And Back Home Again for a While

Let me sum it all up by saying that this has definitely been a summer to remember. On Monday we came back to Clyde and found everything in order. A special thanks goes out to Ms. Andrea Steele for keeping the house in order for us.

We forewent the Forrogasto Festival on Sunday. My friend Karen called and said that her sister had invited her and Gary to dinner in Rockland County.

So, we had taken a ride out to City Island instead. There was an arts and crafts festival going on with plenty of arts, crafts and my favorite......food!!

But after eating like pigs and feeling stuffed we stumbled upon a clambake. It was being held at the Leonard Hawkins American Legion Post 3253 in City Island. After a bit of persuading (Dropping a white lie or two) we were in. For $15.00 per person we ate, and drank....all we wanted. The reason it was so inexpensive was that the party was scheduled for 1-7 PM for $50.00 a ticket. But we did not get there until 4:00PM. so they discounted the entry fee. Raw clams, steamed clams, mussels cooked 4 different ways, hamburgers, hot dogs, liver w/bacon, corn on the cob and numerous salads were on the menu, and they served you as fast as you could eat it. Of course there was an OPEN bar also, but being that Dottie and I don't really drink we had homemade fresh brewed iced tea. They had a live band and they were fantastic.
Anyway, I want to thank all of their members for making us feel right at home!!

After the clambake, we continued walking down City island Ave, but it was dark by 7:30PM, so we found our car, and headed back to the marina in Tarrytown....with overly full bellies of clams and mussels.

Back to Tarrytown...AGAIN!!

The 4.5 hour ride from Clyde to Tarrytown was uneventful and easy-going. There is no such thing as traffic in upstate NY and I did not hit any real traffic the whole way down. I left Clyde at 7:30 AM and arrived back to the marina at 12 Noon. Dottie and I had a nice lunch at the El Dorado in Tarrytown, and then it hit....a storm from the south with as much rain, wind and power as we had never seen.....5 minutes later it was over and the sun was out.
Due to the storm, a scheduled "Chili Cook-Off" at the marina was cancelled, and re-scheduled for the following day.
At 5:30 PM, Karen Berlingo and her SO, Gary, showed up bearing gifts of wine and wine glasses. After a few cocktails aboard the Lucky Find III we headed out to dinner at the Red Hat Restaurant and Bistro.
Dinner was good and company we had, even better. The Red Hat Restaurant is a nice place for dinner, but truthfully, nothing spectacular. It tries it's hand at a French-Italian menu, but at a cost of about $100.00 per person ($375.27 including tax and tip), it could have been a lot nicer and the food could have been a bit more traditional for restaurants in that price range. I had the Mussells and Dottie, Karen and Gary all had Osso Buco. We had a great time, but I was really disappointed in the restaurant. Oh well, we live and learn! I'll rate the food as OK.
Karen and I had dinner about 5 or 6 years ago at a place called Harvest on the Hudson, in Hastings-on-the-Hudson, NY and Harvest ran circles around Red Hat in it's quality and service.

Later on today we are heading to Arthur Ave. in the Bronx for the Ferragosto Festival and plenty of really good and authentic Italian food. Karen and Gary will join us there.

Thursday, September 13 through Sunday September 23rd is the 11 day Italian Festival on Mulberry Street in Manhattan. It is well known as the Feast of San Gennaro.....and I plan on being there......LOL

Again, The Best Laid Plans.......

Wednesday afternoon I had to return to Clyde on business, so instead of both Dottie and I going back on Saturday, I went solo.
On the way home, an old friend of mine called to say she received my e-mail invitation to come to dinner with us while we stayed in Tarrytown. My plans now are;
to return to Tarrytown on Saturday, go to dinner Saturday night at a restaurant called Red Hat on the River in Irvington, NY (well recommended by others) with Karen Berlingo and her date, and then on Sunday go to Arthur Ave. in the Bronx for the  Ferragosto Festival   (End of the Harvest Celebration)....more to come on Sunday.

On to Connecticut and a Great Dinner

What a fantastic day we had on Tuesday. We left Tarrytown at 9AM and drove to Connecticut, which has some beautiful marinas along Long Island Sound. We also stopped at Bryam PArk in Bryam CT, a place Dottie and I had been to many times as kids to sleigh ride. It was really more of a day of memories, than anything else. But first marinas....and there are hundreds of them in CT.
Here are a few pictures:

The Del Mar Marina in Greenwhich CT caters mostly to Super or Mega yachts. Pictured is a 181' Benetti Yacht




A Westport 112, my favorite and most sought after yacht





 .

Cost....$22M new... this one happens to be for sale, at a mere $12M.

From Greenwich, we drove a few minutes north to the Stamford Landing Marina where we had a terrific lunch at the Crab Shell Restaurant. I had the Crab Shells Lunch and Dottie had a salad. Stamford is noted for both it's boats and cars, like the yellow Ferari pictured below.

In fact, Route 1 between Greenwich and Stamford boasts a Rolls Royce dealer, a Ferrari, Maserti, Bugati, McLaren,and Bentley dealerships along with numerous Lexus', Mercedes, and whatever else type of luxury car "you can think of" dealerships.

Of course a yellow Ferrari complements either of the two yachts pictured above.

After lunch we drove south on US 1 to Rye, NY, Mamaroneck, Larchmont and New Rochelle. I stopped at my high school Alma Mater in New Rochelle, Salesian High, just to reminise a bit with Dottie. Nothing much changed at the school as it looked exactly the same as it did when I attended in the late 60's.

From New Rochelle, it is a 10 mile ride along Shore Road to the Bronx, and on to the Parisi household, where we picked up Jimmy and Helene and went to dinner at a small, quaint neighborhood restaurant called Rino's Ristorante. These are the type of places I miss the most of living in upstate, NY. The food and service is nothing short of excellent.

Dottie and Helene both had the Osso Bucco, and Jimmy and I had Veal Sorrentino. Many thanks to Gaspare and his staff, especially Arturo.

We were back in Tarrytown and on the Lucky Find III by 10:30PM, all in all a great day.

P.S. I lost my cell phone, somewhere between CT and "Da Bronx", however, I dialed my number from Dotties phone and a Latina woman answered, explained she had just found it outside the Dunkin Donuts in New Rochelle, and I could meet her at a place called Chat 19 in Larchmont, NY. at 9PM.....I did, she did and the rest is history.

Thank you very much for returning my phone.

Labor Day Weekend

What a quiet weekend it was here in Tarrytown. Everyone that we met here told us that this past weekend was the quietest it has been in years. They blame it on the economy....oh well , so is life.
Even the guy working the fuel dock brought in some extra help, and they sat around all day pumping fuel in only a handful of boats. Monday morning there were a total of 6 cars in the marina parking lot.....it kind of reminded me of Oak Park Resort Marina.... LOL



My father, who passed in 1968 at the age of 50, is entombed in an underground vault in  St. Raymond's Cemetery, in the Bronx
(Click on the picture for a larger image)

 On Saturday, we drove to the Bronx, stopped at St. Raymonds Cemetery to check on my dad's grave, and then on to visiting some of Dottie's family at Askov Hall in the old neighborhood of Throgs Neck. Sunday and Monday was spent driving around the Hudson Valley looking at different marinas in which to keep our boat. It is still up in the air.
We hit upon some very nice marinas in this area, so now it really just becomes a matter of cost.

We made plans to drive to Connecticut to see a few more marinas then meet our friends, the Parisis' for dinner on Tuesday, and we will be returning to Clyde on Thursday.

Once in a Blue Moon

We drove back to Tarrytown yesterday to spend another week on the Lucky Find III.
We left our home in Clyde at 10:00AM and arrived here at about 02:15PM, after a stop for lunch in Schnectedy and a rest stop in Poughkeepsie. Traffic was a bear with Labor Day coming up and the constant construction on the Thruway between exits 13 and 10. We exited the NYS Thruway at exit #14 and took Route 59 southeast to the Tappan Zee Bridge. We had avoided all the traffic that way.

Anyway, we are here and last night was the second full moon of August. That is better known as a blue moon, and the expression "Once in A Blue Moon"stems from this fact. The next time this will happen will be 4 years away.

What is really coincidential about this Blue Moon night is the fact that Captain Neil Armstrong's Memorial Service took place yesterday in Cincinnati, Ohio. Captain Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.

The Blue Moon shown brightly at 5:30am on Saturday

Photo Albums of 2012 Boat Trip

There are three albums below. Each album contains all of the pictures we took during the trip. They are not the specific pictures that you have seen while reading the blog:

1- 2012 Boat Trip along Erie Canal - Photos = 45

2- 2012 Boat Trip along Hudson River - Photos =109 

3 - 2012 Boat Trip to NYC -0 Photos = 112 

4 - NYC back to Tarrytown, NY via Harlem River

5- Miscellaneous and Repeat Photos - Photos = 405


The fouth album will have the photos uploaded on Monday, August 27, 2012. This is the final leg of our 2 month adventure

Final Post to this Trip

It was an uneventful 5 hour car ride back to Syracuse, picked up my Chrysler Sebring Convertible and followed Dottie to the Spaghetti Warehouse Restaurant for dinner then onward to the Enterprise Car Rental at Hancock Airport.

We arrived back in Clyde at about 9PM......however, the memories of this trip will last a lifetime!!

The End is Near...My Friends

Today  is our last day of this leg of our Loop Trip, and the end of our 2012 cruising season.
We will go from the Bronx back to Tarrytown, call Enterprise, get a car and tomorrow drive back to Clyde.

Sometime during the coming month, we will drive back down to Tarrytown and ready the boat for the winter.....It's a SAD, SAD, day for us.

Getting ready to wind down the season

We left this AM at around 9:00AM and headed across NY HArbor to the East River.....up the river and through Hells Gate (an area of about a dozen whirlpools) and on to "DaBronx". As we passed through Hells Gate, I called my old boss and he arranged for us to spend the day at the Locust Point Yacht Club.

We had arrived in the Bronx at about 11AM, but we had to wait for the tide to rise so we could enter the channel to the Yacht Club.

NYC or bust.....and we did it!!!!!!

And off to NYC we go.....we left the dock at 9:15 Am and made the 40 mile run to NY Harbor.....it really was a thrill for us.......as we saw so many of the sights that we had seen before, but have not re-visited in the past 35 years or so. We arrived at the Liberty Landing Marina at 1:00PM. I guess I am no longer use to NYC and it's prices. This was the most expensive marina to date, costing us $167.80 for one night's dockage


Tappan Zee Bridge in background



The Mercy Motherhouse

Spunten Dival Bridge, seperating the Bronx from Manhattan, and crossingthe Harlem River.

First we kissed the Tappan Zee good-bye, and through the haze and light fog the GW Bridge came into view. On the way south we went throgh Dobbs Ferry, NY and as I remeber it, The Mercy Motherhouse, where my sister Angela entered the convent was now a group of condos. 
Then came the Sputen Dival bridge, which seperates the Bronx from Manhattan.....via the Harlem River.


George Washington Bridge, the first two layered bridge in the Tri-State area.






Palisades Mountains in New Jersey

 



Carnival's Glory at the 34th St. Pier



The Space Shuttle is now a musuem in NYC at 32nd St.



Ellis Island Immigration Offices




The Statue of Liberty completely re-done with pride, by my father in law, Frank Messmer and brother in law, John Messmer and 100 other union sheet metal workers

 

Dottie on the bow as we approach the Statue of Liberty







 

And on the Seventh Day, we Rested

Sunday was a day to do nothing, however that changed because Dottie called her parents in Toms River, NJ and invited them up for a leisurely lunch. Then she also invited her brother John and his family to join us. John said that his wife Peggy and son Johnny were working, but he and their daughter Laurie would take the 1 hour car ride to meet with us and his parents.

At about 1 PM everyone arrived and we sat around and chatted for over two hous. Then it was off the Sunset Cove for cocktails and a restaurant named "Striped Bass" for dinner. Striped Bass is on the marina premises, and it too was a real nice reataurant. In this area on NY, seafood is king, and all reataurants serve huge portions of it.

I had their cold shellfish platter, which  included a whole 1.5lb lobster, 1lb of shrimp, a dozen raw clams and a 1/2 dozen raw oysters. All served "Iced Over"....mmmmmmmmmmm good.
A bit pricey ($44.00) for this dish, but an excellent choice.
Dottie, and my mother in law and father in law all had Seafood Linguine, John and Laurie had Shrimp Appetizers and Giant Diver Scallops, served with a huge salad, which they both shared.

Like Sunset Cove, which is right next door, they too have an outdoor tiki bar and cabana.

Tiki Bar with Live Entertainment

Tomorrow it will be a trip into NYC.....more to follow

Later On...the same day

Although we arrived here at 2PM, by the time we tied up, got our electricity and water hooked up and actually rested, it was 3PM.
I called my friend Jimmy Parisi and invited him and his wife Helene Zeiss Parisi to dinner. They arreived at 7:15 PM and we went to Sunset Cove for dinner....an excellent Mediterranean restaurant. Both Jim and I had their Mediterranean Bouillabaisse  and Helene had a rib-eye steak, while Dottie had an order of ahi tuna.....great NYC style food. We all had a fantastic time together!!

Outdoor Tiki Bar at Sunset Cove Restaurant in Tarrytown, NY

As we were waiting for the valet driver to return the car, I found out that this restaurant serves approx 500 dinners each Saturday and also serves avout 1000 people on Saturdays at their outdoor tiki bars......PHENOMENAL!!
I am llooking forard to the food in the city............

The Beauty and Splendor of the Hudson Valley

We left the dock at 9AM and had a beautiful, and safe trip down the Hudson. It had been almost 40 years since Dottie or myself have traved the Hudson from a boat, and we both kind of forgot how beautiful it is.

Newburgh - Beacon Bridge

We passed under the Beacon Newburgh Bridge at about 10:30AM. Quite a few people pass over this bridge annually, somewhere in the vicinity of 25 million crossings a per year.




Bear Mountain Bridge

 From the Beacon-Newburgh Bridge, we went on to the Bear Mountain Bridge. The Catskill Mountains on our port side and the Palisades Mountains on our starboard side are some of the most beautiful mountains along the eastern seaboard.



West Point from the boat

 





It is still as beautiful as always

 

After passing around West Point, about 45 minutes later, the Tappan Zee Bridge came into view. From the water, the Tappan Zee is majestic.

Tappan Zee Bridge coming into view

We knew we had "arrived" when we saw it. Tarrytown is about 30 minutes away from where this pic was taken. We hit the dock at exactly 2PM.....it was a fantastic trip, and the weather was great also. The high for the day was 75 degrees, and the humidity was low.

If you remember, the beginning of this trip we talked about how marinas are rated depending on their bathroom facilities.....the Tarrytown Marina and Boat Club, definitely is numero uno in this catagory. Both Dottie and I agreed, we had never seen bathrooms so clean, large and modern as these were.....

Another Day...Shot To....!!

Today is the day we are supposed to go from Poughkeepsie to Tarrytown, However...due to rain, we decided to stay put for another day. We were also waiting for the mail to come in and it did not arrive here till after 2PM.....It will be onward to Tarrytown tomorrow, rain or shine

Advance Arrangements

Enterprise Car Rental has always been the car rental choice of cruisers because they will "pick you up".

We rented a Dodge Avenger on Monday, and while I was at the convention, Dottie was running around doing her errands.....

After lunch, Jim Parisi, Dottie and myself headed down to the Bronx....we arrived in the Bronx about 4:30 PM after dropping off Jimmy in Yonkers to get his car, so he could dash out to LaGuardia Airport to pick up his wife who had been vacationing in South Carolina.

Dottie and I have not yet decided where to winter the boat....either in Tarrytown or on City Island in DaBronx.
Now it is a matter of finding a marina capable of hauling her and storing her all winter long.
The choice is going to be between the Tarrytown Marina and Boat Club,  Consolidated Marine and City Island Yacht Sales.

Tonight dinner was at an old time favorite, Louis Seafood on Tremont Ave. in Throggs Neck. We met my old boss Jimmy McQuade and wife Kathy and off we went to dinner.As I have said before, Louis Seafood is the choice of Throggs Neck restaurants, and has been since 1947.

Here is our future iteniary: Tomorrow we will spend the day on City Island and checking out these three marinas.

Friday we are taking the boat from Poughkeepsie to the Tarrytown Marina in Tarrytown, NY

Saturday we will moving her through NYC and arrive on City Island on Sunday.

Monday we will drive the rental car back to Clyde, NY and this will close out our 2012 cruising season.

3 Days of Classes

Today was the offical end of the 2012 NYSFDA Convention.
It finished up at 01:00 PM AFTER a two hour embalming class presented by Jack Adams, who is a licensed funeral director and representative of the Dodge Corp.
Last night was the closing banquet, a semi formal event held at the Grand View Catering facility.....and what a facility it is.

Cocktail hour went from 6PM to 7:30 PM......raw bar and all. It reminded me of a NY C style wedding.....I have never seen so much food, properly presented, and excellently prepared.

The Casket Cake

Venetian Hour

Dinner was choice of 4....and then came their Venetian hour, complete with demi-tasse, canolis, sfogliatella (my favorite pastry in the world....) and any other desert  you could ask for.

My best friend, Jim Parisi, attended the last day of the convention also. When it was done, we went back to the boat, picked up Dottie and went to lunch at Shadows Restaurant. This restaurant sits high above the marina and is an excellent choice. It is owned by the Bonura Family, who also owns the Grand Hotel, the Grand View Catering Facility, Shadows Marina 3  area country clubs and 9 other restaurants or hospitality venues in the Beacon, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie area. They know how to 'Run a hospitality" business like no other that I have seen.




View looking South into Westchester and NYC



View looking North



Lunch at Shadows

View from Shadows overlooking marina

Kingston to Poughkeepsie

Well, we did it....we made it to Poughkeepsie!!!!

We left Kingston this morning at 11AM and arrived in Poughkeepsie at 01:15PM......a bit over two hours, two huge rain storms and the wind at 25 MPH on our nose all the way, however it was a great trip.



Shadows Marina with the M/V Lucky Find III in the foreground

Shadows Marina has got to be the nicest place we have stopped so far.....all that is missing is a swimming pool. This marina has it all, a beautiful restaurant with dockside service till 2AM, indoor and outdoor dining, indoor and outdoor bars, Free WiFi, great bathhouses. When you come into the marina, you are greeted by their consirege (Captain Keith Gee and Miltie, the restaurant manager ) and two other dockhands that take your lines, and tie you up where they want you. Everything here is brand new including all docks, electrical and water service utilties. Reservations here are tough to get because they are at 100% capacity with a two year waiting period.....but I made mine back in January, and sure enough, they had me etched in.....It is definitely a world-class marina.

New docks and cleats. All cleats are on tracks that allow them to be moved to wherever you need them

Connected to Shadows Restaurantm is the Grand View Ballroom, which bills itself as "Elegant Banquets"....they do 2 weddings each weenekend day, 2 on Friday evenings, 2 Saturdays and 2 on Sundays....However, they are booked solid for the next 4 years.

Anway, dinner tonight was aboard the boat with a chicken ceasar salad and corn on the cob. Dottie also made a fresh tomato salsa and peaches ala mode was the desert of the evening.......excellent!!!

 

The NYSFDA Convention begins tomorrow.....this coming weeks blogs will be about the convention and our future plans. As of right now, we have no plan in place, however we would like to continue southward to NYC and Da Bronx. We'll let you know first.......and on here!

Coeymans to Kingston

When I woke up this morning at 4....I realizied that I never made a reservation for a marina in Kingston.

Called the Rondout Yacht Basin at 8:30AM, and they had a spot available, so we took off at 9AM.....It rained all the way to Kingston and we arrived there at 1PM. Visibility was less than 2,000 feet all day, but it still was a great ride down the Hudson.We both forgot how nice it is to see freighters, tugs, barges and tour boats on the water.
It is two dollars a foot plus 5 for electric here, however their WiFi works great, they have a nice in-ground swimming pool and the staff is very friendly.
We met 4 other "Looper" couples here and sat with them to chew the fat. Dottie grabbed a cab and went into the town to do some grocery shopping at the local Shop-Rite. If you should ever need a taxi in the Kingston area, call Dial-A-Ride Taxi  (AKA- Big John's Cab service), at 845-532-8887. The service is fantastic, and Big John is a riot and just a real nice guy.
With rain and all, it was a great day anyway.....LOL

Tomorrow is the last day of traveling (and updating this blog)  for a while. We'll go from Kingston to Poughkeepsie, check in at the NEW SHADOWS MARINA, register for convention and be in the Poughkeepsie area till Thursday, 16th of August.

The Majestic Hudson River - Waterford to Coeymans



Today was a day that I have been looking forward to for a while now. We finally entered the tidal waters of the Hudson River.

In the Hudson River, with the cities of Troy and Albany coming into view.

There was a 7 foot tide and a 8 mph current. We had been fighting the current for a while, but we finally arrived at Coeyman's Landing Marina at about 12:15 PM. Coeymans is located about 15 miles south of Albany, NY.



City of Albany, NY with the capitol buildings in foreground



Thank God they have floating docks here too....did not have to worry about the tide with those docks. By the time we finished lunch at 1:00PM, the tide was out a full 8 feet. We have not boated in tidal waters since moving to Clyde in 1981....a full 31.5 years ago!. Needless to say we were anxious, but after about 10 minutes, it wore off.







   Nice, little restaurant on the premises here called Yanni's Two....nothing spectacular, but they did have raw clams, and I need not say more!!

Tomorrow we head another 50 miles south to Kingston.




The kind of traffic we encountered on the Hudson...LOL

    


Large freighter filling up with oil



  



NYS Capital building