Sunny New York
SY Cookielicious
Private
Sun 12 May 2013 14:56
73:05.10W
What an exciting day! We motored through New York this morning. The whole night before was cold with showers and sometimes not-all-that-distant lightning. However, the anticipation of doing New York for the 5th time on 4 different boats made it all very do-able. The morning was still a bit grey, but as soon as we got under the bridge from Staten Island the sun started to break through the cloud cover. What did we do to deserve that instead of the forecasted rain and squalls?
Coast Guard called us around 8.30 briefly after we had sighted "Miss Libby", as we have dubbed the statue. Asking us what our intentions were. Mostly sight-seeing, we guess. First thing we noted was the new World Trade Centre under construction. It is by far the tallest building of the town. Quite gutsy, really. It was not too busy on the water, it was a really peaceful Sunday morning. Just a few ferries going past and a few helicopters taking off from the "Thomas Crown Affair" movie heli pad. A wooden boat collection at Pier 17 and by then we were well underway in the East River, heading towards Hell's Gate.
We were a bit too late for slack current, so we were going under the bridges with 3 kts of current behind us, scaring the wits out of Merel as she was hard to convince that there was enough clearance underneath. You would not want to hit one at the speed we did - we noted a maximum of 13 kts over the ground. Hells Gate itself had quite a few whirlpools and Cookie did get grabbed by the ass, but with 220+ HP that is not really an issue, so on we went under the last 2 bridges before passing Rikers Island and the added prison barge in the channel. Some of the convicts were out in the cage getting fresh air, and a few of them were looking out over the water. When they saw us wave they waved back enthusiastically, with both arms in the air. Must be a nice feeling to be recognized by the outside world.
We thought the bridges gave us little clearance, until we got to the vicinity of La Guardia Airport. We thought the landing planes were going to take the mast down!
After these thrilling experiences and testing of senses and adrenaline levels we broke free into Long Island Sound. A lovely, crisp spring morning. In the afternoon the winds started piping up and the forecast was still a bit unclear as in whether it would stick to the old plan or throw out a different wind direction. We stuck with what we had at the moment (SW) and decided to go for a 360 degrees, all round protected anchorage as there were still squalls and other wind directions in the forecast.
That is how we ended up in Port Jefferson on Long Island. Had a beer to celebrate the 463 Nm since Beaufort, and also the last overnight passage of the season. No more from now on. Day hops only. First one tomorrow to Newport, 80 Nm from here. See what the weather does from there.
Cheers from a safe haven,
Geoff & Merel