9/12/2014 - 9/15/2014, Sailing Through NYC (and "Bloopers")

9/15/14
The Early Days
(aka The Bloopers Reel)

In the first few days of our trip, a lot of things went wrong. Fortunately, none turned out to be as serious as they seemed at first.  Most sailors will agree that on a boat, things go wrong all the time. In fact, one of our sailing friends summed up his blog entries as “Sailing along, something broke, I fixed it.”

On the first day of our cruise, Sept 12, 2014, after we traveled for just one and one half hours, Chuck came up from below and announced that he broke the sink drain in the aft head (bathroom). I was imagining a water spout shooting up into the boat, but fortunately, it was just the plastic piece that connected the bowl of the sink to the drain below, and everything was fine as long as no one ran the water in that sink. If we did, it would run out onto the floor of the bathroom. This was a quick “phone call and credit card” fix. He called, ordered the part to be shipped to his daughter Sarah, in MD, and used the fore head sink or the galley sink in the meantime.

9/13/14

On day two, upon leaving our first anchorage, we drifted into and gently tapped the bow of another boat. Fortunately, no damage to them or us.  If there had been, it would have been to us, with their pointy and structurally stronger bow touching a vulnerable part of our hull. But fortunately, it was a gentle touch, and there was nothing. Then we grounded. Fortunately, we were able to get off easily, and again, no damage.

At the end of day two, as we approached NYC, we began to see tall buildings in the distance, and a small boat sailboat race. 

Sailboat Race outside of NYC

Eventually we saw the first of many bridges, the Throgs Neck Bridge, and we anchored just outside it to await an early morning passage through the city. It was a blissfully uneventful night, and we woke up early to a very pretty sunrise.

 Throgs Neck Bridge    

                                                                                          

9/14/14

Traveling though NYC by water for the first time is a thrill!

First there are the bridges, lots of them. Most of us have driven over one or more of them, but very few of us have gone under them. It’s very exciting! The top of our mast is 60 feet up into the air. There are many bridges that are not that high. They often look like they are not high enough, even when they are. We watch the charts to check the bridge heights. When we encounter one that really is too short for us to pass under, we either have to go around it (if there is another route), or request that it be opened (if it either “swings” open or “lifts” open).

Passing through the Throgs Neck Bridge

Second, there are the buildings, some more familiar than others.  I’m not great at NYC geography, but I’m sure you will see at least one building that you recognize in our pictures.

 Chrysler Building in the middle with its unique pointed dome.

Third, there is the speed. There is a strong current running through the East River, but it is tidal so sometimes it goes one way, sometimes it goes the other, and for a very, very short time, it is still. You choose your transit time for when it is weak and going with you, and when there is still enough daylight to get through and on to where you want to land for the night.

SOG KTS = Speed over ground, in knots. 
9.2 is pretty fast for our boat!!

Fourth, there are tugs and barges, and they are really big! As the cruising guide said, “If evasive boat maneuvering is required, it will be you who is doing it.”

 Tug and barge, on the other side of the channel.

Fifth, there is adventure! Cruising down the east river at 9.2 knots, after going through the infamous “Hell Gate” and just past the Chrysler Building, we heard the squealing engine alarm and knew we lost the engine v-belt. We wanted to anchor in what looked like a perfect little anchorage to our starboard (right) side, but then noticed the sign that said it was a seaplane landing area, and no anchoring allowed! We spun around and headed for a pier just behind it, and landed hard in the strong current, slamming the anchor and anchor chock on our bow into one of the piles. We quickly got a bow and stern line around two piles, just as a seaplane landed! The bow was OK, but the anchor was slightly bent.

Chuck went down below to change the engine belt, while I stayed above, taking pictures and waiting for someone to come along and yell at us for being there. No one came by except a dozen or so joggers, who didn't even acknowledge us. This is Manhattan.

Our very temporary tie up in the East River, 
looking forward over the bow (and our dinghy).

 Our tie up, the view behind us

Soon the problem was fixed, and we were on our way again.

 Leaving our temporary tie up.

I had asked my son, David, who lives in Brooklyn, to wave to us from the Brooklyn bridge.  We expected to reach the bridge by about 11 AM, but we were early, it was closer to 9:30. There is no stopping that current!

I was hoping he’d be there anyway, since I couldn’t reach him by phone. There were a number of people on the bridge. More than one of them looked like a young man accompanied by a young woman with long dark hair, and I was hoping any of these were Dave and his fiancée, Marlee. I couldn’t see them well, they were about 130 feet up in the air. So I waved anyway. No one waved back. This is Manhattan. 

 The Manhattan bridge, and then the Brooklyn Bridge, 
with the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

I later learned he was still home. He was probably relieved to know that he didn’t have to fulfill his filial duty by coming out early to meet us on his day off.

SOL
(Statue of Liberty)

 Leaving NY Harbor

 More tugs and barges, awaiting their time to transit the city northbound, 
when the current is in their favor

 Leaving NYC behind

We continued on to Sandy Hook, NJ, where we planned to anchor for the night. Along the way we realized that our wind indicator was not working and needed to be reset. This process involves spinning the boat around 3 times. No magic words required to make the small nearby boats very nervous.

 At anchor in Sandy Hook, NJ

9/15/14

After spending the night at a nice anchorage in Sandy Hook, we left in the morning, not quite sure where the deep water was. Suddenly we slammed into something and realized from the chart that it was a “fish trap,” whatever that is. With solid walls?  We continued for a very short while before the engine belt started slipping and needed to be adjusted, again.

We got out into the ocean just off of NJ, and “fell off the chart” on our chart plotter. It reminded us of a painting, titled “I told you so!” by the artist Ed Miracle, showing old fashioned ships sailing over the waterfall of a flat earth:  http://miraclesart.com/

Instead of being able to zoom in and out very close and far, everything was at the 48 miles away view.  Newer chart plotters include the whole world, but ours only had Long Island Sound to Cape Cod, and we never realized that, since we had never sailed west of Long Island Sound or beyond Cape Cod. Thank you to John and Deb Rie, our friends from Baldwin Yacht Club, who lent us some paper charts, including a great chart book of NJ. We were able to order new chart chips over the phone, and meanwhile, used the lat/long from our chart plotter to plot our course on the paper charts.

And we followed the advice of one of our boating friends at Shennecossett Yacht Club, “Just keep the U.S on the right!”

Rounding Sandy Hook Point, heading east before turning south, near Ambrose Channel. 

Sandy & Chuck

on s/v Summer Wind