Rollin’ Down The River!

Over the past week our trip has really changed as we leave the waters we’ve traveled previously and enter a whole new stage of the Great Loop.  This week we reached The Hudson River and it’s been pretty exciting.

After 3 nights in Chesapeake City waiting out wind and rain (what else is new?), we traveled with two new buddy boats, Taitan Princess and Miss Understood to Cape May, NJ.  Last time we ran the NJ coast we had to wait several days for weather, but we were lucky to get two good days to go from Cape May to Atlantic City, and then the next day from Atlantic City to Staten Island, NY.  Danny and the captains from the other two boats looked at weather conditions to include wind and wave predictions for quite a while before deciding to go, though I was a bit hesitant, it really worked out well.   I told one of the women we met, Lynn, that I was starting to refer to Danny as “Danny Ants in The Pants” because he’s been wanting to GO GO GO so that we can leave the boat in a good location to go home for a bit.  She told me that her grandkids call her partner, Byron “Poppa Dangerous”, so decided that we can’t leave the two of them alone for long!  They’ve been fun to travel with and Byron diagnosed a problem we started having that was resulting in black smoke coming out of the boat (dirty air filter, taken care of!)

Miss Understood

Taitan Princess

On Friday morning we went past the Statue of Liberty – again.  This is the third time we’ve done so, but this time we were much closer than previously since we were heading for the Hudson River vs. the East River.  It was a really sunny morning and seeing the sun shine on Lady Liberty up close was really, truly impressive.  Our buddy boat took photos of us in front, we did the same for them (that’s a Looper thing!) and I took a ton of pictures of the statue.

After traveling up the Hudson through the city we went under the Tappan Zee bridge and the change of scenery was dramatic.   All at once it seems like you’ve left the city and you’re out in the country.  There are cliffs on the sides of the river with lush green trees, some waterfalls and majestic mansions high on the hills, and we also passed by West Point which looks like a giant fortress.

Last night we stayed in Poughkeepsie, NY and had dinner at the Culinary Institute of America, this was a bucket list item on the trip for us for sure.  The CIA prepares its’ students to lead restaurants and boasts of many famous graduates such as Anthony Bourdain (RIP) and Cat Cora.  We’ve always wanted to go there and it did not disappoint.

So tomorrow’s travel will be by car and will bring us HOME for almost three weeks.  I’m beyond ready to see my family and friends, take care of some appointments and spend some time in our dirt house.  When we return we have one more day on The Hudson then we enter The Erie Canal, the next big step on our big adventure!

Thanks as always for traveling along with us.

Captain Dan & Cruise Director Jodi