7/4/24 - Kingston to New Hamburg NY (Whites On The Hudson Marina)- Independence Day and conclusion of this years journey

 While drinking our morning coffee we checked the weather and saw 95-99% chance of rain at 12-1pm.  Our original plan was to hang out in Kingston till about 11 before leaving as Whites would not be ready for us until 1pm.  With the impending rain we decided to go ahead and head for Whites about 9am. Renee drove the car down so Emile and Falicitas could get a boat ride. More nice homes , beautiful mountain views , some threatening clouds, and a few sprinkles but not a bad cruise.  Renee was waiting at the fuel dock when Erik arrived.  Since no one was at the marina yet we tied off at the fuel dock as there was no obvious open slip available(or big enough) for us.  Erik made omelets, bacon, and toast and Renee had stopped at Half-moon Cafe for coffee and a couple pieces of chocolate and cinnamon “Babka” to share 😋❤️. Shortly after brunch Don arrived and guided us to our spot where we would be leaving Happy Destiny until they haul her out.  We walked the marina a little, began packing some things, took the enclosure down, and napped a bit until dinner time.  We headed to Poughkeepsie for dinner and had a very good dinner with VERY large servings at the Palace Diner.  Then drove into town and watched the fireworks. Fortunately the storms held off and we had a wonderful, but long day.

Heading off for a final cruise of the year

Kingston morning walk

Kingston

CIA from the Hudson River

Mark, we found you a boat!

Mountains and rocks along the way

More mountains and rocks

Final destination

Friday we were up early and packed everything up and got our girl ready to be stored till next year.  We sadly got on the road leaving our home away from home…until next year when we will continue to trudge our road(and waterways) of happy destiny!

Happy Destiny all buttoned up 🥹

7/3/24 Shady Harbor to Kingston - Familia and Our encounter with the C.I.A

 

 It was great to see Falicitas and Erik’s dad 😊
They traveled from Ohio to spend a couple days aboard and bring us our vehicle as we are nearing the end of this years trip 🤨

Early start today meant getting moving shortly after the first cup of coffee.  Erik caught some sunrise pictures and topped off the water tanks.  While walking Riva, someone showed up in the ship store so we went in and browsed while waiting for the guy to get there that could fuel us up. 185 gallons of gas later 😬 we were shoving off headed towards Kingston.

Early morning pics at Shady Harbor Marina

“Can I get back off the boat to pee on more bushes?”

The views were beautiful as we continued on the Hudson River.  Lush green hillsides were surrounded by the shadows of the Catskill Mountains.  

Many gorgeous estates…many of them yellow 🤔 
Passed by the town of Coxsackie 🤷‍♂️ 
Derived from a Native American word meaning “Owl’s hoot”

 

Catskill Mountains and lighthouses 

After a few hours we arrived at Rondout Creek and the Hudson River Maritime Museum.  Just as we arrived and got tied up Erik’s dad and Falicitas also got there from Ohio.   

Museum explorers 

The museum was well done having lots of river and riverboat history; nice stop particularly given that it was complimentary with our paid dockage.   Next door was a wooden boat building and sailing school both associated with the museum.  The reminder of the afternoon was spent relaxing, making a quick run to the store and napping before dinner plans.  

Museum shots

We had made reservations at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) to have dinner at their Italian restaurant, Ristorante Caterina de Medici.   The CIA sits on a beautiful campus right on the Hudson River in Hyde Park which was about a 20 min drive from our marina.   It was founded in then1950’s in Connecticut  and moved to its current location in 1970 (the year that we were born!).  The student staff were all friendly and willing to share their experiences at the school.   The atmosphere was very nice and the food was delicious but a bit pricey for our taste 👅.   A fun and worthwhile experience though!  

Culinary Institute  

Familia

Beautiful evening 

By the time we made it back to Kingston and the boat it was after 10pm and we were all tired from the cruising, driving and activities of the day so bedtime was in order shortly.   

7/2/24 Waterford to Shady Harbor - Yes we moved!!!!

Spent the day waiting for Steve to arrive with the starter.  We sat drinking coffee watching all of the other boats head out and up ErieCanal.  Erik decided to move the boat so we could access the water so he could try cleaning the boat some.  Erik washed the outside of the boat and Renee worked on the inside to prepare for our guests, Erik’s dad and Felicitas. Renee biked to the hardware store to pick up a few things. 

After lunch and a short nap we took Riva for a walk down the waterfront and Steve showed up!  Before long we heard the wonderful sound of the engine firing up.  Steve was very fair with the bill and it was less than expected.  Renee made some calls and we shoved off pretty quickly to try to get to shady Harbor before they shut down the fuel pumps.  

Turning off of the Mohawk and onto the Hudson River the Catskill Mountains said hello

Erik gave the now running motors lots of petroleum as we cruised down the Hudson at nearly 20 mph almost the entire ride.  We had one last lock to go through shortly after turning onto the Hudson River.  

Last lock through of our journey this year
Hudson River Federal #1

The capital city of Albany

Started seeing multiple large vessels 

We did not make it in time to fuel up tonight but we will be first in line in the morning.  We walked Riva and explored a little then made some taco salad for dinner.  After dinner we went to the pool for a quick dip.  It was not near as hot as it had been but nonetheless we jumped in the cool refreshing pool for a few 🏊‍♀️.  

Showers and a load of laundry, followed by a few phone calls and ice cream ( of course), before calling it a night.💤

You made the blog Mark!

😝

Our resting spot at Shady Harbor Marina 

7/1/24 - Layover day 4 Waterford - We have A running engine!!!!

Like the turtle swims…
So our the days of our lives 

The day started as they do when we don’t have anyplace to be, drinking coffee and finishing blogs.  Erik made bacon, fried eggs, and toast for breakfast to fuel what would likely be our slow and easy day.  Our fresh water holding tanks were getting very low and there is no water at the slips on the wall here in Waterford as they are currently still working on dock upgrades to electric and water.  We did discover from one of the visitor center staff that there was one single water spigot up on the wall about 225’ from our boat.  The most strenuous activity of the day consisted of rounding up hoses from fellow boaters to reach that spigot.   Two young women aboard a sailboat who are on a trip up to Maine had and let us borrow two long hoses they had aboard.   Those in conjunction with two others from another sailboat out of Quebec and the two we have aboard made the stretch and we now had full tanks.   

We did ride across the Hudson a short distance to the grocery store to get a few provisions to make it through the week.   Staying close to the boat was the goal for the day since we were not certain when the mechanic might get parts necessary for either of our non functioning motors and show up to work on them.   At about 1pm Erik called him to check in and was informed that the igniter for the one engine had arrived and that he would be out later afternoon to install that, hopefully giving us one running engine.   Carousing the wall throughout the remainder of the morning and good part of the afternoon we chatted with multiple other boaters from around the country and Canada.  Many of them had their own tales of delays and mechanical issues to share as well; turns out we don’t have the only boat with things that break.   Some time ago a fellow mariner shared with us that “everything on a boat is broken, you just don’t know it yet!”……touché! 

Around 4pm Steve showed up with igniter in hand and after a quick 15 minute install the port engine fired right up; music to our ears!   He stated that the starter for the other engine was shot beyond rebuild and that his source for starters is reliable and will have a new one to him by tomorrow afternoon.  If all goes well there is a likelihood we will be up and running on both motors by the end of the day tomorrow 🤞.  

After a dinner of leftovers we were visited by the gentleman from the farmers market whom had taken the aerial drone shots of us and the area on Saturday.   He brought down to us nicely matted prints of  two of the pictures.   They will make a good addition to some spot on our dirt home wall to remind us throughout the year of our beloved Happy Destiny 🌞.   

Happy place wall decor for home 

The remainder of the day was spent with more relaxing through the beautiful evening reading, listening to music and visiting with another fellow friend of Bill who came by and sat aboard with us for a while.   God willing, we hope to be back on our way and cruising down the Hudson late tomorrow or a Wednesday morning.   This remains to be seen but what we do know is that the sun will rise and we will roll, or in this case float, with whatever the outcome is!  

Color us happy
😊 

6/30/24 - layover day 3 in Waterford- Farmers market, more waterfalls and friends of Bill

Local setting up his stand for the farmers market
He was selling hot dogs 
Looks like a player…anyone want to buy a weiner? 

We awoke to another drizzly morning with chances of rain continuing through the morning.   Most of the rain skirted us which did allow for some vendors of the Waterford farmers market to come out and display their wares.   We had a mostly relaxing and lazy morning carousing the market directly on the wall where we are docked and came away with a few goodies.  Maple glazed cashews, a dozen farm fresh eggs and a nice bag of veges for salads and shish kabobs made their way aboard.  

                                                  Breakfast sandwiches with a little live music 

Around 11am we headed off on our bikes into the adjacent town of Cohoes to visit the Waterford Historical Museum and the Cohoes Falls View Park.   Learned some more interesting history of the area and saw some nice sites.  Our ride was followed up by yet more relaxation and a nice nap.  

Cohoes Falls View Park
We got scolded for “missing” the NO dogs allowed sign 😝 

Cohoes Historical Museum

Harmony Mills Lofts apartments 
In the late 1800’s through early 1900’s this was the largest cotton mill in the world 
Pic doesn’t do justice to how big it is
It stretches multiple blocks with spectacular views of the falls below 

Cohoes Falls 

We cooked up chicken and fresh vege kabobs on the grill for dinner and as we were starting to eat a guy approached the boat inquiring whether we were friends of Bill Wilson.  A nice conversation of recovery gratitude and life ensued.   We strolled the docks for a while striking up conversations with several loopers who had come in the evening before and/or earlier in the day meeting people from Georgia, Florida, New York, Minnesota, New Jersey, Canada, and the UK.  Neat to converse with folks from so many different places.  At a Lyle after 7pm we headed back off on our bicycles to attend a meeting where we again saw Mitch (fella who we had met earlier on the wall) as well as several folks we had met at Friday evenings meeting.  Can’t go wrong with discussions of gratitude and waiting for miracles!  

Afternoon entertainment was this photo shoot next to our boat of a scantily clad lady 

🤭

Back at the boat around 9:30pm and still not overly tired (chill days, naps and evening coffee probably played in) we found an action movie on Netflix that we laid in bed to watch until after the witching hour when we fell peacefully asleep.  

A guy at the farmers market had a drone and took and shared these shots with us
We are buying a couple of matted prints from him
He’s supposed to deliver them to us tomorrow

Sunset as we were crossing the bridge from Peebles Island on our way home

6/29/24 - layover day 2 in Waterford NY - uh oh and double uh oh

Well….owning and cruising aboard a big 38 year old boat don’t always go as planned; today was one of those days.   We rose to a windy and rainy morning.   After relaxing for several hours and watching the weather maps we decided at about 9:30am that it looked at the maps and forecast and decided that we would move onto the Hudson River and head toward Kingston with a possible stop in Troy across the river to carouse what was said to be a good farmers market.   

Pre shove off checklist completed and port engine running we were that close to departure…uh oh, starboard engine would not start.  It wouldn’t even turn over.   An advantage to having twin engines can be redundancy.  If one fails we normally can at least limp along on one for a bit.   In todays case the redundancy of the twin engines turned out to be that Erik would manage to mess up the other engine while in the process of pilfering parts from the port to test components on the starboard by process of elimination.   

Battery switched out ✔️  ballast resistor switched out ✔️ coil switched out ✔️ solenoid switched out ✔️ unfortunately none of these tests made the starboard engine run.   Double uh oh….in the process of changing components back Erik managed to cross two of the multiple wires to the coil and ballast resistor causing a short which now had the port engine also inoperable 😖.  While Renee rode to the hardware and auto parts store to get some 20A fuses Erik stayed back and continued getting things back together correctly.  We were now down to believing it was likely the starter that was bad on the starboard and now no idea what we had done to the port 🤪.   With a sore back from bending over engines all morning and into the early afternoon Erik conceded that we need the help of a REAL mechanic,   A fellow boater who was heading out, up the Hudson, recommended Lock 1 Marine in town saying that their mechanic (Steve) was very good.   A call to Lock 1 and speaking with co owner, Larry, had Steve headed down our way to the wall.   He was very nice and obviously knowledgeable.    After an hour or so of diagnostics he confirmed that the starter (likely original…38 years of starts isn’t too bad!) was shot.   With another hour or so of testing and diagnostics it was determined that the igniter on the electronic ignition of the port engine was bad; likely toasted by Erik’s accidental wire cross and short.   After removing the bad starter Steve left us stating he would need to get the starter into the shop to see if it is rebuildable on Monday or whether we will be able to get a replacement new one.   He was very uncertain where/when he would be able to procure the igniter needed for the old school Mallory distributor system 🤔. 

We know it was a challenging day when our photo roll consists 99% of engine and component pics
🤓

Discouraged and tired but trying to keep our spirits up we made multiple calls to cancel upcoming slip reservations at Shady Harbor and Kingston.  We also got on the horn with Erik’s Dad who was scheduled to be leaving McConnelsviile with Felicitas tomorrow morning early to head to Kingston to meet us and spend a few days aboard before bringing us home.    Unsure of timing and where, if anywhere, we will be going from here dad agreed to hold tight and wait to hear from us on Monday.    

We paused, had dinner, and then loaded up our dirty clothes and towels to bring up to the nearby laundromat.   While walking through town with Riva waiting for the washers to finish we did get a message from Steve stating that he found the needed igniter for the ignition online and that it should be here on Tuesday….maybe.  🤞.    So, here we are in Waterford for what will likely be at least 3 days, maybe more.   Bottom line is that there could be worse places to be “stuck”!   There are many things we can see and do here still and friendly people have been welcoming.   We will definitely make the best of things and figure/revise the plan as we go through the next few days.  

Lots to see and do in this beautiful area

“Plans are nothing; Planning is everything”…Dwight D Eisenhower 

6/28/24 Layover day in Waterford - Yes Darling!❤️

A fun evening at a great show!

We began the day going for a walk/hike on the “flight trail”.  The trail started at lock #2 and we followed a short path to a road.  We ended up following several roads and saw very little of the locks, canals, or views we had expected.  We gave up on the hike as the sights were not getting any better and headed back to the boat to make some lunch.  Erik had a meeting/call he had to be on at 2 so we doddled around the boat for several hours on odd jobs and relaxation till his meeting.  

Couple additional looper boats came in in preparation for their rise up to the Erie Canal

Beautiful flowers and girls adorn the sidewalks along the wall where we are docked!
Hydrangea is apparently the bush of Waterford….tons of them everywhere 

Some sites from our walk 

We had an early dinner grilled on the boat and took Riva for another walk before heading out on our bikes to attend a 6pm meeting held at the combination library/senior center across the canal in Cohoes.  It was a good meeting with about 30 local folks, some of which we stood around and chatted with after the meeting for a while before heading one block over to the historic Cohoes Music Hall for an 8pm show.   Erik had found online yesterday that there was a production, ‘Yes Darling’, that looked pretty entertaining.   The show proved to be just that…very fun and entertaining with outstanding music and talent from the small cast.  It was a comedic and somewhat improv musical show that did not disappoint.  Renee was fortunate enough to be seated directly next to a very drunk and belligerent lady who felt the need to sing loudly and shout out random noises continuously for the first half hour or so before she was first escorted by the theatre staff up to the balcony and then about 15 minutes later escorted from the theater by the police.  The  shows stars did well in utilizing their improv skills to handle teh interruption.  In the link below is a video of a previous show that is slightly different but the same basic content….very good stuff!   You have to go to the 24th minute on the video to get past the pre show silence and to the actual show.  Take a watch if you want some laughs.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiAT8GkfwPI  

 Gorgeous old theatre 
Signs inside indicating some of the many famous acts that have taken the stage over the decades 

The show lasted over two hours and we rode home in the dark after the show not arriving back to the boat until about 10:30pm where we took Riva for a quick walk and bathroom break before heading off to sweet dreams of today and thoughts of what tomorrow may have in store!