Advertisement
Published: November 27th 2009
Near the end of October, after weeks of motoring through gloomy (grey, cold, windy) weather we offically had our first GOOD DAY as we motored down the Hudson River from the Erie Canal. Early on we had the interesting expereince of being borded by the police and paperwork inspected. We were invited to continue motoring during the inspection but we opted to hover. The process was respectful and even reassuring.
The sun was finally shining as we blissfully arrived early in NY City, anchored out at the 79th Street Basin and prepared for a relaxed evening ashore in the famed city. Ah but reality slipped into another dimension 10 minutes after the dinghy was launched...
On the eastern shore of the Hudson River in upscale NY is an improbable and unintentionally retro boating club run by the city... bless their hearts. STRONG tides, currents and gale winds found a couple of dozen migrating sailbirds bopping up and down on the $25 mooring balls, doing all night anchor watches and nervously motoring a few yards to keep from being swept into the churning chaos of the Hudson River at night. Being too large for the balls, we had memorable night
of motoring to hold 3, yes three, dragging anchors. This caused us to reteat to dockside at first light, for a few more nights at the tune of $1.50/foot. And glad we were to be bumping, grinding and sleeping a little as the gale worked her way through her issues with NY, NY.
NY defintiely taught us that we can't esape the 'hurry up and wait' problem that we moaned about in our working world back home. When the weather is good you frantically try to make as many miles as possible, knowing that soon the tables will be turned. You'll be sidelined up a creek, if you're lucky, waiting for the next patch of friendlier/less ferocious wind.
While at the boat club we generated grateful spirits to queue up for one toilet, shower, washer and dryer with dozens of others, huddled around the office, flirting with wisps of wifi signals. This proved to be a great marketing boost for the Verizon outlet, where internet sticks and Blackberries were ultimately purchased a few blocks away.
An amazing piece of architecture was the circular stone restaurant and ampitheatre that you have to walk through to get to Broadway.
The upper story of this fascinating building was a busy traffic circle. Somebody had a great imagination to create this mingling space, still wide open to the public.
Our Manhattan experience was beyond positive, more like small, super-friendly town. Off duty bus drivers and marina workers delivered us to our destinations gratis at the end of their shifts. A West Marine store stayed open a few minutes for a frantic chart purchase. Shopping advice, boating info. and directions were given freely by perfect strangers. We can honestly say we did not have a bad moment!
Perhaps our biggest NY surprise was stumbling into the Halloween event at Times Square. After working all day, thousands of people showed up and sauntered about for hours in super costumes. We ducked into a Toys R Us store and bought silly hats to share a few laughs. Sorry, no pics.
While you think you are just waiting, of course life goes on. One morning when we stuck our heads out we were flabbergasted to see the mother of all warships ploughing by, escorted by a dozens of police, coast guard, and fire boats, as well as helicopters. The New York, which
Tides and current at 79th Street boat club
Gratefully hugging the dock and paying the price for a night's sleepwas partially built with steel reclaimed from the decimated World Trade Towers, had returned from it's first mission and did a full sail past, complete with troops at full attention, north and south on the Hudson.
The last picture is a special memory, Liana's Ransom, an adventure ship which belongs to the Tilley family travelling from Halifax to St. Martens. Thess amazing young troupers stepped up, after surviving 2 huge storms in the north Atlantic, to don costumes and fire canons as a backup to an equally colourful environmental advocacy ship, The Clearwater. Ginger was happy to go off for 2 days of visiting this family, doing hug therapy for folks missing their pets. We were inspired by these hearty souls and hope to meet them again in sunnier circumstances.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0248s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Elizabeth
non-member comment
Adventurers
WOW! You really are having an adventure, aren't you?! I'm so pleased for you and looking forward to hearing more. Your experiences are wedging very nicely into all my travel studies these days. Busy making Christmas and New year rentals on the cottages too. Life is good - even if we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. I have no idea if I'm sending this public or private so won't say anything too incriminating. I'm sure you two are just the right people to make the most out of every experience - great travelling buddies. And it sounds like Ginger is getting the knack of making friends while travelling too. Manhatten sounded great! Keep up the great work. Wonderful to get your stories! Love you - Elizabeth