Checked the tides last night and got it wrong. We left the marina just at High Tide and we were fighting a falling tide going up the river. The Ferries on the rover were really something. They were all over like flies and setting up 3′ wakes. Most run between Manhattan and Jersey City but the various terminals are spread over about 5 miles of the Hudson River up toward the George Washington Bridge.
Once we were out of the influence of the ferries the river was pretty calm as the day was heating up. Temps got to 90 degrees and the wind picked up a little in the afternoon. The rived up the river was good and we passed several tows and I called them to let them know my intentions and they appreciated that.
Once out of New York there are not a lot of marinas except at each of the towns. Some towns have several marinas and others have one or two/ All the marinas appear to be built out into the river with floating docks (good) but this leaves them exposed to the wakes and tidal currents.
We at first were going to stay in Newburg, about 5 miles north of West Point. I tried calling the marina several times and then decided to just hail them on the radio when we got close. They were essentially full but could have put us on the outside of their docks, in the river. They also mentioned they had live music on Friday night that ws quite loud and went to 1:45 in the morning. They gave us the phone number to a second marina only a mile away or so. They also did not have a slip for us. and they gave us the number to Shadows Marina in Poughkeepsie about 14 miles up river. They had a spot but no fuel but told us where we could stop for fuel.
We stopped at the West Bank Marina to fill up. We talked to the dock hand about Sandy last fall and they were pretty lucky because the wind blew out of the east and all the boats that floated off their wood chocks stayed in the marina and there was no a great amount of damage. Some of the other marinas around lost everything and they were not sure where it went, just floated away in the wind.
We arrived at Shadows Marina and the Dock Master told me to be aware of the flood tide after I came thru the opening because it would push us and it did. I am glad he told me because there could have been a problem if I was not aware. Shadows is a nice modern marina but there is a lot of rocking from the boats going by. Hopefully that will die down when the sun goes down.
The Dock Master also runs a water taxi service back to Newburg, about 14 miles. The boat he uses is a twin hull offshore that is painted red. green and yellow and does 70 mph. Round trip is $30 and they run the service till midnight and seem to do pretty well with the number of passengers.
We will leave later tomorrow when the tide is low so the rising tide can push us up the river. We are about 75 miles north of New York and the tide is still approximately 3.5′ high to low in Poughkeepsie. Troy New York where we turn into the Erie Canal has a 5′ difference in their tide.