Timeless Yacht, Portland, ME (2026)

05/22/2026

Today's was a long grind of a day. We've never done the Erie and thought, 34nm, NO PROBLEM, but it took us over 8 hours (which we expected)l averaging only 4knots. Even if we were traveling at 7.5-8knots when we were underway, between locking, waiting in locks and waiting for locks and docks to slow for, you just can't make good time. It was cold when the sun was in, but mostly nice when the sun peaked out of the gloom. It still beats being in an office.

Here is a time lapse of our first 5 locks :
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17S5xjZF9h/?mibextid=wwXIfr

What made it hard? One of the small boats in front of us STUNK. Their engines were smoking, the kind of acrid, burn your eyes and nose stink. Frankly I'm SHOCKED they haven't broken down (yet). Maybe they're feeding it oil the way big bird feeds Cookie Monster. When you're low in the lock it just fills the entire lock. Another large boat in the lock with us was loud and also smelled but they graciously let us slide into the second lock in front of them. That cost them, as they left that lock too far back to make the 5th lock (E-6) which only allowed boats to tie up on the starboard side due to a valise issue. They had to wait for the lock to turn, costing them close to 30 min.

The route is generally pretty, and not too many boats, but not too much wildlife either, outside of ducks and some geese.

We stopped at the free wall east of lock E-11 in Amsterdam. That was a mistake. On the plus side there is power and a short walk to a god Italian Restaurant, but the entire area is COVERED in goose p**p. I'm not talking about a little here and there, but a MINE FIELD worth that even the U.S. Navy wouldn't try to transit. Even the wall has more bombs than the Straight of Hormuz, so getting lines tied without one of their little bombs hitting the line or a flip flop took more effort than the Ford Carrier Group could provide. We'd recommend stopping at the dock at the park on the north side after lock E-10. Floating docks, water, power and pump out if you need it.

The weather this weekend looks pretty dreary and cold. I suspect most boats will stay put, but this will also keep some of the pleasure boaters from going out. We'll be warm in the pilot house when we're underway. The stern line handler will be dry, but we'll have to draw straws for the bow position...that will be a wet one.

05/22/2026

The Waterford Flight of locks raised us up about 150ft. (E-2 through E-6). We then transited E-7 through E-11 and another 100ft up. Only 33nm but a little over 8 hours.

05/22/2026

We departed at 0600 for the 21nm run by gracefully backing out of our dock, using the gentle current on our stern to push us off the face dock, turn toward the river, and be on our way. It started a bit gloomy and cool with the North wind continuing but it had little impact on this narrower part of the Hudson River. With our speed set to 930 rpm we loped along at a little over 8knots over ground on the last of the flood. The natural beauty of the Hudson Valley gave way to the industrial lined riverbank south of Albany. We slowed a few times for the boat clubs, marinas and yacht clubs along the way and cruised through Albany to the Troy Federal Lock. After a brief wait, we slid into the lock, secured on a pipe, and were lifted above sea level and into fresh water where we'll spend the next 5 months cruising new water.
Just a couple of miles later we arrived to a nearly full free dock in Waterford because lock E-2 had a mechanical failure this morning, so no boats had departed. One small boat was taking up quite a bit of space, but kindly slid forward to allow us to split in. About an hour later the lock opened for service.
We bid farewell to one guest, got the boat washed down from top of the arch (which is much easier to reach) to the gunnels, and greeted our next guests aboard.
Lock E-2 (maybe they all are) is completely accessible to walk around, including the old lock, new lock and both banks. I was like a kid in a candy shop walking all over the lock.
Tomorrow we start heading up, and up and up, and generally west.

05/22/2026

A quick time lapse as we transit the Hudson River through Albany, leaving behind the green valleys of the Hudson River, for the industrial landscape south of Albany, through the Tory Federal Lock and to Waterford, NY

05/21/2026

Today was pretty short, 36nm in about 4 hours. This will be pretty typical for the next few months, until the inland rivers. We planned to have breakfast in Kingston, but the choices were pretty limited on a Wednesday morning. Rosie serves decent egg sandwiches.

Since we had time, while we waited for the flood to reach Kingston, we decided to drop the arch this morning, check out the timelapse of us dropping the arch:

https://fb.watch/HeanyaZWyT/?

We left the dock in Kingston at 1:13 and entered the Hudson River 10 min later to a mostly slack tide. As the miles and minutes clocked on the flood increased on our stern, pushing us along faster and faster. By the time we reached Donovan’s Shady Harbor Resort (great place, great owners, great restaurant, a worth stop), we were cruising at 9.2-9.3 knots at 1040 rpm.

We arrived at 1723 with marina staff waiting for us as we needed a pump out. We were behind in getting fenders and lines ready to dock port side, where all three of our bkack tank fittings are as we normally dock starboard side when possible. We have an aft starboard station which makes docking easy. The captain left the helm to help move fenders and lines, misjudging the current. We ended up drifting sideways to the current getting inches from an anchor on a small docked boat, powering out just in time.

After getting pumped out, rinsed down we talked lines, knots and prepped fenders for our first lock since the Great Bridge Lock. We’ll start the ascent up to Lake Ontario, 243 ft above sea level. We’re further north, so tomorrow we grab the morning flood tide, back to an early departure.

05/20/2026

Big day on the loop for Timeless. Dropping the arch to get our 31ft aircraft, with all antennas up, down to 19ft with our arch down.

05/20/2026

Kingston, NY Harbor to Roundout Light. I'm getting better at flying our drone, but I have the battery fully charged and this was a 2 mile flight round trip! I wanted to circle the light house. Oh well' next time.

05/20/2026

Beware, this is a large photo dump, with descriptions in many of the pictures. There is little directly connected to boating or the Great Loop, this is more travel log material. However if you're looping, consider yourself a foodie and / or are traveling up the Hudson than you might find this interesting.
Since we first decided, we were going to do the loop, we knew we were going to visit Hyde Park. Originally we were going to spend a night in Hyde Park Marina, and one or 2 nights in Kingston, but with Jenna having to off the boat for a few days last week, we cut out Hyde Park and decided to stay two nights in Kingston, rent a car, visit Hyde Park at night as planned and also visit a few of the sights we decided to see. Kingston is a fine base to explore, Enterprise “picks you up” and a car is easy to get around. Beware however of the FDR bridge and the ridiculously slow 25mph speed limit. I (Jenna) got nailed with a speeding ticket, which also resulted in tickets to the TWO back seat passengers who didn't buckle up 🤦🏻‍♀️. Welcome to New York, and happy birthday. Needless to say the Admiral was NOT happy.
Enterprise picked us, and another looping couple together, after a short check in, I came back to the marina to pick up the admiral and our guests to head to the Vanderbilt Mansion. The drive is about 30-40 minute, leaving at 10a we arrived in time for the 11a tour, which lasted one hour. We were able to tour the first, second and basement levels in about an hour tour that was VERY worthwhile. Even at 90 degrees outside the Mansion was COOL. Free entry for American the Beautiful pass holders too! After the tour we walked through the gardens, and while it is early in the season for many of the plants, you can tell they are loved by the grounds crew and as well kept as can be. Check the pictures for more details.
It was a little after noon with 6:30p dinner plans, lunch was in order, so we found Everready Dinner, an old school dinner, right on the way and by our next stop. We enjoyed NY style sandwiches and shakes / malts to cool us down.

After lunch we arrived at the FDR Library at roughly 1:30p or so, providing enough time to tour the Library and Museum, at a leisurely pace, and make the 3:30p Tour of the house. The house is accessible with the America Beautiful pass as it is part of the National Parks, but the Library / Museum is separate. Both the FDR sights and the Vanderbilt Mansions are well preserved as they were donated shortly after their primary caretakers passed on and worthy of stops. I learned so much about FDR and the enormous impact he had on modern America life. It can be argued he was the most consequential American President in the last 100 years. After the house tour, we headed back to the boat, for a quick shower and change for our dinner at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA ).
CIA is considered one of the premier culinary colleges in the world. They offer lunch, dinner in numerous restaurants, have a market, bakery and gift shop. We chose to ate in Bocuse, named after the founder of longest running Michelin 3-star Restaurant in Paris. For $64 per you enjoy a three-course prix fix meal with a number of diverse choices for each course. Some dishes were outstanding, but the highlight of the meal were the deserts. The table side churned ice cream was incredibly creamy, the strawberry consume was unique and outstanding and finally the Honey, Blackberry “Verrine” was a standout for creativity and flavor. The honey, dripping from the bee hive shaped meringue. As if it was just for us, fireworks topped the sundae of a day as we passed back over the FDR Bridge.
Tomorrow, to celebrate the captain’s birthday we'll enjoy breakfast out, and then after noon, maybe as late as 1p we'll depart Kingston on a fair (flooding) tide and get pushed further up the Hudson. We've have some preparations to do to get ready off the canals, so the extra time will help as well.

05/19/2026

Timeless was back underway and what a beautiful day it was. We traveled a little over 46nm in just over 6 hours from Haverstraw to Kingston. It was beautiful in so many ways. We welcomed a new guest onboard, for their first journey like this, the weather was just perfect. So perfect that we left the comfort of our the pilot house and spent most of the day on the bridge. Our departure time was just perfect, allowing the current to push us along at a fuel saving speed of 9 knots and only 930 rpm.

Using and their neat tide and current slider function we looked at the current in the Hudson River at our departure location, along the way and our arrival location. We add the rough offer age of the current speed to our cruising speed, determine the travel time, and set the departure time. Voila! 9 knots at 930 rpm and 1.2nm per gallon. That might sound low, but with 1600HP and a 100k lbs boat it's not too bad! Today it was an extremely leisurely 0930 departure, allowing us to arrive in Kingston about 1500.

We would have left at 1000 but we found a lead on some "cheaper" fuel, so even though we hadn't planned to fuel we took the opportunity to save a few bucks, taking on 350 ish gallons at $4.299 at Whites Hudson River Marina. They expect a new fuel delivery tomorrow, so this is it, the last of the pre Iran not a war, war fuel we expect to see. If you get there early you too may get some of this fuel. We had planned to meet a fuel truck later this week but prices would have been in the high $4 range.

The river really started to show its beauty and diversity. Lots of trains on both banks, the bridges are quite pretty, plus rock cliffs and flat water. Unfortunately we don't have time to stop and visit West Point on this trip, but it was still beautiful as we cruised past. As was the Culinary Institute of America.

We arrived at Kingston Maritime Museum at 1530, got settled in, and took a quick walk through the Hudson River Martine Museum. A few of the galleries were under construction. It pales in comparison to the Calvert Museum or Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, both of which are worthy of returning, this museum is more modest.

Kingston is a cute town, but we haven't seen it for long, it seems to be a great place to stop off. We have big plans for tomorrow :)

05/14/2026

While no one onboard loves an early morning, who likes fighting a knot or more of current, especially given these fuel prices. So off we went, at 0548 to wiggle our way out of the bulkhead slip at Liberty Landing while Viques watched from the warmth of their pilot house in their beautiful Sabre. Check out the first comment for the front view of us wiggling out and a picture of how close we were to the finger on our stern. Unfortunately we don't have video of the stern

We timed our departure pretty close to perfectly, starting with over a knot of assistance from the flooding tide which we road all the way up to Haverstraw for some of our best mileage of the entire trip from FL. We'll continue to set our departures on the Hudson River, all the way to the Troy Federal lock using current. The difference of righting a knot vs having just 1 knot on our stern is nearly a 25% fuel savings!

It's quite a dramatic change as the city and the skyscrapers fade away behind us, giving way to the hills of the Hudson valley. The bridges contrasting with the banks, the commercial traffic mixed with the occasional pleasure boater. We mostly felt like we had the river to ourselves.

Jenna has to head out for a few days, Darlene and our "crew" will hold down the "boat". We'll be back underway next week to continue our adventure.

05/13/2026

After a wonderful breakfast onboard, we headed out to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Options to get there included: Lyft from Liberty Landing, Ferry to Battery, Ferry from Battery/Brookfield Place, Lyft to Gardens, or Ferry to Battery, Lyft from Battery. After weighing all the options, which seemed to be more challenging than finding a place to stop between Beaufort, NC and Coinjock, or Coinjock and Belhaven, we decide to push the easy button and just Lyft all the way. You win some, you lose some. In this case, it was akin to picking and anchorage and dragging on the first two sets. The driver talked on the phone the ENTIRE trip.

Arriving at the Garden, we walked for a couple of hours through the peonies, Japanese Hill and Water Garden, and then through Shakespear's Garden which highlight all the plants from his plays, labels and all. Then on to the conservatories after a short stop for a snack at the restaurant. The conservatories were varied and wonderful. Taking our time, we strolled through them and then through the water garden before deciding we were p**ped, or at least the admirals ankle was. Check out the PHOTO BOMB of all of the amazing plants and flowers.

Since we lost the Lyft driver lottery in the morning, we decided (as in I convinced Dee) to “only” Lyft across Brooklyn to the Atlantic Ave Pier 6 Ferry terminal, take the ferry there to Battery / Brookfield and then back to Liberty Landing. From Pier 6 the ferry makes a couple of stops including Bay Ridge (southern end of Brooklyn, all the way across at Staten Island, and then back up to Battery Park /Brookfield. The Ferry was due into the Battery at 1651 but the Liberty Landing Ferry was leaving at 1645. We as in “I” decided to go for it anyway, and with the incoming tide, the ferry traveled at 28knots and arrived in plenty of time! PSYCH. We slowed, and waited for the Liberty Landing Ferry to leave, so we could pull into that slip. We were going to wait another hour for the next ferry to Liberty Landing ferry. However, we were saved by the brother of a friend who lives on his boat across the canal from Liberty Landing at Liberty Harbor. He offered to come pick us up at Palous Hook, not far by a crows flight from Liberty Landing. I ran to the ticket booth, bought tickets and back to the ferry to meet Dee who exclaimed, “the chain is across,” we missed it. That ferry however runs every 15 minutes. So at 1715 we hoped on the Palous Hook Ferry and met Jeff who drove us around to Timeless and had a nice visit before heading out for some Mexican (Admirals choice). Nearly 2.5 hours to get back from the garden. If we had only taken the subway we’d have a trains, ferries and automobiles. Maybe next time we dock in Brooklyn. Or better yet Dykman’s finally open (2028) and he head to the NY Botanical Gardens in the Bronx.

Tomorrow is a big day for the crew of Timeless in our Great Loop Adventure…new water will pass under the keel. We depart by 0600 to catch the flood all the way up to our next stop. Safe Harbor Haverstraw.

Timeless Yacht

05/22/2026

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