066: The Big Apple

On Monday, May 13th, we left the slip at Captain Bill's Landing at the Manasquan Inlet at 6:00 a.m. for the thirty-nine n/m trip out in the Atlantic Ocean to NYC.

Before leaving the slip, we checked out the status of the inlet:

Long-time readers of this blog will note that we had a bit of rough crossing of the Gulf of Mexico back in November.   Now some would say that rough crossing was the result of imperfect decision making on the part of "The Captain," but that was not the case.  The real reason was my failure to appease the gods by playing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot on the way out of the harbor.  You see Gentle Reader, every crossing of Lake Michigan that I made dating back to the 1980's, I played that song on the way out of the harbor.  I had forgotten to do that prior to crossing the Gulf, and the god's punished me.   This time however, I not only played it, but had it on the outside speakers as well, just so the gods could hear.   (I got a "thumb's up" from a fisherman as we cleared the inlet).   As my reward, we had a very nice crossing.   Basically just large gentle swells on the starboard quarter.   Moral of the story: respect the superstitions. 

As we  came to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge we stayed outside the marked channel (it was plenty deep) to keep out of the way of the "big boys" as in large container ships and tows.   After we cleared the bridge, it got a bit crazy with all the traffic.   This video was taken later, but it gives you a good idea of the challenges of the NYC Harbor and rivers:  lots of different kinds of traffic, moving fast:

We got the iconic Statue of Liberty shot, unfortunately we had gone ahead of KatMat when Matt got delayed so we weren't able to trade shots of our boats in the foreground (KatMat leapfrogged ahead of us and they are pulling the boat out for the summer and heading back to Illinois/Michigan.  Thanks for everything KatMat, it was a nice 3,836 n/m's.

View from the water, not all on the same day:

Empire State Building:

The "Vessel"

Lower Manhattan:

A Concorde at the Intrepid Museum:

Another "Looper" got a shot of us!

Traffic:

We pulled into a marina at Brooklyn Heights, very close to Nancy's sister Judy's home.  As nice as this view is, we accepted Judy's offer to stay at her house.  Judy and her husband, Will, were extremely gracious hosts and we enjoyed sleeping on beds that didn't rock for three nights.

A fleet of solo Trans-Atlantic racing boats came into the marina:

When we arrived at the marina, Judy came over to see the boat and "marvel" at our modest accommodations.   We have officially lived on the boat for one year as of this writing.  Then we walked over to her amazing home for a nice visit and later dinner out.

The next day Nancy and walked around Brooklyn Heights and the waterfront, Nancy has hundreds of pictures, but you get a flavor with these:

Iconic shot of the Empire State Building through a bridge, it is there, but it was hazy:

Supposed to look like this (stock photo):

Deli near Judy's home:

Our Jack's home for the summer (he has a job in NYC, staying at a friend's home):

Video of the view from a hotel in Brooklyn Heights:

Later we borrowed Judy's car (THANKS JUDY!) to drive out to Islip Terrace to visit with my Aunt Marie and Uncle Paul, the last of my father and mother's generation in our family.  We had a lovely visit with my cousins Nancy and Karen joining us for dinner.    Chicagoans: you think Chicago traffic is bad?  NY's is crazy.  Check out this exchange, thank goodness for google maps:

The next day, Nancy and Judy went to visit their parents' grave out on "The Island" and I did work-work and lazed about.   That night Judy, Will and Nancy went out to dinner, but I had a board meeting call so Judy kindly ordered in Sushi for me.   

All in all it was wonderful visit and we only regret that our plans couldn't have included more visits with my cousins and a trip by boat out around Long Island.

Dave

Odometer: 4,038 n/m's