Tide Hiker Adventures: Haverstraw Bay Anchorage

Sunday July 14, 2013
41 11.734 N
73 53.887 W

The key to getting safely down the East River is timing the tide. The morning ebb tide was early - the afternoon tide really too late (if we were going to make it to our anchorage up the Hudson) so we had to leave early.

We were up at 4:30 AM and dropped the mooring about 5:00 AM. The sun was not up, but there was some light and the water was dead calm. But there was some fog in the bay and it got considerable worse as we entered the Sound. It would take us an hour or so before we arrived at the tricky bits, so we hoped that the rising sun would burn it off.

The sun rising under the Throg's Neck Bridge

It was pretty thick. We were totally relying on the chart plotter and the radar for the first hour or so. There we no other boats or ships on the water (as far as we could tell!) We were only running the engines at about 1,000 RPM, the tide was doing most of the work. The fog seemed to lift a bit at Throgs Neck bridge (see the photo). Just in case, we had picked a couple of possible anchoring spots, out of the channel, as a "back up plan" if the fog did not clear. But no need, the fog lifted just as we arrived at Riker's Island and by the time we were at Hell's Gate, visibility was up to a mile or so. I cranked up the throttle and we made good time thereafter.

In theory the ebb current ended at about 8;30 AM (at the Brooklyn Bridge). We arrived about 8:00 Am and made the turn around Battery Park and into the Hudson. I expected to start picking up some flood current by 9:00 AM and riding that up the Hudson. Obviously I still have more to learn because we ended up pushing against the current most of the rest of the day. As we went under the George Washington bridge we were managing only a miserable 3.9 kts over the ground.

Manhattan in sight

That was the worst of it, eventually we crawled up to 6 plus knots. After leaving Manhattan in our wake the scenery changed and cliffs and trees replaced freeways and high rise buildings. It would be a bit of a stretch to say it felt like the Rhine, but I am sure you get the picture. The NJ palisades dominated the west bank, and there were towns every few miles on the east.

The test cricket was still happening and we were able to get live audio stream from a BBC website. As usual I mozzed them, and they lost by 15 runs. (For the un-indoctrinated, that is very close result in international cricket.)

We reached the anchorage about 1:30PM. Its a pleasant anchorage with good holding (we are told) but no wind protection from the W or NW. But the current temperature is over 90 degrees, and forecast for tonight calls only for 5kt winds from the West, so we will be looking for very breath of moving air we can find.

We have just enjoyed a swim. While we were in the water we worked our way around the waterline and scrubbed off a couple of months of grime. Than we broke the ladder on the swim platform as we got out!