Hudson Day 2.. Tappan Zee to Hyde Park

I thought I'd start today's blog by telling you some trivia I've learned about the Hudson and its history.  I was rereading "River Horse" (see earliest posts) with regard to their trip up the Hudson and learned a few things I didn't know.

The Hudson is mostly very straight with only one real "oxbow" and, the lower 140 miles of it is actually a fjord... the only one in our "lower 48".  I'm not sure what constitutes a fjord but is says here that the tidal reach goes the first 140 miles.  the first 140 miles brings you to Troy and the Erie Canal.

We were starting approximately at the Tappan Zee bridge which is Dutch name meanling "cold stream sea"

I THINK this is the Tappan Zee Bridge.  I have way too many pictures of bridges to know for sure

The current of the Hudson was something we had been warned about however it didn't seem bad at all.  Maybe its all "relative".  In fact, once we did pass that "ox bow" at Storm King Mountain, the water was glass like.  However, in River Horse he states that the current is "constant" and "predictable" and that a floating stick would take 3 weeks to float from Troy to the NYC Battery.  That's because it will ride a dozen miles down an ebb tide and then float back up 8 miles with every flood tide.

So after brushing up on "River Horse" last night I spent time looking for specific sights along the way up.  Here is West Point, which, in our opinion, looks more like a prison than a school.  Or at least more like a fortress with its high walls and towers.

The next place I wanted to see was called Pollepel Island (Bannerman's Island).  Here we saw the decaying remains of an American castle.  Between 1900 and 1918, Frank Bannerman, a munitions dealer built a folly of a castle on a little island in the middle of the Hudson.  He was a Scotsman who missed his home country and wanted his own little kingdom.   In his book, "River Horse", William Least Heat-Moon meets and interviews one of Bannerman's descendents.  Apparently no one besides Frank Bannerman really liked coming to the castle.  It was given to the state and for a time there were tours given.  Then there was a fire and it became so dilapidated that landing on the island is prohibited.  That didn't stop River Horse, however.  Ignoring the laws and the dangers of very shallow rocky waters, he and his crew landed and explored.  River Horse, his C-Dory, did suffer a big ding on a submerged rock.  Not an auspicious way to start his adventure to the west.

He talks of a moat, turrets, parapets etc.  It must have been something to see and explore!

The sights were so interesting and the weather so lovely that the 50 miles went by very quickly.  Rob is especially enjoying the fact that the Hudson has rail road tracks on both sides of the shoreline... right at the shoreline.  In fact, our marina tonight in Hyde Park is virtually on the tracks of the Amtrack.  Freight train just across the river.  Rob, at least, won't mind the whistles as we sleep onboard tonight.