Waterford, Catskill to Newburgh NY Wonderful

Waterford, NY, August 25Th. 9:15AM, ...we had ridden out the morning rain, slipped the moorings and headed Nyanza for the Hudson and the town of Catskill. Quite a town that Waterford..might stop back there in later travels. Once in the Hudson we ran the last of the locks and turned to the charts. What a beautiful day.

The run down to Catskill took us through the land of the bald eagle, along the route of the Amtrak passenger trains and past mansions built in the days before income taxes. Made good use of the binoculars and photo opportunities afforded by the beautiful waterway on which we were traveling. Then came a new wrinkle. There was this incident on our approach to the Catskill harbor where Cap't Jim was dutifully following the charts that guided us to the harbor. Nyanza stopped dead in her tracks. "I followed the charts" was his only defence. "Legally I did nothing wrong." OK...but facts is facts and the depth sounder indicated the river bottom below was less than Nyanza's 7 foot draft.

I am sure you see where this is going. The only good news was though the tide was still going out it would reverse its direction in a few hours. And it did. Problem was the rising tide, the wind and the current were conspiring to push us into shallower water so that as the water rose Nyanza did not. The solution was to get an anchor out to windward but how? Put a guy overboard with the anchor and swim it to windward. OK...great idea. Now who is crazy enough to do this? Said person was found, the anchor was loaded on a float and frog kicked out to the drop point. Down it went and thus began the swim back to the boat. One thing was missing... recognition of the fact the elements were working against the swimmer. Tide, wind and current all conspired to push the swimmer away from the boat. The resourceful Capt Jim seized the "Life Sling" from its rail position and heaved it towards the grateful swimmer, thus saving him from a trip into the Lilly pads or possibly a solo trip down the Hudson. All is well that ends well. Another of life's lessons...everyone runs aground...its how you get off and back in the channel that counts...lesson learned.

And as for Capt Jim? After some thought it was said the valiant rescue of a crew member out weighs the grounding of the boat. He was saved from a career as captain of a light house tender off the Greenland coast.

Pete Reyburn