Coda

Yesterday, Rosie tied up to a dock at Riverview Marina in Catskill NY where she will rest until the Champlain Canal opens, hopefully May 15.  We will spend a couple of days here getting her squared away and Cyrus will pick us up on Tuesday.

Anchor weighed at 0600 in Manesquan for trip past Manhattan.  Tide was late in turning so we fought through the Narrows and NY Harbor.

Coast Guard was maintaining a security perimeter around the USNS Comfort and pulled up alongside to shoo us away. 
Made it to Nyack where we anchored .  It's not smart to fight tides in the Hudson.  So on Thursday we left at 1500 hours to catch the tide up to Bannerman  Castle at Pollepel Island (across from Newburgh). 

Friday morning we weighed anchor at 0530 and rode the tide all the way to Catskill.  It was a very cold rainy day with snow!

I was able to wrestle the wheel away from Kathleen and keep her from heading back too the Bahamas!

I had called Riverview Marina, a funky place where we had stepped and unstepped our mast 10 years ago, a couple of weeks prior to secure a slip for Rosie.  This was just before all the NY marinas were closed and northbound transient boats panicked.

 Except for a 3 day journey back to Champlain, our journey is now over.  It came at a good time in our lives.  I wanted to transition the management of the Hinesburgh Public House to Alex.  Kathleen was extracting herself from Twice is Nice.  I was turning 75 and wanted to "not let the old man in."
We wanted to get to know Rosie better and boy did we ever!  The pandemic was not in our plans and has had an immense impact on the return voyage.  We're very glad we got a head start on the "Quebec
navy" the will be scrambling for diesel fuel and pumpouts.

What's next?  That was an innocent question before the world fell apart.  The pandemic is an opportunity to turn this country around and I expect we will be participating in that effort in some way.

What I've learned, after seven months, is that I have three beautiful, exceptional women in my life and they're all tough as nails:  Kathleen, Rosie and Lacy.  I am a very lucky man.

Rosie out.