Having had a glorious summer and able to enjoy the Fall colours in the sunshine, the weather has finally turned.  But rain and wind doesn’t matter when you spend a captivating day in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  One could spend many days enjoying all the treasures there – all we could was a fairly whistlestop tour of part of it.  All the exhibitions are exquisitely set out. We were enthralled by the Egyptian exhibits, particularly the tomb discovery of models portraying daily life.

The great thing was that with virtually all the paintings you could get ‘up close and personal’ and really examine the detail.  I think it was in the Robert Lehman’s Collection that we saw Botticelli’s The Annunciation, but seeing such a number of the great masters was fantastic.  We drooled over the 19^th Century paintings and for the first time I actually liked a Van Gogh painting (Wheat Fields with Cypresses), but I think my favourite was an engraving entitled “The Perilous Situation of Major Mony when he fell in to the sea with his Balloon on 23^rd July 1783”.   Two years after the first ever balloon flight, the Major set off from Norwich to the awe of 40,000 spectators.  A sticking valve caused him to ditch the balloon just off the Isle of Wight.  He was rescued after five hours. 

We also visited the Brooklyn Bridge, as I wanted to pay homage to Washington A Roebling.  After the sudden death of his father, he took over the role of Chief Engineer for the bridge construction. After getting the bends from working too long is one of the massive cassions and nervous exhaustion, illness prevented him from physically going to the bridge for the last ten years of its build. Coping with many political wranglings and often in great pain, he diligently documented every minute detail and wrote copious, specific instructions.  I think all the engineers that worked under his supervision stayed on the project for the whole period.  The bridge was completed 135 years ago, yet according to the engineers at the New York Department of Public Works of all the bridges on the East River, it is the one that gives them the least trouble.

Wherever we walked in Manhattan – China Town, Little Italy, 5^th Avenue – the craze for wearing wellington boots was apparent.  Rather than chick shoes, New Yorkers are wearing chic wellies – some choose the agricultural look as a fashion statement, whilst others show their personality and preference through the wide choice of sassy designs.

The day after visiting Manhattan we had the spectacle of it from the water.  With tides up to 5 knots, John had very carefully checked our departure time. The sun came out, making our sail-past on the East River and Hell Gate all the more exciting:  planes on route to La Gardia Airport flying over us every 90 seconds, numerous bridges to go under and then, of course, the towering and diverse landmarks of Manhattan itself, plus being able to get fairly close to the Statue of Liberty; after all of which we navigated down the busy Verazzano Narrows. I loved the radio interchange between John and a tug pushing a very large barge.  When the vessel was extremely close to us John asked “What are your intentions?”  The very quick response was “Yeah, right, I wish I could tell you.”!

Fortunately, my Skipper was safely navigating us to a comfortable anchorage in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey and since arriving here we have had nothing but strong winds and lashing rain.