Hudson River, part 1

I left the Erie Canal visitor center about 3:00 PM and headed down the Hudson. It was the first nice sunny day in weeks.

The first thing on the Hudson River is another lock. This is the Troy lock, run by the Army Corps of Engineers. There is of course a dam as well, and the drop is about 8 or 9 feet, depending on the tide of course, the tide does reach to this lock.
I believe this is now 125 locks I've been through. I have become pretty good at getting in and out of them, but I will be just as happy to see no more locks for a while.

A few miles down is Albany, and there were several interesting buildings, and a park and band shell right on the river. But I had to include this photo- is this real trashy, or real clever advertising? It looked to be a real full size truck.

And yet another of those special bridges for me- this one, actually two very close together, is the New York Thruway extension to the Mass Pike, and a railroad bridge.

I decided to stop just below the bridge, at Coeymans Landing Marina. It was quite a nice marina, and a good restaurant. I also solved a bilge pump problem- there is a filter and it was clogged with bilge gunk. That caused the pump to run for long times. I cleaned the filter, flushed out the hose with the dock water hose and put it all back together. All working well again.

I was up and ready to go, but it was a bit foggy on the river. I walked around the yard for a few minutes then headed out at 7:25. Nice calm river, 61 degrees F. Until about 10 I had a favorable tide, adding almost 1 mph, but then it turned and was against me most of the day. I continued to tinker with the autopilot, and finally got it to work fairly well. I lowered the rudder gain to its lowest value, and that seemd to smooth out the hunting, but its fairly slow to respond to course changes.

The upper part of the Hudson is relatively wide, with some gentle curves and several wide areas. There were a series of very nice lighthouses along here.

Sorry I didn't record the names of these lights as I passed, I'll have to go back later and try to figure them out form the charts.

First time I ever saw a Blue Heron hitch a ride on a floating log. I have seen a lot of heron on this trip.

Another of the lights.

Above Newburgh the river is wide and rather uninteresting. I had the autopilot working well, and I kind of dozed off at the wheel. I was startled awake by a long and very loud blast of an airhorn, from this freighter. Funny, but just before that I had thought about down bound traffic, but this was the only freighter I had seen, and he was tied up and obviously unloaded. I assumed he was waiting to be loaded, but I guess he was unloaded and ready to leave.
I was very wide awake for quite a while after that.

This is I84 at Newburgh, another route Ive driven many times.

Continued..

	The first thing on the Hudson River is another lock. This is the Troy lock, run by the Army Corps of Engineers. There is of course a dam as well, and the drop is about 8 or 9 feet, depending on the tide of course, the tide does reach to this lock. I believe this is now 125 locks I've been through. I have become pretty good at getting in and out of them, but I will be just as happy to see no more locks for a while.
	A few miles down is Albany, and there were several interesting buildings, and a park and band shell right on the river. But I had to include this photo- is this real trashy, or real clever advertising? It looked to be a real full size truck.
	And yet another of those special bridges for me- this one, actually two very close together, is the New York Thruway extension to the Mass Pike, and a railroad bridge.

	The upper part of the Hudson is relatively wide, with some gentle curves and several wide areas. There were a series of very nice lighthouses along here.
	Sorry I didn't record the names of these lights as I passed, I'll have to go back later and try to figure them out form the charts.
	First time I ever saw a Blue Heron hitch a ride on a floating log. I have seen a lot of heron on this trip.
	Another of the lights.
	Above Newburgh the river is wide and rather uninteresting. I had the autopilot working well, and I kind of dozed off at the wheel. I was startled awake by a long and very loud blast of an airhorn, from this freighter. Funny, but just before that I had thought about down bound traffic, but this was the only freighter I had seen, and he was tied up and obviously unloaded. I assumed he was waiting to be loaded, but I guess he was unloaded and ready to leave. I was very wide awake for quite a while after that.
	This is I84 at Newburgh, another route Ive driven many times.