| WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have never been to NYC by water, that alone was an experience.
The people we saw in Manhattan while motoring down the East River
were very friendly, most waved.
We spent the night of the second anchored east of Liberty and Ellis
Island, where we watched the dress rehearsal light show. We were
cleared out on the 3rd by the CG and we moved north of Ellis Is.
There were a LOT of boats, but nearly everyone was very careful
about anchoring and we didnt test our fenders once.
Some of the boats we saw in the harbor defy description, it looked
like the picture ads in the back of Yachting. The furthest US homeport
we saw was Honululu.
The OP Sail '86 looked better on TV than in person, but the fire
works had to be experienced first hand to be believed. Ellen
photographed the parade from the masttop with a 28-200mm zoom so
the pictures should be good.
Except for an amazing scum line on the hull the whole NYC/Liberty
visit was near perfect (the upper harbor gets a bit choppy when
the wind and tide oppose). We settled behind Ellis island, with
clear views of Liberty Is, Manhattan and Liberty Park for the evening
of the 4th. This turned out to be a very quiet spot (relatively)
where we could hear the Pops, see fireworks, and stop rocking.
We did a short stretch of the ICW from Fire Island Inlet to Shinnecock
Inlet on the way back to block. I can honestly recommend staying
out of there unless it is miserable outside. We grounded about
half a dozen times within what was supposed to be the channel. One
time we were about 20 yards north of a line between 2 bouys marking
the south edge of the channel, and ran aground. We veered south
and plowed about 15-20' of bottom before getting 'local' confirmation
that the channel was truely south of us. After another 20 minutes
and 10' I went out in the dingy to find the channel was in fact
about 40' north (so much for local knowledge). The other groundings
were momentary. During this part of the trip we were the only sail
boat around (this should tell you something). The bridge operators
were great though, treated us like the QE II.
The winds for the trip from NYC to Fire Island and Shinnecock to
Block Is. were West to North West and generally 15-20 kts. We had
the best sail of my life from Shinnecock to Block, where we averaged
7.5 kts for the trip, on a beam to broad reach.
Walt (if they dont do it again for a while its OK with me)
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