Standing Still in Long Island Sound and New York City

We were in Pt. Judith Rhode Island planning our next passage to Long Island Sound. Sounds pretty straight forward but we had to give consideration to tides and currents again. We thought this would be a good plae to get some rest but for those who are light sleepers like Linda the fog horns kept her awake most of the night. The three fog horns went off in sequence every two and a half minutes which would not have been bad if there was fog.

There is a section call the race and this is located on the eastern edge of Long Island Sound. The currents here are strong and you need to be entering this area during a flood current.  When you look at 3 to 4 knots coming at you it doesn't seem like alot.  Well with checking the tide books and getting our departure time we went through this stretch of the sound at a speed of about 7 to 8.5 knots. Not bad for a days work but our calculations were a bit off about an hour. Once we were in the sound the current began to change and guess what within an hour we went from doing 8 knots to 1.7knots against the current. Well we then decided that after an hour of this and it was going to keep up for another 4 hours it was time to call it a day.

No place to anchor so we went into a marina run by Brewers. Beautiful place and $2.50 a foot. Well we stayed for one night and got an early start as the current was in our favour at 6 in the morning. The marina was in a very protected place so when we got up everything looked good to go with a forecast of sunny skies and 1 to 1.5 waves. Needless to say some of these weather guys should come out onto the water before they made predictions. The wind was on the nose and the wave height was 4 to 5 feet. Current was with us but only at 1.7 knots so once again we are fighting to make headway.

So the wind is blowing nicely so we set the sails and decide to tack up the sound. After about an hour and half the current has changed and we are about 500 yards ahead of where we started and it is now 3:00 and decision to go back to shore and once again into a marina.

We never expected to take this long to get through the Long Island sound but the next day it co-operated and we got to Port Washington where they have mooring balls. They are everywhere down here. We were told that the town balls are free for the first two days and as we were going to visit friends we decided to take advantage of this deal. After the two days we let them know we are going to stay a few more days and guess what they said no charge well that's a first. We had a great time.

We spent one day in New York City doing the tourist thing, Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park, 5th ave., the Plaza, Strawberry fields and Macy's. Busy day ending with dinner and a beer.

 Top of the Empire State Building

 Chrysler Building

 Central Park

 Ferris Wheel in Toys R Us Store

 Times Square

 The Naked Cowboy in Times Square

 Self Explanatory

 Statue of Liberty

 Guarding of the UN Building

 Brooklyn Bridge

A Drink to New York

Well our next adventure was to attach hell gate in New York.  For those that do not know this area it is where the East river and the Harlem river come together so once again we are dealing with currents and tides. Well Jack is getting to be an old hand at this stuff but I am still green.  He works the schedule out and in my way I review it. We waited for the right weather and current timing and successfully got through hell gate without incident. We lucked out it was like leaving Port Credit with about 5 knots of wind. I did not mind it being uneventful. As we went down  the east river along Manhattan I took lots of pictures. I couldn't believe how many bridges there where here and I took a picture of each one I will have to start a site just about bridges.

Now for those cruisers who come down the Hudson the blog will get boring for you as you have seen all the sites from here on in.

Yes we went to the statue of liberty then over to Coney island and now we are on Staten island.  We have been here for three days waiting out the weather at Great Kills NY.  If you contact Richmond Yacht Club the mooring balls are $15.00, $40.00 with tender service. use your dinghy they have dinghy wharf.

Well we have a good window for our next leg from Staten Island to Cape May. The weather Sept.11, 2012 for the next 4 days is winds from 5 to 10 knots and sunny. The flood tide tomorrow starts at noon so we are off today around two and will overnight to Cape May and should be there about one or two just in time for the flood tide to go through the Janel at Cape May sea height 1 to 2 feet.

I going to have lunch and we will be underway.  Talk to you soon. I will post some pictures later and Jack will edit it at our next stop.