POUGHKEEPSIE YACHT CLUB - A natural, wood-sided clubhouse perches on a bluff. It overlooks a collection of floating docks with a smattering of sailboats and power boats. We’re hanging on a mooring buoy just up river from the club, inside rocky and small Esopus Island. I kayaked in last night to pay Doug $21.86 ($20 plus tax) for a night on the mooring.
Overnight the temperature dipped to about 55 as a waxing gibbous moon sailed across the night. This morning, fog on the river, Sunday morning calm. Train whistles echo up and down the valley. Commuter trains run along the east bank of the river, freight trains - many of them more than a mile long - skirt the western shore. Some rolll north, the others south.
Yesterday we toured the United States Military Academy at West Point. Impressive and humbling. I’ll post pictures later today. West Point and hip hop somehow seem antithetical. But really not. I’ll explain later, or, if not explain, at least jot a few observations.
We’ve been on the water now for 11 days. 260 or so miles from Lewes. Still heading north. I think we’ll make Lake Champlain in another four or five days, with stops in-between - maybe- at Kingston, Saugerties, Albany, Hudson.
The Hudson truly is a beautiful river. We’re seeing the Catskills in the distance now.
-
Dennis Forney has been a journalist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972 and has been writing his Barefootin’ column for The Whale and then the Cape Gazette for more than 30 years. Like his Barefootin' Facebook page to get notified of blog updates.
