ANOTHER MILITARY ACADEMY

Haverstraw Bay turned out to be a great spot to sit and wait out the weather. Mother nature was kicking up a storm so we spent a 'quiet day' on the hook listening to the pounding of the rain. Tuesday night turned out to be exciting, around midnight there were strobe lights outside the boat. It seems the local harbor police were looking for a boat that called in a Mayday. The bay is pretty big but we didn't see any other boat out in the water and we told them it wasn't us,we were fine. Early Wednesday morning, we pulled up the anchor and headed for Highland Falls. Again we wished the weather was just a little clearer but what we saw was just beautiful. We turned a corner and there before us was a path through the Appalachian mountains, simple beauty, 1400 ft hills on both sides of the river and no tall skyscrapers to be found. It was very easy to imagine discovering the Hudson River just like Henry found the passage. Our stop that day was Highland Falls Marina. It was known formerly as the Westshore railway stop in Highland falls, est. in 1882. We met Skeeter the dockmaster (owner), retired vet,who had wonderful stories of the history of the area. He showed us the Patty Hearst Estate and pointed to a castle on top of the hill of the person who owned most of the land. Skeeter volunteered to drive us up the 'hill' and take us to the West Point museum. He told us about a great little restaurant for lunch and recommended taking the longer tour, it was only $2 more at West Point. So we followed his advice and booked our tour, we had a few hours to kill, so we decided to check out the West Point museum. It was a little too early for lunch. The museum was very interesting, and covered man's history of warfare from all over the world. They had weaponry displayed from historic swords and knives, to cannons, rifles, machine guns and of course the atomic bomb. There was also a section on American warfare history, from the wars with the Native Americans, the Revolutionary war, and the Mexican war.

The museum also covered great leaders and leaders that were not so great, and their downfalls. Truly a lot of information, but all interesting with understanding man's basic need to defend oneself and country.After a wonderful lunch at the restaurant Skeeter recommended, we headed over to the West Point visitor's center for our tour. We had a very knowledgeable guide named Shanna, who told us great stories about the graduates of West Point, those that become famous and well loved such as Eisenhower, Patton and those that became infamous such as Benedict Arnold and Custer, who, by the way, is buried in the Academy cemetery. One of the interesting things we've learned from visiting 3 of the military Academies is that not only are the cadets training to be physically fit, but mentally fit and knowledgeable, after all, they could be our country's leader in the future and some have.

We came back to the boat exhausted, had a delicious dinner aboard and snuggled down for the night, or so we thought,,, to be continued.