Up the River – the Hudson River

June 24, Saturday, NYC to Croton-on-Hudson

The trip up the Hudson River from NYC was an amazing sight from the water. We started at sunrise and traveled slowly up the Hudson.

The New Jersey side gets ignored, but is quite impressive across from lower Manhattan and continues to be interesting as we head north.

Then goodbye NYC and hello bridges, the George Washington Bridge and the Tappan Zee Bridge with a new span under construction. The Palisades (cliffs) were amazing to me as I’d never seen them before.

Dirk had gotten us started by 6am so we could take advantage of tides pushing us up the Hudson River. The goal was to get to our marina early since we had friends from Acton Mass visiting us for the weekend and we needed to set up their cabin.  It worked – we made it to the marina by noon and were the first of many Great Loopers to dock at the Half Moon Bay marina that night.  We did laundry in town and made beds and generally cleaned up while doing some socializing with a few people we had met in New Jersey.

Then the magic hour of 5:30 came and we enjoyed our first “docktails”. Bring something from your boat to drink and food to share if you have it, and meet, greet and catch up with other cruisers, many that were also doing the loop and some that had already done it.  We both enjoyed ourselves. It was great to see a few folks we had met elsewhere too. Terry is to my left and we met he and his wife in Brick New Jersey!

Just as docktails were winding down, Ruth and Geoff arrived, and after hellos and hugs we had  a light dinner on the sundeck as we caught up with all the news. The plan for tomorrow is to start early (again due to tides) to get the Hyde Park marina in time to visit the FDR home.