Day 115, Tuesday, October15th

Day 115, Tuesday October 15th

Sighting the George Washington bridge and skyline

We become "salties" today.  We left Haverstraw Bay at around 7:30 heading down the Hudson River bound for New York City.  Within a couple hours the George Washington Bridge was in sight with the hazy skyline behind.  It is another gorgeous day.  The river is not wide enough for sailing by our humble opinion so we are under motor, again.  We have no intentions of stopping as we are anxious to get to Annapolis so blow on by New York.  We see Lucy and John's boat in at 79th St. basin and there is room to pull in, but the currents are in the right direction, timing of the narrows is good, and it is about 1:30 by the time we are getting to the south end of NYC and the busy harbour so we continue on. 

Oh what a beautiful day!

Our AIS alarm is constantly ringing due to it picking up ships in the harbour.  The AIS lets us know the name, direction, speed and timing of collision so a nice new tool.  We did not set it for boats where speed was zero and most of the alarms are going off for boats that are just parked along the harbours so we are constantly disabling the alarm feature.  We are pleased with the lack of boat traffic.  It is still busy by our standards, but nothing compared to what we imagined.




Statue of Liberty

Crossing the harbour, Statue of Liberty in the background

We pass by the Statue of Liberty and give ourselves a big pat on the back for our success in making it this far safely.  There are lots of tourist ferries buzzing about, but not too much wake.  The real wakes are from the Staten Island ferries that zip along.  We try to stay out of the shipping channels as the freighters need lots of room.  Next is the narrows connecting Staten Island and then we are on our way to Sandy Hook on the Jersey Shore.  This is a large sand spit with some houses.  It juts about 4 miles out into the ocean from the south of the harbour.  We need to get some fuel so will head down the coast of the spit to Atlantic Highlands, and anchor behind the breakwall for the night.

The anchor does not catch very well so we have 3 goes at it and finally are satisfied.  The winds are supposed to pick up so it is important we get a good hook.  We are rolling a bit due to the "Sea Streak" ferry, but this should disappear by 10:00 p.m.



Sandy Hook spit lighthouse and houses

We are tired and very glad to now be on our way south.  We plan an early morning so have a few jobs to get us ocean ready.  We put our jack lines on the boat so we can tether ourselves when on deck, and we fix the radar reflector as well as Magiver something to hold the anchor in place more securely when we are underway.  Last but not least we finish rigging the reefing lines in case we need to reduce sail.  This is leftover work from having taken the mast down for the Erie canal.  We are now ready to carry on with our journey.

Cheers
Julie and Dawson