New York, Just Like I Pictured It

Does this face look familiar?

This is what the lady looked like when we sailed past her in New York Harbor. Not only did she wave at us, but she actually winked at me. You can see how big this piece of copper is by comparing her size to the huge line of people walking past at the bottom of the pic. They seem to be stretching to look up her dress.

After we left Block Island, Rhode Island we sailed up -- OK, we motored up the Long Island Sound toward New York. We took a mooring at Port Washington in Manhasset Bay. Great deal. Two nights free mooring, free dinghy dock, great organic style supermarket, and water taxi. But the best part was that it was a 20 min (don’t let them tell you 15 min.) walk up the Main St to the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). This whisks you into Penn Station in Manhattan. Here you can endlessly connect to artistically named subways lines like A and B and C line.

It really was fun to check out all these places that I had heard of from years of watching NYC Blues, but never really knew what they were. I now know where Uptown is and where Downtown is. I’m guessing Midtown is somewhere in-between.  Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn Bridge, Staten Island, Hells Kitchen, Riker’s Island, Wall Street, World Trade Center, Ellis Island, The Battery, 59th Street Bridge (song), The East River. Even if you’ve never been there, NY is a big part of US culture.

We travelled down to the World Trade Center. And yes, the area and the subway stop is still called that. We couldn’t get into the 9/11 memorial because we neither had reservations or were apparently enough of a VIP.

You can see the 104 story One World Trade Center building going up on the left. This is the replacement for the WTC that went down on 9/11. This one appears to be being built without any bull’s eye. The 9/11 Memorial is to its right. We did get to go into the 9/11 Memorial gift shop. It actually has some really interesting displays and commentary.

No captioned needed

They seem to have censured the pictures of victims jumping from the towers. I think that is too bad. These are the searing pictures that define the attack for me. Its like documenting the Holocaust without the pictures of piled up corpses. Not pleasant, but the essence of the human tragedy.
We stopped at B&H Photo on 34 street, a few blocks from Penn Station. This is a geeks play store. It has every imaginable camera, lenses, computer, TV, and associated gadget. Neatly organized as a multi-story big box store. And for a little humor, most of the workers are dressed in Orthodox Jewish attire – its gotta be New York.

The ship at the right is the Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 berthed in NY Harbor as we sailed by in the East River. All 1,132 feet of her. In 1956 when my family was immigrating to the US, we tied up near this spot raveling on the Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth.  

The RMS Queen Elizabeth, at 1,031 feet. I remember as a 4 year old kid seeing the Statue of Liberty. But what I remember most about the trip from Southampton, England to NYC was the day that they stopped my big brother (Mike, all of 6) and I from using the first class passenger’s shuffle board court. Pretty devastating for a 4 year old.

The Staten Island Ferry leaving the Battery in Manhattan on its way to, where else, Staten Island. I’m not a real big fan of the color scheme. The Washington State Ferries are much more esthetic.

Washington State Ferry - You be the judge

Staten Island has always been a mystery to me. The TV shows are always using the ferry as a back drop, but no one ever seems to actually make it all the way to Staten Island. We stopped at a marina on Staten Island to get fuel. It was a long trip under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge onto the south shore of the harbor entrance. I asked the dock master if the fuel was cheaper here than in NY, assuming we were in New Jersey. The dock master looked at me pretty strangely and noted that Staten Island is still New York. Who knew?

The famous Brooklyn Bridge from the East River as we are about to sail under.

OK, maybe that wasn’t the Brooklyn Bridge. Maybe one these is. Either way, there’s a lot of cool, old bridges that go over the East River from Manhattan to Long Island.

We said good bye to Lady Statue of Liberty and started heading out to the Atlantic. It took us 3 nights to arrive at Cape Henry and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. As it has been for this entire trip down from Cape Breton, the wind was on our nose. For most of the trip we would sail out about 70 miles offshore, tack and come into 15 or 20 miles off – then do it again. The Outbound was joy to sail in these conditions. Pretty comfortable, given the wind direction. Love all the hand-holds, and the easy, no stooping companionway steps. Can’t to sail her on some reaches and downwind.

In the last 3 days we have moved about 3,600 lbs worth of stuff off Jeorgia. Gotta empty her so we can make her pretty and sell her. The Outbound looks like a disaster zone with all the stuff laying around.

I took Chris to the airport yesterday (using the free loaner car from Yacht Haven marina) She’s got a 2 to 4 week job in Malawi and Tanzania. My job is to get Jeorgia on the market and the Georgia cleaned up, while she works on Midwifery education program evaluations in Africa.

Paul