Still cruising and loving it...

I would highly recommend Hop-O-Nose Marine if you ever need your mast stepped. The people are very friendly, and work hard to get your mast stepped as soon as possible. There are showers and restrooms, a restaurant, and a bar, all a few feet from the boat slips.We did not eat in the restaurant, but the food in bar was really good. This is a convenient place to travel to after the canal, or if you are doing the loop, it is a good place to have your mast unstepped. Catskill is a unique city.
We spent yesterday putting Serenity back together. I was fortunate that I got to help rig the boat in June. That experience helped a lot.
We wanted to log a lot of miles today so we left Catskill just after 6:00 a.m. We met some other cruisers at Hop-O-Nose and decided we would leave together. It was dark, cold, and foggy. Many of the navigation markers on the Hudson have lights, and of course I have my chartplotter to tell me where they are. Running in the dark on a river that I have never been on kept me on my toes, and I have driven boats at night before...so I was fine until the fog arrived. I do not like to navigate in the fog. I was very happy an hour or so later when the fog lifted. For a little over an hour it was a white knuckle ride. We do have the electronics on board to keep us safe, and I will be posting more on that another time.
I have heard there are three types of sailors...those that have run aground, those that will run aground, and liars. I think that is how it goes. Anyway, at 9:15 this a.m. in the middle of the Hudson River, sun shining and in the channel, I ran up on a shoal. The good news...it was soft mud so there was no damage to Serenity. The bad news is that we were cruising at 8.5 m.p.h. so there was no backing off of it. There we set on the right side of the channel, inside the channel markers...aground. More good news...this happened just before low tide. We were riding the current down the river. So one hour later the tide started back up the river and we floated up and off the shoal and were on our way. I was on the far right side of the channel because I wanted to be out of the way of big ships. We passed tankers, barges, and even another cruise ship today. They all use the shipping channel. So I was in the channel but on the very edge of it. Lesson learned...stay more inside the channel.
We laughed about it...after we were off the shoal.

 

Here we are aground in the middle of the Hudson. The depth alarm did not go off because we were in deep water until the minute we ran onto the shoal. There is a nice lighthouse right in front of us that serves as the right channel marker. As you can see we were on the left side of it...but obviously not far enough left.

This is the lighthouse as we passed...stay well left of the right channel markers in this area.

 My view this a.m. 

 Beautiful colors along the Hudson.

 Going under a suspension bridge...great picture Shirl. (Boatographer)

 One of the boats we passed today.

 Interesting shot... a sea plane taking off right over a sailboat.

 Interesting boat!

West Point

A boat garage on the Hudson...

We traveled 72 miles today and pulled into Viking Boat Yard as it got dark.  It was very shallow pulling into this marina. We did come in at low tide. We will finish the Hudson tomorrow. We may take a day or two to relax in New York...it depends on the weather. Soon we will be in salt water.

 Thanks to everyone for following Blame Buffett!