A Tale of Two Chemists: Passage through New York

Passage through New York ... 3^rd October 2012

Fog wasn’t what we were expecting this morning, but there it was. Fortunately we didn’t need to set out early, the favorable current wouldn’t start at Throg’s Neck Bridge until 11:50 am. We spent some of the morning hours trying (once again) to catch a fish with the same result as before. You know that definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

By the time we were ready to set out the fog seemed to be lifting. We found ourselves following another sailboat out of Manhasset harbor and toward the Throg’s Neck Bridge. As we approached the bridge we caught sight of the first barge of the day. It seemed to be hanging around waiting for the current change. Once it started to move though it was soon out of sight. Looking astern, I could spy another barge approaching. This one finally caught up to us near to North Brother Island. It seemed to me that the river wasn’t very wide at that point…Eventually, we slowed down to let that bad boy get past us.

At Hell Gate we really started to get the current pushing us along adding at least 2 knots to our speed. There was plenty of traffic all the way but basically the crossing of the East River was uneventful.

As we approached the Battery, the visibility started to drop. I thought that we were going to get a shower. On went the foul weather gear, the expected shower never developed what we got was more fog. This got progressively thicker making the transit of the Upper Bay pretty exciting. The radar was showing lots of boats sending us into spasms of anxiety until we realized that they were all anchored! Eventually the GPS indicated that we were 0.2 mile from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, but nothing could be seen. We were on top of it before we got the first glimpse. Thankfully there weren’t any footings near to us.

From the Narrows to Atlantic Highlands, we basically saw almost nothing. We tried to avoid the main shipping lanes but at one point Mike said we were very close to another boat. We made a sharp turn and out came the compressed air horn, this prompted a blast from the vessel that finally emerged from the fog, way too close to us. It turned out to be a high-speed ferry—pretty scary - apparently they also choose not to use the shipping lanes. Now we are anchored at Atlantic Highlands, trying to work out a plan for the journey along the New Jersey coast. It looks like very little wind early in the day so our current plan is to leave mid afternoon and try to sail overnight and into Friday all the way to Cape May. If this works out we won't be posting blog tomorrow!

Gloria