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feature 38 Houseboatmagazine.com experience at being five feet tall instead of six, he said, "Okay, we're going to use a different way for you to catch the line on the canal wall." By the end of the afternoon, I was pretty good at slipping my hands into work gloves like a surgeon careful to avoid previous contamination by gunk on the sides of the lock and then using a pole and hook to grab the stability lines on the lock wall that keep the boat from roaming when whirlpools of water lower or raise the lock depth. Happy Anniversary This summer is the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage as the first European on the river now named for him. His ship the Half Moon was owned by the Dutch East India Company for whom Hudson, an Englishman, was seek- ing a trade route to the Orient. He sailed 150 miles upriver as far as Albany before giving up his quest. Hudson found trea- sure, though it was not the highly sought passage to China. Surviving excerpts from his ship log comment on the beauty of the forests and water. He wrote of a land plentiful with fish and wildlife and a friendly native population. A replica of the Half Moon now sails the river as a floating school and history museum, the gift of a Dutch benefactor wanting to reinforce the contributing heritage of the Netherlands. Our canal boat had an advantage over Hudson's ship—a draft of only three feet and excellent charts. Thus we did not have the explorer's concern about hitting the river bottom in unknown water. Tides on the Hudson River extend 150 miles north. Technically, the river is an estuary. The Half Moon sailed only at low tide, so that it could use a rising tide as lift, if it should go aground. On our first canal boat vacation, we followed part of Henry Hudson's travels on the river, cruising between West Point and Albany. We had made arrangements ahead of time and tied up briefly at the West Point pier, but it was quickly clear that the military academy's industrial dock was too big for our canal boat, which looked like an out-of-place toy in a war movie. Instead we docked overnight at the marina across the river in Gar- rison, where the views of West Point's famous granite façade were even better than being there. Much better. The lower Hudson is over three miles wide at its widest point, a full, open body of water running south straight to the sea at New York Harbor. With so much water, we had a sense of privacy, even with other boat traffic. One morning after spending the night anchored out in a riverside cove, life was so leisurely and I was so relaxed on my floating front porch, that Kevin finally pointed out that I was the only boater on deck in a nightgown. Tribute To Frederick Church A must-stop for us on the Hudson was Olana, the home of Frederick Church, the prominent artist of the Hudson River school of painting from the 1800s. His oils of the river and use of light are leg- endary, and his paintings are displayed in museums around the world. Kevin and I had decided that visiting Olana by boat would be a fitting tribute to Church's love of the river. This required advance planning, as Olana is on the east bank of the Hudson, and the closest public dock is on the west shore. We confirmed be- fore we left home that a local taxi service could drive us. Thus to reach historic Olana, we combined travel in a current day taxicab and a reproduction of an Top Left-It is always dramatic when the gates open in a lock. Center Left-Galley of canal boat. Bottom Left-The famous Trinity Episcopal church in Seneca Falls, New York, on the Cayuga-Seneca Canal. The canal is a tributary to the Erie Canal in the NYS system. Large Photo-A typical New York State canal boat.