A bit shocked by how long it’s been since we updated the blog. Almost 2 weeks! I feel a bit badly about this but not really. We’ve been busy! We’ve been having an absolutely amazing time. And we’ve been grinding. Melissa continues to update Instagram so some of you may know where we are/have been. The ninjas amongst you have even mastered MMSI tracking and can find us at just about any time. Creepy! So this will be a long post, one without editing and any sort of consistent narrative.

When we last updated we had arrived in Albany, NY which presented a perfect stopping point and also had an item from the Dream Board…the Schuyler Mansion. Unfortunately it was fully booked except for 1 slot, so the Hills wouldn’t be doing it as a family. Melissa took that slot and the kids disappointment was salved by getting a visit to the USS Slater, a Destroyer Escort from WWII. The Slater is in FANTASTIC condition, clearly well cared for by a passionate group of veterans and caretakers. The docent was great and the tour was kid friendly and even hands on. The boys LOVED it and we parents enjoyed it very much as well.

The day off in Albany was lovely and we were once again up early to take advantage of a fair current pushing us towards Catskill, NY where we would put the mast up at Riverview Marine Services. After our great experience dropping the rig with Oswego Marina I was less nervous about stepping the rig as it’s clear the guys at the beginning/end of these canals know what they’re doing. Mike and his team at Riverview were true pros and the day after we arrived the rig was safely up and ready to go. Prior to stepping the rig I had a few conversations with our coach, Jamie, from Totem and it became clear to me that I had not adequately thought through everything required for making our rig perfect. Of course these conversations were only held a few hours before the mast went up. This was stressful and disappointing to me that I hadn’t considered these questions months earlier but I was grateful for the opportunity to learn from someone so experienced. My list of work has grown once again but I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that sometimes “good enough” is good enough and chasing perfection will kill me. That said, the changes will be made even if we have to drop the rig again.

After 3 nights in Catskill we were eager to go and set off down the Hudson for our next stop, Poughkeepsie. With anchorages limited on the Hudson and not really emotionally prepared yet to spend the time figuring out where to safely drop the hook, go ashore to walk the dog, etc, we stopped at the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club. We had attempted to stop in Kingston to visit the very well regarded Hudson Maritime Museum but our lack of foresight to book a spot weeks in advance squashed that option. Thankfully the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club was a great consolation prize as it’s absolutely lovely and we met truly wonderful people there. It was a fantastic evening and we so enjoyed our time with the members over shared beers and lovely conversation.

The next morning we were off the dock again bright and early as become our habit, both to take advantage of the fair tide/current and to also take advantage of peaceful children, our natural rhythms and the fact that I and less than worthless after 3 or 4 p.m. Our destination was Croton on Hudson. We had spent the previous few days trying to best map out our route, balancing time spent transiting and also places that suited our family’s interests. Croton on Hudson met those. We’re not really that interested in fancy docks, yacht clubs or towns, with Poughkeepsie Yacht Club once again underlining that it’s about the people and the place. What’s important to us is seeing people we know, meeting new people or seeing new things. The fantastic Dock Master at Half Moon Bay Marina recommended we visit a dam. A dam?! Knowing that it’s usually wise to trust the locals and eager to get off the boat and do something special with the kids, we decided to go for it.

Boy are we happy we did! The Croton Dam is simply stunning. STUNNING! All of use were thrilled to make it and even Bo was able to join us thanks to the local cab company. (Uber has really been letting us down, with poor to no availability, cancelations, fantom charges..WTF?). It’s hard to articulate just how cool this dam was but we loved it. Enjoy the pics below.

I must also note that the transit from Poughkeepsie to Croton on Hudson was simply stunning. Having driven through the area before and seen blog posts from others who had been up/down the Hudson, I had high expectations. They were most certainly met! Large cliffs, almost fjord like, lots of green, lovely “mountains”, trains galore, it was a fantastic day. We’re making do with iPhones for our photos so please excuse the poor photos, but here’s a few though they don’t do the beauty justice.

After visiting the Croton Dam we brought out the dinghy (with SEATS!) and put it together as we planned to spend the next night anchored at the Statue of Liberty. We were only about 35 miles away from NYC and planned to leave at high tide, 12 noon, the next day for a fair tide down to the city. Melissa did a grocery provision while I assembled the dinghy and planned our entrance to the anchorage at Lady Liberty and an exit strategy if the anchorage was too rolly (from wind or ferry driven waves) or bad weather. We also spent time planning our transit of the East River which was our next hurdle after spending the night at the Statue. We never really spent much time thinking about going past the city. We were focused on a successful anchoring at a somewhat tricky location and prepping for Hell Gate and the strong currents of the East River.

The next day we were off in extremely hot, hazy and humid conditions. Within an hour we were going under the Tappen Zee bridge. Cool. A few hours later we started seeing the building of Manhattan. Neat. The density along the NY side of the Hudson started to increase. Now we were going by Yonkers. Fun. And then…BOOM! HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS EXCITING!!! WE’RE IN NEW YORK! ON OUR BOAT! WHICH WE JUST BROUGHT FROM TORONTO! AS A FAMILY!! WOWOWOWOWOWOW!

I truly can’t do better than that right now in articulating just how awesome and wonderful it was to drive our boat down the Hudson with NYC on our port side. (I’m 90 minutes in to this blog post, the kids are already fighting, and we’ve got stuff to do). I can tell you, almost a week later, that I still get excited thinking about it and it’s truly one of the best memories of my life. It was that cool. We actually slowed down to savor the transit. Melissa and I have spent a lot of time in NYC. We feel like we know it pretty well. We’d never seen it like this before. We felt pride, thrills, excitement and gratefulness. But mostly we were just JAZZED.

And then, there it was…the Statue of Liberty. Exiting but now our 45 minutes of exhilaration needed to come to an end. It was time to focus on the traffic and getting in to the small anchorage.

Melissa is always the one who drives the boat when we anchor. She had never done this before in current, wind and random waves from every direction. She made a pass through to get the lay of the land, turned around and did the approach again and just nailed it. I got our new Rocna 33kg down in 11’ of water (at low tide) without any issues. We were a bit worried about the possibility of thunderstorms and so put out a conservative 8:1 of scope and backed down at 2k rpms to really get the anchor set. We had done it! Time to celebrate! But first, one more look at the radar before the dinghy went in and I took the dog to shore for a potty break…

Thus began some brief debate. Me: yeah, no, this is not the time or place to test our ground tackle. I have no idea how strong this storm is going to be.
Melissa: But…but…but…no, we’ve weathered 40 knots before on anchor. We should be fine. This is amazing! We’ve been here for only 10 minutes. Maybe it will fall apart?
Me: All true. But maybe it will intensify. There’s a marina 1.5 miles away. I don’t think we should stay here and ride out a storm on a lee shore with no room for error. I know we’ve talked about this for months but we’ll be back in a few weeks and can try this again. The risk/reward here says GTFO.
Melissa: I know. I’m just so so so bummed out. And maybe they fall apart.
Me: I’ll call the marina.

This was really sad but it wasn’t very hard for me. I’ll let Melissa write about her feelings in more detail if she wishes but while I was happy to have a debate I had no interest in sitting in the cockpit of our boat in a wicked thunderstorm hoping that everything would be ok, all while the kids watched me for reassurance as a storm raged. I am not interested in scaring my kids…yet. Not this early in to our trip. So with a reservation made but a promise of staying at anchor for 30 more minutes to monitor the development we went to the bow to snap a few more pics.

So 45 minutes after dropping anchor we were pulling up the anchor and high tailing it for Liberty Landing Marina. We got tied up, checked in, a grateful dog walked and got Elliott to bed because as we were pulling up anchor his battery had died.

We worked hard to ease our disappointment and, for me, it was easy. I was so proud of what we had just accomplished. We had safely brought our boat to NYC from Toronto as a young family. We had safely anchored at the Statue of Liberty on our first try. We had made a tough decision to leave and seek shelter. We had just had one of the best days of our life. It was time to celebrate! So we did.

So with Elliott safely asleep down below, the Champaign opened, the dog walked, Atlas securely tied up for a storm, we settled in for the show. We weren’t disappointed.

The next morning we were, once again, up early for our transit of the East River. A successful transit of the East River requires some planning but it wasn’t as hard as I expected. Part of that must be down to the planning we did. For those that don’t know, there is a wicked current that runs through the East River, culminating at Hells Gate. If you’re interested in learning more about it, please google it. The boys had already seen a show about it (Drain the Oceans, Secrets of NYC or something like that) twice and were super familiar with Hells Gate. And a little trepidatious. It was a really fun experience in the end. And super memorable. In fact, we loved it. We also hit our highest speed ever aboard Atlas…12.3 knots! Though that was SOG, not STW.

And just like that we were through in to Long Island Sound! On our way to see friends in Rowayton, Connecticut. We decided it was time to slow down and not move for a while. We needed a break. Additionally we had scheduled service for our generator and engine and it wouldn’t commence until the next week, so it was time to chill and invest time in the kids. We picked up a mooring ball at Norwalk Yacht Club in the truly lovely Wilsons Cove. We weren’t sure our batteries would be able to make it 3 full days with how hot it was. With a big generator on our boat we’ve never bothered with installing solar. It’s something on our list but not a priority. But with a broken generator we knew we’d test our batteries and ourselves…as each day was forecast to be 95+ degrees.

The time in Rowayton was awesome. The cove is just gorgeous. Filled with absolutely lovely boats. My oh my did I drool. Hinckley, Morris, oh my! The boys swam in salt water for the first time! So did Bo! There was an awesome little beach at the YC and we used it each day as it was so darn hot out. It was a perfect way to cool off. We were once again reminded that the most simple things in life can bring the most joy. Watching the boys play at the beach together was just lovely. So much discovery! Crabs! Jellyfish! Oyster shells! Clam shells! 7.5’ tides! Wow! Bo had never experienced salt water before and we knew it would be rocky as he ingests a lot of water while swimming back after having retrieved a ball or stick. After 2 hours of relentless swimming he started looking like he might puke…and promptly yacked up a stomach full of salt water and 3 little jellyfish! Yuck! And hilarious! The locals had already briefed us on these harmless, clear little jellyfish. They became a wonderful source of fun and discovery as well during our 3 days there.

After 3 fantastic days in Rowayton, catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in years and years, it was time to move to Westbrook, CT, where I currently sit writing this post. We arrived a day early so we could spend the day seeing one of my oldest friends, John and Liz Legere and spending time with their wonderful boys. If a measure of a man is in his friends, then I am truly wealthy. What a run we’ve had over the last 4 days. It’s been 6, 9, 10 years since we’ve seen all the people we have this week. Far too long, but we’re so thankful these friendships persist and continue to enrich us.

So now, finally, the work will begin on our engine and generator. This is an extremely reputable boat yard with a very experienced staff. We have no idea how long we will be here but we’re in a great place emotionally and have rented a car for the week. We plan to visit all the areas we planned to on Atlas, but by car. New London to visit my alma mater, Mystic Seaport, Stonington. We won’t lack for things to do and we’re eager to get off the boat. Hopefully, though, we won’t be here too long. Marina’s just aren’t our happy place and this place is weird. And absolutely massive. Largest marina I’ve ever been too, though my sample size is pretty small. So that’s it for now. I’ve spent over 3 hours writing this post and the boys demand my attention. Bo needs a walk, laundry needs to be done, lunch made. We’re happy. We’ve had, by far, the best week of the trip so far. We’re thrilled for what lies ahead. Newport! The Vineyard! More friends! And then we’ll go back and spend a full week at Liberty Landing Marina to do NYC properly. And maybe spend the night anchored at the Statue of Liberty…