Up the East River thru Hell's Gate
Lynn & Mike ..around the world
Mike Drinkrow & Lynn v/d Hoven
Fri 23 Jul 2010 13:24
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40:46.68N 073:56.19W Hell's Gate on
the East River
On Wednesday morning Tom took the train down to Manhattan
to join us on our trip up the East River to the Long Island sound. We left
at about 2pm, motoring down the Hudson River, around the Battery on the south
end of Manhattan, and up the East River. This river is crossed by a number of
bridges, but all are so high, that we had nothing to worry about. In the
picture below you see the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge behind
it.
  Other than the incredible views the other amazing thing
about this trip, was the speed of the current. Our speed over ground
through Hell's Gate, the narrowest stretch with the highest
current, was 12.5 knots ...but our boat speed was only 6.7
knots!! Have a look at our instrument reading below, and the
pressure on the buoy! Behind that buoy is the infamous Rikers Island
Jail.
  We then headed out into the sound, and saw a huge storm in
front of us. Carefully we watched it on radar, slowed down and changed course
slightly - nervously watching the black clouds and lightening. Luckily we
avoided most of it and put down our anchor off Sprite Island, Norwalk at
about 8pm. And then the rest of the storm hit us. We had no problems but found
out the next morning that many homes in this area had lost power for a few
hours, due to lightening strikes. Lucky escape!
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