Still trying to break free....

...of the NYC area. Not that it's bad. In fact it's been quite hospitable for the past 11 days :

 

- First at Port Washington, in Manhasset bay on Long Island, from last Monday until this Tuesday.

- Then for a night behind Lady Liberty, at New Jersey's Liberty State Park.

- Now for 2, probably 3 nights at Atlantic Highlands NJ, behind Sandy Hook.

 

The problem is that these stays are keeping us from our main goal - Moving South! Up to now the culprit has been NE winds that make the passage outside of the Jersey shore inadvised. Today the winds finally shifted to the south and are turning to come from the west, and that's just what we want to knock down the ocean swells, but now the problem is gonna be too much west wind, as tomorrow they predict 20-30 knot W winds and have small craft advisories posted. So we'll likely hang here until Saturday.

So we are still in 'make the best of it' mode, and that's been helped by the nice locations we've been. I've already written some about Port Washington NY, and we did enjoy our 8 nights on a transient mooring there. On Tuesday morning we finally untied from that mooring, went to the town dock to pump out our holding tank, next to a marina to fill the water tank and buy 2.5 gallons of gas (for generator and dinghy outboard), then out and under the Throgs Neck Bridge to be flushed down the East River, with 5 knots of current pushing us through the Hell's Gate section.

Around the south tip of Manhatten, past Lady Liberty (which had just reopened thanks to NY State money), and into a small anchorage just behind Liberty Island. We walked the NJ state park there, which is quite large and has great views of LL's butt and Manhatten Island.

Wednesday we left at a leisurely 10 am and rode the tidal current down upper NY Harbor, out through Verrazano Narrows, then across lower NY Harbor to Atlantic Highlands NJ, where we presently swing on our anchor behind their breakwater. This place was creamed by Sandy last October but has made an amazing restoration effort, with all new deluxe marina facilities. Ah, the power of federal money.

 

Today we had lunch with my Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim, who live in nearby Shrewsbury and drove up to see us. It was great to see them and catch up on family doings.

 

Original plan was to head out tomorrow, 4 miles north to round Sandy Hook, then down the Jersey shore, but as mentioned above strong W winds tomorrow will likely postpone that until Saturday, so here we wait. There's a farmers market here tomorrow so we'll make the best of that.

 

It's all good.

 

 

 

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