After having all the fun that we could have on City Island, the Bronx, we pulled away from the marina and began the trip south through New York Harbor. We were underway at 0830 -- finally a sunny day with a fine forecast, 72 degrees and calm seas.
Twenty-six minutes later we arrived a the Throg’s Neck Bridge…the beginning of the chute down the east side of Manhattan.
At 0916 we sped under the Bronx Whitestone Bridge and by 0928 we were at the end of runway 22 Alpha at LaGuardia. Planes lift to the skies with alarming frequency.
Riker’s Island came into view to port at 0940 but we were zipping by at a jaw dropping 9.5 knots, so there was no time to gawk at the inmates. Finally, the door to Hell Gate is straight ahead and we are nudged onward through this most treacherous part of the journey. Hell Gate is the name given to the confluence of the East River and Long Island Sound -- in which the currents ebb and flow in exactly the opposite directions. The tides and currents through the “Gate” run swift and strong and timing is everything for anything smaller than a battleship. Naturally, Captain Bill had strategized and carefully plotted our passage through this particular channel and we were A OK, if a little dazzled, by our 10.3 knot pace.
New York City looks different from water level. Take a look from the point of view of Let’s Dance.
We pass to the east of Governors Island and the glorious Statue of Liberty just two days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Manhattan and America changed forever.
Many bridges, barges, ferries and tugs later, Let’s Dance, the Love Me Tender and her crew slip under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into the Lower Bay and then south into the waters of New Jersey.
The weather is fine, the seas are cooperative and Let’s Dance is on the way home.
Let's Dance.....Carol & Bill
