Our last day of the summer adventure, a trip down the East River we’ve done dozens of times, what could go wrong? We left with enough time to comfortably make it to Hell Gate – a spot on the East River you never want to go through with the current against you. Unfortunately the forecast of northerly 10 knots turned into a reality of 20 knots on our nose, and our slow progress left us at Hell Gate at almost complete slack tide. That wasn’t a problem, but the current was now going to turn against us going down the river. With our under-powered engine trying to push a lot of boat weight, it was a slooooooow run down to the Battery. Given the nice weather though, it really was still a fun ride.
But we weren’t done yet. It’s always a challenge to get across New York Harbor before the Verrazano Bridge with all the big ships coming in and out of the harbor. Today wound up being especially nerve wracking. We found ourselves in the middle of the channel with big guys both coming in and going out simultaneously.
This ship was on our port side….
And this ship was on our starboard side at the same time…
Luckily it was broad daylight, there was no bad weather, both ships could see us clearly, and I learned that there’s plenty of room under the bridge, no matter how scary it looks in the moment.
The wind was still on our nose in Raritan Bay, so we got no sailing done all day, but we did make it back to our mooring just as the sun was setting. And another successful & wonderful season accomplished!
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