Odalisque - July 20, 2005 Log

Log 2005 - July 20th

Wednesday July 20, 2005
Full Moon after Tarrytown

Crew: Caleb, Charlie, Jessie, Laurie, Matt
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I made a plan with my lovely wife to pick her up with the sailboat at the Tarrytown marina around 6pm, which she could get to via Metro-North straight up the river from Grand Central Station, which was near her office in midtown. The trouble was, I had to drive up to Nyack from lower Manhattan to make it happen.
There was the usual bad traffic when I set out near 4 pm so I decided to use the Holland Tunnel and travel through Jersey on local roads until I hit the Palisades Parkway. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would but I finally made it to Nyack and got everyone else aboard and it was already nearing 6 pm when we motored out towards Tarrytown parallel to the Tappan Zee Bridge on an easterly course.
It took us about 45 minutes to get across the Hudson using the motor and the mainsail. Matt complained bitterly that we had to use the engine at all yet we arrived outside the Tarrytown Marina entrance and I carefully guided us in amidst other power boats of varying sizes into the gas dock where we had arranged to pick Jessie up, albeit an hour or so late. There were other powerboats that followed us up the finger channel to the gas dock as we docked and picked up Jessie and quickly got away because of the traffic waiting to try to refuel their huge gas tanks and because the gas dock was already closed! So we motored out of the claustrophobic channel at Tarrytown and headed out on the river, reunited, at full compliment.
The sun sank over the Nyack hills to the west followed by a beautiful afterglow as the wind freshened from the west we all awaited the dawning of the moon in the east; with a spectacular light in the west and planets and stars peering through the sky. It is also special to take in the event of the rising moon from the water after watching the sunset. There is nothing that those planets and their moons can’t do. Not to mention constellations which burn through the clear winter nights in the northern hemisphere, which are quite different in the southern hemisphere at the same time. Sailors of old times used to use the light of the stars to figure out where they were on the globe with a sextant and some tables. Sailors may have convinced more than one church that the world was no flat, as did Joshua Slocum in South Africa.
It had been a hot day in the low 90’s with less humidity than some of the preceding days but the breeze on the river felt wonderful and cool for a change. We doused the engine and sailed as a light rose over Tarrytown’s hills. We had an idyllic situation occurring before us as the full moon started to chase the afterglow of the sun. The apron that the moon cast on the river was like a spotlight above a shimmering surface. It was a great time for the five of us, still not so old SUNY/B graduates to share under a nice moderate wind under the moon. Somehow we had planned it and made it happen, and it was good.
Some planets and a few stars were visible in spite of the full moon as the sky was high summer clear. We were all enjoying the evening sail when Matt asked me if I had turned on the blower. The ears heard it first and the eyes corroborated a tugboat and barge bearing down on us in the channel that was missed behind the sails. It was probably 300 yards off when we noticed and steered safely away. We finished sailing through the moonlight under the hills and cliffs and finally motored to the NBC drop and go dock to drop Matt off, who would come out in a tin motorboat to pick us up back at the mooring.
The motor ran a little smoky after I gunned it in neutral and a grayish smoke came out of the exhaust all of a sudden. I throttled down and put the engine in gear and off we went, back to our mooring. Matt met us out on the river with the motorboat and we packed up and disembarked Odalisque. It was 11 pm when we got to Matt and Laurie’s house where their babysitter was told “10ish”. I trust that all will be well with the babysitter because the endeavor was well worth it and pictures cant do justice to some of the sights we’ve seen afloat.

— Caleb Davison