Newburgh to Catskill

When we checked in at Riverfront Marina, we asked Jamie if there was a grocery store nearby for provisioning.  She said we would need to take a taxi across town to get to any decent shopping.  When we got up Friday morning, we went looking for coffee and breakfast.  We walked up the steep waterfront two blocks past the community college, and ended up in a distressed part of town. We passed the Rescue Mission and turned in at a little diner run by a Greek family.  The portions were huge, the grits were smooth and hot, and the coffee was endless.  When the local cop on the beat gets his breakfast at a small coffee joint, you know you have hit paydirt.

After breakfast we crossed the street to investigate the little grocer across Broadway.  It was run by a Pakistani guy who told us we were not locals, and to stay off the streets at night.  "These young hoodlums around here kill people just for the fun of it".   The customer behind us in line took exception, and told us we would be "jus fine" as long as we didn't "go lookin for no trouble".  We paid for our purchases and headed back down street, feeling a sense of how lucky we were to be doing what we are doing, and recognizing that it sometimes a very thin line between the hood and the highlife.

As if to emphasize the point, the views upriver to Poughkeepsie and beyond were filled with upper class mansions and expansive institutional edifices.  We were kept busy trying to decide if we were looking at colleges, or churches, or monasteries.  The river charts don't give a lot of references to buildings on land, so we just made up stories to go with the views.  Here are some of the pics.

Or if you prefer modern and really upscale, there is this..

The weather continued to tease us.  The clouds lowered and rain began to get heavy just as we got to each narrow part of the channel.  We put the running lights back on so the southbound barges could see us.  As soon as we passed each blind curve on the river, the clouds would lift and give us good visibility again.  Sometimes the shapes of the fog on the river paralleled the shore behind.  Niki really loved the misty curvature in this view.

Each major bend in the river had its own little lighthouse.  This one reminded me of a special sometime ago walk down a beach in NH carrying a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne.

The light reflecting off our wake as we made the corner around that little lighthouse was curious.

As we got to the end of the day, the clouds lifted and the sun began to break through the overcast.  We knew we had made it to our next stop at Riverview Marine Services in Catskill when we looked off the stern and saw the Catskill mountains framed like this.

This perfect sunset was unassailable to us.  Nothing could detract from it.  Just as we rounded the last buoy on the approach to the marina, we struck something in the water.  For a few minutes, the helm would not respond properly.  We were in just too good a mood to let it bother us.  We backed the prop a little, and slowly motored up to the fuel dock at the marina for the night.  Once she was tied up and the shorepower was plugged in, we walked down the waterfront for a late dinner at Port O' Call on the Catskill Point.  I planned an early morning swim to see if anything important was wrong with the rudder.