Day 64...Liberty State Park to Haverstraw Cove anchorage

FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2012

     Gary and I woke up first this morning, of course.  That gave me time to take pictures of our Sleeping Beauties.

     Allie had the kids ready to go at about 7:55 a.m.  We took pictures of the usual sites (Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Communipaw Terminal) on the way to Liberty Landing Marina.  

     We needed to fill up with water, get a pumpout, buy some diesel and some gasoline, but most importantly two chocolate candy bars.  While we were there, we saw several racing sailboats from around the world.  

     We left there about 9:35 a.m. heading North.  There were ferries making huge wakes everywhere. They were almost as bad as the waves in the ocean but a lot more confused.  The water will smooth out once we leave the ferries behind. 

     As we traveled up the Hudson we passed the Lackawanna Ferry Station, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, a Frank Gehry building that has glass that looks like  schooner sails, a checkered building, the air craft carrier INTREPID, the Concord and several sailboats on moorings by a riverside park.

     Next was the George Washington Bridge with its Little Red Lighthouse underneath.  The lighthouse was erected in its present location in 1921 and was in operation until 1947.  When the bridge was completed in 1931, the lighthouse was considered obsolete.  In 1942 Hildegarde Swift wrote a children’s book called The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, about the lighthouse that feared it was now irrelevant and the bridge that assured the lighthouse that it was still needed.  When some wanted to dismantle the lighthouse in 1951, there was so much opposition that it was preserved and relighted in 2002.  Neat story, isn’t it?

     The city buildings continued on the starboard side of TRAVELLER for a long way, but on the port side there were cliffs.  There was even a rockslide very evident on this one.  

     The current is swift on the Hudson so you should try to time your trip to take advantage of the current to help speed you along.  There was no way to do this today unless we wanted to start or finish our travels in the dark.  So today we went VERY slow, sometimes less than 3 mph.  We think this really long barge is anchored here waiting for the tide to turn.

     Sometimes buildings by the river let us know where we were 

and sometimes we wanted to know where we were and the buildings were no help. I really wanted to know about this building but didn’t have enough information to find anything out.  

     I really need to get a road map on the way back.  They were very helpful before, not for navigation of course.

     After we passed under the Tappan Zee Bridge and went around Croton Point, we carefully made our way into our anchorage in the Haverstraw Cove.

     We traveled 42 miles today in 8 hours and 30 minutes.  We have traveled a total of 1361 miles.