What a Liberty!
Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Thu 14 Jul 2011 00:12
40:25.078N
74:01.826W
Thursday 14th July
2011
Distance run: 38
nmiles
We slipped the
mooring buoy around midday to catch the tide up into New York Harbour and then
through the East River and Hell Gate to Long Island Sound, where we would base
the boat in Port Washington while we visited New York City.
Approaching the
Verrazano suspension bridge which spans the Narrows into New York Harbour
- and once through, the famous Manhattan skyline.
Liberty and the
Staten Island
Ferry. Steve
concentrating on avoiding the heavy traffic around the famous
statue.
We were able to
sail very close by for a perfect
view.... then turned up the East
River and passed under Brooklyn Bridge.
The Empire State
Building from the East
River.
Passing through Hell Gate with bubbling water.
Having timed our
arrival at the Battery just right (we hoped!) we began to make our way up the
East River and were pleased to find that we had a good couple of knots of fair
tide. This is important when passing through Hell Gate, where the tide can
run up to 5 knots and if against you can make it very hard and uncomfortable
going! The river runs, not surprisingly from its name, along the East side
of Manhattan Island and comes out in Long Island Sound. Once in the Sound we
sailed around to Port Washington on the North shore of Long Island, and picked
up a free town buoy, right next to Anne & Michael on Nimue and a
couple of buoys away from Kevin on Amakura..
The evening was
spent cracking open the bottle of bubbly given to us by Rob &
Sarah from Serafina for when we sailed by Liberty (plus a
bottle of wine or two...), and catching up on news from our sailing
friends. We have a great feeling of achievement, having sailed our own boat
into New York and are now looking forward to visiting the
city.