Half Moon Bay Ny - Kingston NY - Catskill NY

June 7

Before I get into this leg of the trip, I have to back up a little.  It occurred to me that I completely screwed up my blog on Cape May by forgetting to mention my time with my nephew Pate and his beautiful family Carly (wife) and Hudson (son).  This was the first I had met Hudson and he is really special.  Carly and Hudson took us to some of the more special places in Cape May. Pate and Carly had Terri and I over for dinner of homemade carnitas (read yum!).  This was also the first time I had seen his house and came away very impressed.  He and Carly are really building a great life for themselves and I could not be more proud of the two of them.  They are special people and are doing an extremely special job with Hudson.

Half Moon Bay (Con't)

Now back to this leg of the trip.  We ended up staying at Half Moon Bay longer than expected ... not because it was great mind you ... but because we had to burn some time to land at Donavan's Shady Harbor on schedule for the Loop famous pig roast.  It turned out to be a good thing.  The town had a fantastic festival and we spent the entire day eating empanadas, drinking micro brew and eating ice cream .... yep, good thing we did ~20,000 steps that day!

 

Leaving Half Moon Bay was a learning curve for Terri and I.  Backing out of the slip the was very tight and I had to be careful not to hit the other boats.  Then the wind caught us and carried us into the piling.  We escaped unscratched but Terri had to play superwoman and push us off the pole (and metal ring around it for the floating dock).  She is a good woman, I think I will keep her (for another week at least... ;)  ).\

The trip up the Hudson was beautiful.  We passed West Point and multiple gorgeous light houses.

We also passed Bannerman Castle on Pollepel Island.  
 

Rather than try to explain this myself, I am going to cheat and take a clip out of Wiki:

Pollepel Island was encountered by the Europeans during the first navigation of the Hudson River by early Dutch settlers in the Province of New York, at the "Northern Gate" of the Hudson Highlands. During the Revolutionary War, patriots attempted to prevent the British from passing upriver by emplacing 106 chevaux de frise (upright logs tipped with iron points) between the island and Plum Point across the river (see Hudson River Chains). Caissons from several chevaux de frise still rest at the river bottom. Still, these obstructions did not stop a British flotilla from burning Kingston in 1777. General George Washington later signed a plan to use the island as a military prison; however, there is no evidence that a prison was ever built there.

Bannerman purchased Pollepel island in November 1900, for use as a storage facility for his growing surplus business. Because his storeroom in New York City was not large enough to provide a safe location to store thirty million surplus munitions cartridges,[8] in the spring of 1901 he began to build an arsenal on Pollepel. Bannerman designed the buildings himself and let the constructors interpret the designs on their own.

Most of the building was devoted to the stores of army surplus but Bannerman built another castle in a smaller scale on top of the island near the main structure as a residence, often using items from his surplus collection for decorative touches. The castle, clearly visible from the shore of the river, served as a giant advertisement for his business. On the side of the castle facing the western bank of the Hudson, Bannerman cast the legend "Bannerman's Island Arsenal" into the wall.

Any, enough on that, it was cool.

Kingston NY

The Hudson was really rough from all the wind and sporting 3 - 4 foot waves.  The boat (and Terri) did fantastic.  When we got to our next destination (Kingston NY), other boats were stressing over the trip.  We just smiled and thought, "we call that a good day on the bay".

If you are not aware of it, the Hudson is full of light houses from early days of navigation.  They are cool and fun to encounter:

Kingston was nice and we stayed two nights.  Not a ton to report.  We had caught up to John and Robin aboard Moonshadow II due to their boat being pulled for mechanical issues (Jersey intercoastal took out a prop).  It was good to see them again.  They are finishing their loop so that will be our last encounter.

Of course, we had docktails (in a restaurant this time) with other loopers .... and some very strange guest who were fishing:

Catskill NY

The next day it came time to leave and everyone had been asking about the rather the fires had affected us.  This was the first day we really saw it and it did spoil a perfect day's run up the Hudson.  We missed seeing Indian Rock (a mountain with the rock formation in the shape of an Indian Chief's head).  Visibility was limited to about 1/2 mile.  When we woke the boat was covered with ash, but it washed off easily.

Now this is funny so I had to share it.  On the chart it showed that there was a light house up ahead.  With the limited visibility, I could only just make it out.  Then I noticed there were two light houses, but the chart only showed one.  Terri and I were thinking "that's interesting" until the second finally came into view (right in front of us):

At ~1/2 mile, the tower on this thing looked like a light house and the rest of the ship was invisible in the distance.  The river is only ~1/4 mile wide here and you can see the land quickly disappear into the smog in the background.  We got out of his way in a hurry.

Catskill is a really cool town.  This is not a tourist centric community but a thriving small town America kind of place.  Now I am not a cat person but the town of Catskill has grabbed hold of the feline theme and really run with it.  If you bother to zoom in on the names below the pictures, some are really cute.  About every 100 feet around town, a business had sponsored a statue of a themed cat.  They call it "Cats around Catskill" and really are works of art. Sorry for putting so many in, but it was cute and this represents ~1/4 of the cats we saw:

But this town is also very woke and high on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) so .... for your viewing pleasure (and blown up to make it much more significant):

Poor dog, I abuse him so much!

So to conclude, we found the coolest bar ever!  It was called Captain Kidds which is kind of cheesy, but it actually worked.  What made it so cool was the history of the building.  The owner of the building built the bar in the basement and he lives in the rest of the house.  This was both the home of Sam Wilson, AKA Uncle Sam and where President Van Buren (8th President) was married.

Now to the bar pics ... Meet Mike, the owner!  Does this guy look like a New York bar owner or what?  He was complete with the Brooklyn accent and all.

 

But here is what made the bar so cool....completely cool actually.  It was all done in a dark cave pirate theme.

Anyways, it was a great bar and lots of fun.  Spent some time with really nice people from Chicago and wish they lived close to us...we would be great friends.  Now off to Donavan's Shady Harbor for the famous Pig Roast.  Likely to be 50+ loopers there.  Should be a blast!

One last Cat shot. "On Top of SpaghKITTY"!!!  LOL

Be safe everyone.  With love, Terri and Aubrey