Official Start of the Great Loop

Salty Paws at the 79th Street Boat Basin.

I (Molly) arrived at the 79th St Boat Basin on the Hudson in NYC on Saturday, July 13 with our friends, Stephen and Martha, and I replaced Bob and Danny on Salty Paws as our friends took the subway to Queens to spend the weekend with family. Early evening there was a massive blackout which affected midtown Manhattan to 72^nd Street, including the Broadway district. Fortunately, we were not affected and Bill had been able to get our boat A/C running. The Boat Basin has some transient boats, but is mostly live-aboard boats. This would not be for me, as the boats rock wildly after a barge or ferry goes by on the Hudson. 

We love this 3rd row, 1/2-price
"restricted-view" seats!

On Sunday, Bill and I took a cab, (yes, they still exist!), down to Broadway to see Dear Evan Hansen. Before the show, we had a light lunch at a pub near the theater. When we got to the long line at the theater, Bill realized that the envelope with the tickets was no longer in his pocket. I wish I had a pic of the look on his face. He ran back to the restaurant and spent 15 minutes asking the staff if they had found them and searching wildly. No luck and then he started making plans about the story he would tell the box office. When he came out of the restaurant, he happened to look down at a grate on the sidewalk and saw the envelope with the tickets! I hope this is an omen for the good luck we will experience on our long journey. Anyway, the show was superb! One of our top 3 and we have seen many over the years. 

Our expected Great Loop route.  Among our
expected stops are the 1000 Islands, Chicago,
Nashville. Key West, the Bahamas and
Washington, D. C.

Stephen and Martha.

Stephen and Martha joined us early the next morning and we set off up the Hudson River, bound for Poughkeepsie where they had left their car. This was also the official start of our Great Loop adventure that will take consume most of the next 11 months or so.

The new Tappan Zee Bridge.

The deep Hudson was first thought by
British explorers to be the Northwest
Passage to the Orient.  

We had a relaxing day on the beautiful Hudson, going through Martha's home territory, she having grown up in Nyack, just under the new, beautiful Tappan Zee Bridge (I am not sure if anyone really wants to call it by its official name – The Mario Cuomo Bridge.). That afternoon we arrived at a marina in Newburgh (home for Washington during some of the Revolution War) for the night. Our ukulele singalong was a hit with the neighboring boat.

West Point.

A NYC business owner built this for
his wife over 100 years ago, and
construction stopped the day she died.
It lay dormant for decades before
being mostly destroyed by fire.

CIA -  The Culinary Institute of America.

The next day brought us by West Point (ugly) and Bannerman Castle (never finished as his wife died) on our way to Poughkeepsie where we drove a few miles to the Culinary Institute of America for dinner. We ate in the French restaurant, Bocuse. 

Splendid campus and wonderful experience watching the soon to graduate students prepare and serve a delicious prix fixe dinner. CIA has admitted many students who have gone through the culinary program at Lewiston High School, and their graduates go on to impressive careers in the hospitality industry. 

I won't talk too much about the heat, since we have all been going through it. We do have AC on the boat if we are at a marina with power or we use our generator. It works some times!!! That night, Bill woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and realized that the AC was sending out hot air, not cold, and our cabin was 90 degrees. (Now fixed!) Today is Sunday, 7/21, and we seem to have pushed past the heat spell. 

We stayed at the dock in Waterford and looked right at the first
of now 35 locks on the Erie Canal.  The original canal had
over 100 locks.

After Poughkeepsie, we thought we would move along toward cool air and a swimming hole. We spent the next night in Waterford, which is where the Erie Canal starts and the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers meet. The Erie Canal was designed by Mr. Canvass White and completed in 1825 allowing transport around such impediments as Cohoes Falls, which we walked to near the beginning of the Mohawk River in Cohoes, across the River from Waterford.  

Cohoes Falls.

The Canal's completion spurned much industry to spring up along it's route and many upstate New York cities flourished for over a century. The canal was expanded and upgraded 3 times up until 1918. Trouble came with the modern industry not needing water power, the growth of the trucking and rail transportation and ultimately the growth of imports from Asia.

Lock operations are similar at each lock with boaters holding on to long hanging ropes on the sides.

By the time the lock fills, one can almost step
off the boat at the top of the lock.

Here I am holding on to the loop with my
great gloves that Bill bought me.  What a
thoughtful gift!

Bill seems to have it
easier than me!

Lock 17 has the highest rise -40 feet. It is also
the only lock with a lift lock; all the others
have gates that open left and right.
.

We have stopped in Waterford, Amsterdam and Little Falls, all largely built by immigrants.  All the cities along the Canal have been struggling with how to have a viable economy in today's world. The State of NY and private organizations have been trying to encourage tourism and development along the cities' waterfronts with some limited success.

The park on the Amsterdam bridge.

This park plaque notes "the mosiac
of nations that pulled together to
transform a village into a city."

Amsterdam has built a stunning park on its new pedestrian bridge across the Mohawk. Little Falls, which is lovely and our favorite community so far, had had a pop. of 18,000 and is now around 4500. The staff person at the little marina will drive boaters to the store or restaurants and an employee of these establishments will drive you back to your boat.

Bill pulls our little wagon filled with groceries
from Price Chopper in Little Falls.

Some of the old mills in Little Falls.

Tomorrow we continue our journey!