this is a really great year to buy a boat. On this leg of moving Celtic Cross back to Michigan five of us, (brother Larry and his wife Prudence, son Michael, and nephew Arthur Wood) all drove out to Manasquan, NJ, bought provisions for three days on the water, and headed north towards New York City and the Hudson River.
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Entering New York Harbor from the Atlantic is one of those not-to-be-missed experiences. First, it’s big. When you round Sandy Hook and see the skyline for the first time you think you’re almost there. Not even close. A long run across Raritan Bay, under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, through the Narrows, across Lower New York Bay, past the Statue of Liberty, across Upper New York Bay until we finally reached Manhattan. And busy! Michael got a crash course in piloting as he helmed the boat across the harbor. He did just fine. Until we ran across the Staten Island ferries. Lots of them. They hire ex- NYC cab drivers as helmsmen. Rules of the road are simple: “Stay the h*** out of my way.”
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Our berth for the night was in New Jersey looking up at the Manhattan skyline . We docked just in time. While swinging Celtic Cross into the slip we ran aground. Seven foot draft? Sure, you can dock here! No problem! Right… Fortunately, getting “ungrounded” was just a matter of going hard in reverse. We tied up alongside a pier in a little deeper water. Nearly immediately we got hit by a squall that swept across the harbor along with 70+ gusts of wind, rain blowing sideways, and lightning everywhere. You tend to take a little more interest in lightning when you have a 68 foot aluminum mast sticking up in the air.
The next morning we started our 100 mile, two day run up the Hudson River. The Hudson, we learned, is not a river. It’s an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is saltwater up the entire river to Albany. And the tidal flows are significant. It seems odd to have four foot tides when you’re 100 miles from the nearest ocean, but that’s what we found. Here is a (somewhat lengthy) video of our voyage.
Nearly a month later we returned to Catskill and Hoponose Marina for the last leg of the trip. John Macumber and Steve Guzowski joined me once again along with Tim Shaw, lifelong friend and business partner. Celtic Cross looked more like a river barge than a sailboat once her two masts and standing rigging was all down. The Erie Canal has a maximum height restriction of 15′-4″ above the high water line in the canal in order to clear the many…many fixed bridges along its 340 mile length. Fortunately, Celtic Cross’s solar array measured in at 12′ so there was no need to dismantle the solar arch. We were good to go! Or so we thought.
Around 2:30 AM Tim woke me up by telling me he needed to get to a hospital. Stat. Not what anyone wants to hear at that time of the morning, but being in a strange place made it much more interesting. Catskill doesn’t even HAVE a hospital. But… Tim being Tim, he had already called and figured out where to go, packed his bags, called his wife (a nurse), and arranged for his son to drive out to New York to pick him up. (That’s why I had him as a business partner for forty years.) To cut to the chase here, we got Tim to the emergency room across the Hudson River, they diagnosed him, patched him up, and we were back at the boat and in our bunks by 5:30 AM. John and Steve had no idea we were even gone. Regardless, Tim was on a heavy antibiotic regimen and could not make the trip, so he joined us for the 30 mile run up to Albany where we dropped him off so he could meet his son for the trip back home. Here’s a shorter video on the last segment of the Hudson River.
Tim, by the way, is doing just fine. After we dropped him off it was only another mile or so up to Waterford where we tied up for the evening.