Hudson River Southbound: We fueled up before we left Kingston, NY with an undetermined destination - perhaps somewhere on the Hudson River, perhaps our cozy, ever-shrinking island at Sandy Hook, or perhaps home. The weather was behaving itself - not too hot, not too cool, and no rain, so the Sandy Hook option looked like the likely choice. However, as we approached the Tappan Zee bridge, the captain started talking about putting the canvas covers on the seats and getting prepared to drive from the lower helm.
I ignored him for a while as I was busy reading the conclusion of a great romance novel on my kindle. However, at some point I decided that if he kept mentioning the weather, it was worth looking up to see what he was referring to. The sky looked pretty ominous, so I pulled out the various canvas covers and started putting them on the bench seats and the table as well as partially on the captain's chair (as much as I could with him sitting in it). I took any odd bits of things not currently needed down below - sunscreen, jackets, blanket I was using, my kindle, etc. and then perched on the small portion of the bench seat I had not covered prepared to cover everything as quickly as possible should we decide to run for the cabin.
I saw one flash of lightening and that was it - it was time to go. The captain grabbed the binoculars, charts, and chart plotter and took off for the lower helm. I covered the instruments and the remaining seats and followed as quickly as I could. We rarely use our lower helm because visibility is not very good from down there. When traveling on a plane, the bow of the boat is raised in front. Even though it was now truly raining, the captain kept the boat on a plane taking advantage of the current going with us and traveling anywhere from 16 to 17 knots. If you recall from my last post, that is fast for us.
Besides the normal, "where's the next buoy?" visibility necessities, the Hudson River presented its very own challenge in having a large amount of wood either in the form of branches (some like small trees) and lumber (some the size of 4" x 4" x 4'). Really you don't want to hit any of this stuff at high speed (or low speed for that matter) as prop damage can be considerable on impact. The captain told me to watch for debris on the port side, and he would watch on the starboard side. Since I had been piloting the boat, I asked him who would be driving, and he said he would.
When either of us is driving down below, we have to stand on tip toe. The captain is about 3 inches taller than I am so he can see a bit more than I can. The advantage on the starboard side is that the window on that side has a windshield wiper. Our boat is designed such that it has 3 big windows across the front. The center window and the starboard window have wipers. The port side window does not. Shortly after we starting piloting from the lower helm, we were reduced to a windshield wiper on only the starboard side window.
As we were looking out the windows we basically saw the windshield wiper mechanism for the center window disassemble itself before our very eyes. A piece fell off and started rolling across the deck and other remaining pieces were dangling and flopping back and forth pretending that wiping the window was still an option in its sorry state. I took over the wheel and the captain ran out to collect parts and see what could be done with the wiper. He did something such that it stopped working which was an improvement over the flopping back and forth scenario, and then he came back in to take over steering.
So now my visibility has been further reduced. Between the rain covered windows and my height restriction, I could not see well enough to be a proper lookout. I have a step stool on board but ruled out that option as too dangerous because at the speed we were traveling plus the motion of the boat due to waves, etc. it was far too unstable to consider. So, I decided that I would climb up and sit on the galley counter between the sink and the stove. Unfortunately, sitting on the counter provides an "excellent" seat for looking out the starboard side of the boat but not the front, so I had to position myself so that I was sitting in a somewhat twisted position to see out the front window.
The counter is not a comfortable seat even without twisting sideways as it is certainly not cushioned. My right foot was dangling since I was too high up for my leg to reach the floor, and my left leg was hitched up and almost in the sink. But, hey, I was ready. As I peered out the window between raindrops looking out for the dastardly wood, I kept practicing to myself what I would say should I see something. "Wood on the port side captain!" I was thinking of the old movies with the lookout in the crow's nest saying "Land ho!" I was taking my job seriously and wanted to get it right.
And then it happened, I see this large piece of lumber dead ahead, and what do I yell?! "To the right, to the right, move over!" Now how ambiguous is that? Is the lumber to the right or should the boat be moved to the right? At the critical point I failed miserably in my use of nautical language. The captain, however, did steer to the right and avoided hitting the wood. I think it was the frantic hand signals indicating a need to move to the right that did the trick. No further objects came our way that required warning announcements, so I don't know if given a second chance if I could have remembered to use proper terminology or at least less ambiguous language.
Besides the broken windshield wiper, I noticed that the screen on the starboard side salon window was off its track. I guess the age of the window (13) and the motion of the boat was too much for it, so it broke along the way. The list of items to fix from this trip just got larger by 2 more things. At least nothing that broke on this trip caused us to be laid up or hauled out, so we really can't complain too loudly. Two other boaters we talked to lost several days of their vacation as they required repairs that were more serious be made to their boats before they could continue on their way.
We repeatedly referred to the "Rainy Days" app on our smart phone for updates on the weather. We could see that as we got near Staten Island, the rain would lessen or disappear altogether. The app is pretty amazing because it was right on target. By the time we went under the VZ bridge, the rain had stopped. Now the question became "where do we go from here?" We could either go home directly or we could stop at the island first.
Even though we had fueled up in Kingston before leaving in the morning, the captain said that regardless of our ultimate destination, he wanted to stop and get fuel in Atlantic Highlands to replace the fuel used on the Hudson. In the morning we paid $340 to fill up the tanks. In the afternoon, we paid another $520, so that was almost $900 in one day for fuel. I can't imagine what our MasterCard bill will be like after this trip. I know it's going to be rather shocking.
Ultimately the captain offered a compromise as he wanted to go home and I wanted to stay on the water one more night. The plan: go to the island to cook and eat dinner and after dinner pull up anchor and go home. Besides the threat of more rain during the night, the captain heard a prediction of 92 degrees for the next day. The combination of both rain and heat was less than appealing. So we had a lovely dinner out on the water and then watched one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. It seemed like the perfect ending to our adventure. Almost like in the movies but instead of riding off into the sunset, we sailed eastward as the sun set behind us.
