Hurricanes, Tornados and New York City.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 9 Sep 2012 14:33

Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri & Sat – 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th September

 

First things first, yes we and Serafina are fine!   And for those in the dark, several tornados hit New York coming down only about 5 miles away from us;  the US tennis Open was evacuated for it….   Actually I am ashamed to say we were unaware that we were on tornado watch (although very aware we had had a lot of rain and were sitting in a very bouncy boat) until we went for supper on ‘Innamorata’ which was quite a challenge in the dinghy. (yes, possibly not the most sensible choice to go drinking on another boat with an imminent tornado bearing down on you)   Craig and Karene chose the moment the massive downpour swept across the bay to toddle over to join us all  in their dinghy, with Rob and Steve gesticulating wildly to urge them on, but they were blithely unaware of the monster rushing across the bay behind them!   The skies were very impressive but we didn’t actually see the tornado spout.

 

Unfortunately the rain was also excessive and I had opened up one of our largest ports  in the very humid conditions before the storm and left it open.   So when we got back two of the salon cushions were soaked, but luckily the strong winds had blown much of the rain into the galley sink!   And they had missed both the iPad and my computer.   So all sorts of stupidity on show yesterday.

 

And to compound it all, Rob had run the flush on the water maker with the filter houses not properly secured and flooded the area by the washing machine but most of the water was contained by the box we store there – which houses the hoover…..   Only time will tell if this recovers and as it is a different voltage to the US, which could prove difficult.

 

So all in all September 8th has not proved our greatest hour! Time to come home soon?

 

Anyway up until yesterday we had continued with more sightseeing in New York going in separate directions:  Karene and I to art galleries (Guggenheim, Whitney, Frick, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Rob to the USS Intrepid museum (with ??????) and Craig off visiting work friends.   And then we graduated to travelling by ourselves and have to admit that the NY subway system is far easier than we had supposed when performing the duckling role of blindly following Craig.   We also visited the Museum of the City of New York with an interesting video on the development of the city, but as we have discovered everywhere, just after Labour Day and the height of the tourist season, now seems to be the time to change the exhibitions;  so one floor was shut and a quarter of the museum was given over to a display of photography of London’s streets – not possibly what we had come all this way to see!   I also found the perfect museum to visit, the Neue and that is completely closed for re-hanging till the end of the month!

 

Apart from visiting my cousin, Brooke on Monday we are now thinking about our route south, the SSC gam and Annapolis Boat Show, planning our tides and watching ‘Leslie’ (our friendly hurricane/tropical storm out in the Atlantic) and should leave here early on Wednesday for an overnight sail down through the heart of New York City and south to the Delaware River.