30 May 15

Slept like lambs last night. We were up fairly early and had breakfast and coffee watching a beautiful morning. About 08:20, the tide started to run north, so we loosed the mooring lines and headed up the Hudson. To starboard, it was one estate (owned or formerly owned by the uber-rich) after another and to port it was more modest river-view properties, punctuated by the occasional rust-belt town. A beautiful ride nonetheless. The wind piped up (S 15-20) about 09:30, so we motor-sailed for a couple of hours and with the tidal current, we were making up to 9.2 kn SOG; would that it were always so. We turned into Catskill Creek about 11:30 and fueled up and pumped out the holding tanks, then made our way further up the creek to Hop-O-Nose Marina, where tomorrow we will unstep the mast. After lunch, we spent the whole afternoon prepping the boat for the unstepping; dropped and flaked the jib, coiled all the running rigging around the mast or elsewhere, pulled the electrical cables for the mast lights and instruments out through the deck glands, disconnected the boom and lowered it to the dock and removed all the cotter pins from the turnbuckles on the standing rigging. We also had an electrical fright as we plugged into shore power. I think one of the circuits gave us a “reversed polarity” issue and blew the fuse on the power strip in the locker. Fortunately, everything else seems to be OK; at the very least the air-conditioner works, so the Admiral has not mutinied as threatened. After “children’s hour” (as FDR referred to it), we went up to the Hop-O-Nose Restaurant and bar for dinner and got back to the boat just before it started to rain. Early to bed (worn out) in anticipation for tomorrow’s big day. 

42-12.820’N, 073-51.969’W

31 May 15

Sunday dawned warm (72 F) and overcast; we had a bit of rain in the night, but nothing like Houston has been getting the past few weeks. It was even warm enough that we had the A/C on all night. The marina crew showed up about 09:00 and advised that they needed to wait until about 11:00 for the tide to come up enough to get the mast under the Travelift (on their floating dock section). So, I went down and installed the new oil drain cap (which was waiting for me at the marina yesterday) and disconnected and removed the power strip that got fried yesterday. When I came back topside at 10:30, the temp had dropped to 55 F, there was light rain falling and the wind was starting to blow. But, we went ahead anyway with the unstepping: grabbed hold of the mast with the ancient (about 110 years old, according to the owner) dock crane, unfastened 8 turnbuckles (2 back stays, 2 main shrouds and 4 baby shrouds) and the double pin below the jib furling gear on the forestay and, whoosh, it was off. They laid the mast down on the floating dock alongside, we moved the boat to another slip, and the crew moved the floating dock under the Travelift, where they picked up the mast (in the horizontal) and drove it to a place in the yard where we could complete the final preparations for shipment (un-bolt the spreaders, gather all the shrouds and stays together around the mast and wrap the lot with cling-film) at our leisure. We were all done by 14:00; “c’est le bon" is now topless. Then, it was off to the grocery store and Lowes for groceries and tools and duct tape. Made it back to the boat just in time for happy hour. We went back up to the Creekside Restaurant for dinner; almond-crusted salmon. And that’s it for May.

1 Jun 15

It was cold (48 F) and rainy in the morning, so we slept in. The trucker (for the mast) arrived at about 09:00 and he and the yard guys started loading the two masts and booms (we are sharing the transport expense with another boat) immediately. They had it all tied down by just after noon and he was off. I refilled the empty propane tank today. After lunch, we moved the boat across the creek to an associated marina, to better facilitate doing the laundry. Later, I walked over to a small marine hardware store to pick up some accessories for a second flag halyard (on the port spreader) and a small pulpit-mounted flag-staff on which to mount our AGLCA flag while we are “topless” during the transit of the Erie Canal. It rained pretty much all day, so we just had dinner aboard. Unfortunately, our mail from Houston did not arrive today as planned. So, we may have to wait here for another day for it to catch up.