Saturday, July 12, 2014

Haverstraw Bay - At Croton Point Anchorage

We haven't been to Long island Sound for two years and we've missed the excellent cruising grounds there. It's easily possible to cruise for several weeks and never visit a marina, you just anchor out at any of the great anchorages available. In our cruise this year we'll visit come of our favorite spots for sunset enjoyment. Come along for the ride.

When you go south on the Hudson River, it's not so important to catch a favorable tide since it will eventually turn against you on the way south. The opposite is true if you head north however. So this morning we took our time and finally got off around 10:00 headed for Haverstraw Bay. There are three anchorages in Haverstraw: Croton Point, Hook Mountain or Haverstraw Cove (all on Active Captain). Of the three Haverstraw Cove is the best protected but Croton Point is more open to summer breezes. We had intended anchoring at Hook Mt since it's further down the river but the wind was too strom and it would not have been a comfortable night.

We've really missed the sunsets while on land
You have a nice view of the sky at Croton Point and tonight is the super sized moon and we'll watch out for that! In planning for the Hell Gate passage, you must have a following tide unless you want to buck a 4.5 kt current. Unfortunately, the adverse current starts on Sunday at 11:15 am! So we plan on leaving Croton Point at 5:00 am to make it through Hell Gate before the tide change and also to beat the afternoon thunderstorms predicted.

Right now it's perfectly calm with a clear sky and we're waiting for the full moon to rise, very nice here.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for the waypoints for entering Haverstraw Cove a.k.a. Bowline Pond. I saw that you are planning to get underway for the south this week, and in case you planned to stop there again, I wanted to report some recent observations. Upon exiting the pond yesterday, 9/10/17 about two hours before low, we observed a little less than 5 feet in the oval of 5.3 feet between waypoints 2 and 1 on your chart. (Sounder, not lead line). It was soft, so we just plowed through it holding our breath. Although the predictions were for a normal tide, I suppose the 24 hours of north wind could have made the tide level a little lower than normal?

Also, the knoll in the pond near the boat ramp that appears as 11-feet on the Navionics Sonar charts is really closer to 6.5 at about the same time, two hours before low.

Here's a brief article with a little history on the pond: https://haverstrawlife.com/2006/06/27/the-bull-lineor-bowline/

Have a safe trip.

Bob423 said...

Evans, a north wind will take about a foot out. I've plowed through there myself at times. As you found out, it's soft mud. It's such a calm anchorage though. If there's any wind, we'll stay there. We probably won't leave around the 19th or so. Jose's direction is very uncertain for now. Glad you otherwise looked the anchorage.