I am behind, again, in posting our latest travels.  We are on the road again and sometimes time just passes by so fast that I don’t have a chance to take a breath.

We left Great Kills Yacht Club by 10am.  It is a tidal thing.  Here goes…. if you don’t want to fight the “ebb” tide ( out going tide that goes to low tide ) in the NY Harbor and Hudson River.  Because then it would be like you are walking up hill against the wind.  A stiff current going the opposite direction might make a slow boat actually make no progress at all.  You want to catch the water “flooding” into the harbor and Hudson River.  That would mean a rising tide and current going in the same direction as the boat.  Theoretically.  Makes sense until you THEN look at the tidal table for Great Kills.  At 10am, it was just coming off low tide.  It might be a little shallow getting out of here!!

As we were on our way into NY Harbor, we actually heard the Coast Guard mention on the VHF radio that a boat got stuck getting into Great Kills Harbor.  Oh dear!!  We are lucky we made it out when we did!!

Turning left out of Great Kills we headed toward New York!!  That glittering town, one heck of a town!  See that bridge?  Point the bow of the boat in that direction.  It looks like the bridge that capture Godzilla ( Mathew Broderick version ).  Yep.  I can almost see that poor creature stuck in the bridge suspension cables.  Can’t you?

We are approximately 20 miles from NY City.  Today looks a bit hazy and gray.  Maybe a bit of smog thrown in since this is a big city!  We were told to watch out for all the boat traffic in the NY Harbor.  We were hoping that by going later in the morning we would avoid some of the rush hour ferries.

The Statue of Liberty!  We drove by the Lady, herself!!  How exciting!  She isn’t as huge as I had imagined all these years.  Dwarfed by her neighbors in the Big Apple, maybe?  Too bad is wasn’t a better picture taking day.

The Twin Towers are gone.  There is the single Tower now.  Very dramatic!!

Water vessels seen while driving through the NY Harbor and lower Hudson River.

These jet skiers were the most bizarre.  They were so small in comparison to the numerous ferries, tankers, barges, and us boaters.  Crazy!!

The Hudson River is split down the middle.  The west side is New Jersey.  The east side is New York.  Fascinating to see the difference between the two.  It also looks like NJ has the Statue Of Liberty on its side of the river.  Who knew?

Couldn’t tell if this fence was to capture bats, pterodactyls, or keep something in.  Strange skies.

As the afternoon got older, we came across kayaks and boats escorting swimmers in the Hudson!  We counted multiple arms and about 12 heads swimming.  Good for them!

We passed cities that we have always heard about.  Hoboken, Yonkers, Manhatten, The Battery, Governor’s Island, and so many more.  They all blended together like many cities around the country where you can’t really tell where one city starts and another city ends.  Buildings are taller on the NY side than on NJ side.  More green trees and less buildings on the Jersey side that was surprising.  Handfuls of luxury yachts that made our boat look like a dinghy.  Not many trawlers, tho. A few sail boats.

Overall, we didn’t see the huge amount of barge or container ship traffic as we were warned.  Several were docked or anchored and were not moving.  Probably because of the time of day.  Several ferries that looked like touristy cruise boats were zipping around but they were small and gave us the right of way a couple of times.  We were not rocked by anything too terrible.  Nothing flew off the counter or was broken.  I was able to keep my footing the entire time!!  A wonderful transit.

Just as we were getting ready to find our marina for the night, we saw Sing Sing Prison.  I looked it up.  It is still a “Maximum Security” prison for 1700 men.  We should be pretty safe then.  If anyone breaks out of prison, they won’t hang around here….they will high-tail it out of town and leave us boaters be.

 

We arrived at our destination after 4pm.  We were exhausted both by the hour of the day and the excitement of where we traveled.

We have motored over 1700 miles since leaving Sarasota, FL.  We have traveled the ICW on the east and west coast of Florida, across Lake Okeechobee, up The Chesapeake Bay, down the Delaware Bay, up the Atlantic Ocean and now the NY Harbor and entered the Hudson River.  How awesome is this.  Pinch myself.  Is this real??