Passing through the New York Harbour

Thursday, August 28^th – we stay in bed with the rocking and rolling from the wake of the water taxis as we won’t leave until 13:00 to time the tides to help take us through the rest of the Hudson and NY Harbour. 

Once up, we take a couple loads of laundry to the office where they have free washer/dryer and 30 minutes of free wifi. We meet Rick and Connie who have been sailing now for 10 years and helped ease our minds on our pending ocean trip to Cape May. They too are going south but our timing may not work out. We sit in the Boat Basin Café waiting for the laundry and I spend an hour on the phone with AT&T to activate our new iPad. We order a salad to share, then collect our laundry (second load still wasn't

dry…we laugh and figure - that’s why its free). Back to the boat, hoist and secure dinghy, dinghy motor, drop the mooring lines and head down the Hudson one last time.

NYC

From the middle of the Hudson, we get a much better view of the Manhattan skyline and the traffic ahead. Neither of us had ever thought we would be sailing by Manhattan in our own boat. 

The Freedom Tower

These water taxis are not like the little boats that traverse the Toronto Harbour, these are larger than a Grey Hound bus, move a great speeds and toss a 3 foot wake….and there are lots of them moving all around us. There are also larger ferry’s that traverse side to side that we are told don’t stop or veer off course for any one. My chartplotter is lit up from our AIS (Automatic Identification System – mandatory for all commercial vessels; it shows direction, name of vessel and speed of travel of other boats also equipped with AIS). 

Staten Island Ferry and the Statue of Liberty

The wind is strong and gusty so I put out a little of our forward sail…this gives us an additional 1-2 knts when it gusts. Once we get parallel to the tip of Manhattan we were told to watch out for the Staten Island Ferry (these are like mini Carnival Cruise ships, several levels high), our timing was perfect, we had one coming straight for us on our Port (left) side, likely he will decide to pass on our stern; now the ferry coming the other way off our Starboard (right) side. He looks like he will pass to stern, but then seems to be coming straight for us, then passes to stern…I think he just wanted to give us a scare.

Verrazano Bridge in to Upper NY Harbour

We are out of the Hudson and into NY Harbour, now it’s the cargo ships coming and going to sea. Their decks are filled with shipping containers stacked 10 high. As we approach the Verrazano Bridge, I cut across the channel hoping we're fast enough before the next ship reaches me and then we make the turn along the Staten Island coast towards Great Kills Harbour. GK’s is a nicely protected basin where most cruisers wait for their weather window before jumping down to Cape May or Norfolk, VA. The seas calm down as its now coming off-shore and no more water taxis and ferrys. We let out the jib (forward sail) a little more to help our speed – 7knts. The winds picks up further, according to our instruments it is now blowing at 22knts…we’re on a close reach (pointing as close to the direction of the wind as possible). We bring in our sail and turn Northwest, right into the wind, towards the narrow shallow channel that will take us in the GK Harbour. Using VHF channel 09, we radio in and the Richmond County Yacht Club water taxi escorts us to our mooring ball. Julie secures the lines and the water taxi pulls up along side. One of my first questions is how heavy is the concrete block that holds this mooring ball? We relax with an anchor drink and have a bowl of cereal for dinner.