Thanksgiving in Central America

Chelsea Yacht Club to Haverstraw – 23 nautical miles and 3 kilometers walked

For the first time since the day we crossed Lake Oneida, we awoke to rain. The weather we’ve experienced so far has been incredible – favourable winds, sunny and warm days, cool nights, and getting a little cooler as the days pass. At some point our pursuit of sunny southern climates will overpower the relentless orbit of the Earth tilting us Northerners further and further away from the sun. But we aren’t there yet – this is still a race against winter.

 

We had consumed one of our water tanks and about a quarter of the second, but had forgotten to ask the members of the club we met yesterday if and where we could fill up the tanks, so we left the mooring and started our way down the Hudson looking for options, and we found one such option at a marina near Newburgh. We pulled in, got docked with the help of a friendly Quebecer there with his catamaran, and proceeded to fill up both water tanks. We asked him the protocol for water fills – payment and such – and he said, “Just fill up and leave – nobody’s around!” So we did just that and could now be fairly accused of shoplifting 400 litres of fresh water. In my defense, I did try to get to the marina office to ask somebody, but it was behind a locked gate and I didn’t want to strand myself in case nobody was there.

 

The sail today was pleasant and uneventful, and an hour into the trip we passed right out of the big storm system passing west to east and found sunshine. We passed by West Point military school which looked like a damn Game of Thrones stronghold. By about 1:30 pm, 45 minutes before low tide, we approached the entrance of Haverstraw Harbour, a sizeable anchorage with 360 degree protection and room for at least twenty boats. The only problem was this: the charts showed 4.5 feet of depth at the channel entrance at low tide, and SeaLight draws a full 6 feet. I didn’t think there was going to be enough water for us to get in so I foresaw us dropping anchor in the river and waiting 3 – 4 hours for the tide turnaround. We dropped the dinghy and I ripped towards the channel entrance checking the depth at various points with our handheld depth sounder. The lowest I found was 6.5 feet so I raced back, tied the dingy to the arch and hit the gas. As we approached, we both stood at the helm watching the boat’s depth sounder nervously and there was no way to guarantee the entire channel held enough water. Our sounder displayed the depth of water under our keel – 14..11..8..3..1..0.5..0.3..0.1, 0.0.. We waited for the boat to skid to a halt but she floated through magically on a cushion of luck and we got ourselves anchored and secure in a most amazingly protected anchorage.

 

We took the dinghy into the public dock to explore the town of Haverstraw, expecting to find English pubs and biscuit shops judging by the Britishness of the name, but we found anything but.

We had been dropped into the middle of Central America and the Latin Caribbean. Main Street was a bustling affair with packs of Latino men with perfectly chiseled facial hair gathered outside of shops speaking in rapid fire Spanish, with accents from a dozen countries. All the business signs were in Spanish or Spanish and English or Spanglish. Latina hoochies in camel-toed stretchy pants strutted past the groups of hot blooded gangstas, attracting attention. Little kids darted in and out of stores, through the legs of loiterers, and one did a catwalk on his bike along the sidewalk for an entire block. A soul-vibrating wall of bass came up behind us, nearly knocking us off our feet, and I was sure the home made spoiler on the driver’s Honda Civic was going to rattle right off. Music blasted from every shop – Bachata, Reggaeton, Salsa, Ranchera, Merengue. We walked the entire length of the two commercial streets and found a repeating pattern of shops – densely packed bodegas with identical specialty Latino grocery offerings such as tinned Goya products, hot sauces, rice, and spices. There were Sports Bars, Barber Sports Bars, beauty salons, restaurants, hot pants clothing stores, cafes, laundromats, money transfer places, plus a Catholic church or two. And people everywhere, in the shops, in the streets, cruising in vehicles, in stark contrast to the many upstate ghost towns we visited.

 

Ana and I have been in a hundred neighbourhoods like this – in Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, but never in one with people from all of these places. It was a kaleidoscope of vibrant Latin colour and food, fashion and sounds, skin tones and accents, men and women and kids, and it was on the Hudson River in the USA. I loved it.

We wandered back to the dinghy, along the way discussing how on earth all these Latinos pronounce the word “Haverstraw” because that unruly sequence of consonants and vowels do not easily glide off the Spanish tongue.

 

Our faithful buddy boat Waddington had arrived shortly after us earlier in the day so we gathered in SeaLight’s cockpit for an afternoon cocktail and I sneaked a photo as the setting sun shone a beautiful colour into our space. Somewhere along the line somebody realized it was Canadian Thanksgiving, so cocktail hour turned into dinner and we enjoyed a fine meal together then finished up the night with a new game we invented with our friends Greg and Sharon back in Newport. Each person gets ten minutes to deliver their life story, from birth to now. Go!