August 13, 2021: Another day in Kingston.
I slept well and was the first one up, as usual. I decided to use the public bathroom rather than the boat’s head so as not to wake Capt Paul, and set out in my pajamas.
After taking care of business, I went for a walk down along the marina where all the boats were parked. The sun was just rising and the light was pretty. I took a few photos with my phone before heading back to Nano.
Dawn at the marina in Kingston.
Nano is in this photo, right behidn the big tour sailboat.
Back at the boat, I sat at the table for a while, working on the blog post for the second day of the trip — I was alarmed by how quickly I was falling behind. When 7 AM rolled along, and Dianne was stirring, I headed out with my phone and laptop in search of a better cup of coffee than the K-cup maker could “brew.”
Getting Things Done
I ended up just up Broadway at a place called the Half Moon Rondout Cafe. They specialized in donuts, but I just ordered a latte and a slice of chocolate brioche. Although there was no place to sit inside or out, I found a seat in the outdoor dining area of a restaurant down the road that didn’t open until later in the day. I settled down with my coffee and pastry in the shade, opened my laptop, and got to work.
It was gloriously cool that morning and there was just enough of a breeze to make it even more comfortable. I finished the blog post about Day 2 and started on Day 3. Then I exchanged a few texts with Dianne, who wanted to go to target to pick up a few things. I definitely wanted to go with her — I needed another pair of shorts and a cotton sheet (I didn’t like the nylon sleeping bag liner Capt Paul had provided). So I headed back around 10 AM, glad to have enjoyed some fresh air while getting work done.
The three of us took an Uber to the local Target store. It was a $18 fare, with tip, which wasn’t bad for three of us. Inside the store, we split up, each on our own mission. I wound up getting shorts, socks, a twin sheet that I could fold in half and slip into, milk, and a variety of snacks. They bought a bunch of other food and non-food items. One big purchase was a file holder that Capt Paul later repurposed into a garbage pail, which we sorely needed.
We Ubered back, stowed our goodies, and went directly to lunch at an Italian place near the marina that Philip, the Dockmaster, had recommended: Savona’s Trattoria. We ate outside at a table in the shade. It was hot, but we dealt with it. Dianne and I both had a pizza with figs, pears, prosciutto, and gorgonzola cheese — they were so large that we easily could have shared one so we both wound up with to-go boxes. Paul had eggplant parmesan and wound up bringing half of that back, too. Two good meals for each of us — if we could figure out where to store the pizza, which definitely would not fit in the fridge.
Afterwards, Dianne and I took a short walk up to the Kingston Wine Company in town. She was looking for wine to drink while live music played in the park behind the boat. I was also looking for wine — a decent New York State red. I’d already been disappointed once (at lunch at the CIA on Day 2) and wasn’t prepared to spend $35 on another bottle that might be equally disappointing, so I walked away with four different cans of local cider.
A look up one side of Broadway in Kingston, NY
Dianne went back to the boat while I continued to walk around town. It turned out that there wasn’t as much to see as I thought there might be. I did stop into Facets of Earth, a store that sold handmade jewelry similar to what I make. But while I tend to work with larger stones and metals, they did a lot of very delicate metal work. It was nice to see.
I got an ice cream and went back to the boat, pizza and cider in hand. The air conditioning was on and I settled in to cool off. Dianne and I supervised while Capt Paul installed the new garbage pail and did other improvements. He even gave away three life jackets to make room for new storage bins in one of his holds.
The Lighthouse Tour
Capt Paul and I headed out for our tour of the Rondhout Lighthouse at 3:30 PM. I didn’t realize until we got to the meetup spot that the ride out to the lighthouse, which was on a manmade island at the confluence of Rondout Creek and the Hudson River, would be in the solar powered boat, Solaris, that did tours of the area.
Here’s a look at the top of Solaris. The solar array provides 6 KW of power to the huge bank of AGM batteries beneath the boat’s floor.
Here’s a closeup view of the Rondout Lighthouse as Solaris came in to dock there.
As we silently glided out away from the dock with about a dozen other people and their kids, a docent from the museum we’d visited the day before shared some of the history of the area. We learned about the first female lighthouse keeper, back in the 1800s, who had run her light for fifty years after her first husband died. We learned about the three different lighthouses that had been there and how the first two had met their end. We learned that this lighthouse was one of only 8 that remained on the Hudson River and that it was, with the Esopus Meadow Lighthouse downriver, the only two lighthouses within line of sight of each other in the country. We learned about how the old light with its fresnel lens had been replaced with a solar powered LED signal after power had been cut to the island in a storm years before.
The boat landed at the lighthouse, the crew member tied us off, and we climbed out of the boat and onto the lighthouse island. After some more history delivered outside in the shade, we split into two groups for a climb all the way up to the tower. That meant climbing three flights of stairs and a metal ladder through a trap door to the top.
The workings of a modern lighthouse. The batteries are out of sight in boxes inside the tower top.
Once in the glassed-in room at the very top and along the balcony that surrounded it, we got a good look at the modern day workings of the lighthouse: an impossibly small solar panel, a donut-shaped LED light, and two large boxes filled with batteries. There was a great view from up there and it was wonderfully cool on the shady side with a good breeze blowing. We watched quite a few boats come and go through the channel; it was a Friday afternoon and lots of people were starting their weekend.
A look up the stairs from the main floor.
We came downstairs a while later and got a tour of the two floors of the house where the lighthouse keepers and their families had lived. The building was built in 1915 and was remarkably similar in features to the house I’d grown up in — especially the bathroom with its clawfoot tub. There was a lot of wood trim and old sash windows. Although it was partially furnished, the furniture was not original and was in place mostly to show what it might have looked like when occupied.
We rode back on Solaris into the marina, passing a variety of older boats that may someday form a boat museum along the way. Then the tour was over and Paul and I headed back to Nano.
Two of the classic tug boats that might be part of a boat museum one day.
Music and Thunder
When we got back, the marina was nearly full with boats that had arrived for the live music that would soon be playing in the park. The band was already practicing. Music from the 60s and 70s.
My GoPro setup includes a flexible clamp mount, external battery, and GoPro Hero 8.
I went about setting up one of my GoPros on Nano’s mast. I planned to use the camera to document the next day’s trip from Kingston through Albany, our first lock at Troy, and into Waterford, the entrance of the Erie Canal. I thought a hyperlapse might be a good way to do it and I knew I wouldn’t have time in the morning to set it up and test it. So I took care of it that evening, climbing all over the bow of the boat with my setup pieces.
Dianne whipped up an apple, cheese, and cracker plate to snack on. We’d originally planned to sit outside in the cockpit, but it was still painfully hot and humid out, so we enjoyed Nano’s air conditioning while we snacked.
Later a thunderstorm moved in and it cooled down quite a bit. We moved into the cockpit, but with the plastic sides down, it never really cooled off. The storm passed nearly overhead and the musicians went on break. But later they came back on and played until 10 PM.
By then, we were all in bed, drifting off to sleep.
