The Big Apple

July 13, 2011 – After 37 years of marriage the most romantic way to celebrate was a ten hour, 90-mile run up the coast of New Jersey?!?! 

Bringing up 125 feet of mud-caked anchor chain took longer than anticipated especially since the anchor was fouled with a large flap of maroon boat canvas.  We still managed to get underway by 6AM from Atlantic City.  The Atlantic Ocean was good to us – gentle swells and sunny skies all the way to Asbury Park where, despite the chances of precipitation being only 20%, it rained hard enough for us to button up the canvas at the helm.  The rain was short-lived.

We have come to expect conditions at Sandy Hook to be less than comfortable so we were not surprised by the gusty north winds and rolling seas here.  And unlike an infamous day in Spring 2002, there was no fog to contend with so the Admiral did not feel an overwhelming need to down several Margaritas at the end of the cruise!

Rounding Sandy Hook we decided to forego a stop at Atlantic Highlands and pointed Lazy W across Lower Bay to Great Kills Harbor on Staten Island.  This protected, tree-lined cove was bespeckled with mooring balls and sailboats.  We gingerly picked our way through them before dropping anchor, breaking out the Margaritas, and celebrating our uneventful trek up the coast – oh yeah, and our anniversary too!  Love ya, Captain!

We spent another day in Great Kills Harbor and not because the folks at Richmond County Yacht Club were warm and welcoming – they were not!  RCYC manages the field of mooring balls and since we could not raise them on arrival via the VHF to secure one, we were not greeted warmly at their ‘for guests only’ dinghy dock.  We quickly ran in for a bag of ice and headed across the harbor to Gateway National Recreation Area run by the U.S. National Park Service for ice cream and Italian ice – exactly as Frank remembered it from his childhood days in Brooklyn (except for the price!).

Wanting to get an early start to ride the favorable currents in New York Harbor, we were up with the sun.  The anchor chain was muddy and littered with fishing lines and hooks.  No sooner had I secured the anchor on the roller at the bow pulpit when the starboard engine sputtered and stalled.  The anchor was put out once more while Frank scrambled below to change the fuel filter.   He has become quite adept at this task and we were ready to go in no time – except that now the engine would not start.  Despite repeated efforts by the Captain and the Admiral, she refused to turn over.  Finally Frank concluded that the solenoid was faulty but he managed to jump start her and we left Great Kills Harbor 90 minutes after our original attempt.

Wind and weather were great!  We encountered some impressive commercial traffic on the move at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

 

Nordrhine southbound under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge

which connects Staten Island and Brooklyn

New York Harbor lived up to its reputation as one of the world’s busiest!  Numerous Staten Island ferries and New York Waterway taxies spewing great fantails of water, plenty of go-faster boats kicking up huge wakes, dozens of anchored barges, Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island tour boats, Celebrity and Holland America cruise ships, fireboats, Coast Guard vessels – it’s all here to ratchet up the anxiety levels of newly arrived pleasure boaters, Us!

The Staten Island ferry, John F. Kennedy

To our starboard side the Wallenius Wilhelmsen was keeping pace with Lazy W until its captain radioed a request that we slow down so he could turn to port ahead of us and make way to Bayonne.  Who could argue with that behemoth?
 

And then you pass the Statue of Liberty, an awesome sight with her torch rising 300 feet above the water as a beacon of entry into the free world. 

Across the river, the Freedom Tower is finally rising over the tightly packed skyscrapers of lower Manhattan.

We continued north along the Hudson River to Weehawken, New Jersey and the Lincoln Harbor Yacht Center.  On previous visits here we found the wakes from all the commercial traffic bounced so frequently through the marina that you felt seasick while tied up at your slip!  But a recent advertisement in a cruising guide proclaimed that ‘we’ve tamed the Hudson’ with a new seawall designed by Stevens Institute of Technology and that LHYC was now ‘calm and quiet.’  Well, it wasn’t!  New rubber collars around the pilings had quieted the shrill noises that had accompanied the rise and fall of the floating docks but boats still bobbed and quaked viciously throughout the marina.  But the view across the Hudson of midtown Manhattan is priceless.  We stayed three days!

 

Frank did a great job (as usual) fighting the currents in the marina and getting Lazy W into a narrow slip.  He was still quite miffed by our GPS issues, our engine starter problem, our fuel problem, and a faulty knee joint.  The updated chip for our GPS was waiting for us at the marina office – too bad that it was already outdated and, though it solved its startup problem, it created a host of others.  A revision was on its way!  Further troubleshooting determined that the engine starter problem was most likely due to operator error and a finicky key that sometimes slips from its required position thus preventing the engine from starting.  The fuel problem may be due to lack of marine grade hoses that may need replacement.  The faulty knee joint is due to old age and will have to be tolerated for now.

We were glad to spend our first evening near the Big Apple in the company of our friend, Jim Rich.  Dinner at the Chart House, cocktails on Lazy W – a great night.  As requested Jim arrived with a grease gun so that the next morning the Captain could grease the Admiral’s creaky anchor windlass.  Jim took us for provisions in Hoboken before he left for Long Island.  Thanks Jim!

Our chores somewhat completed, it was time for some sightseeing.  We hopped on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail to Newport/Pavonia (near where Jon and Nancy lived before their move to Thailand) where we switched to the Path train to the World Trade Center stop.  Nearly ten years after 9/11, Freedom Tower is rising from the WTC site.  It now has steel reaching to the 72^nd floor and glass wall panels reaching to the 44^th floor.  When completed the tower will have 104 floors and will be 1,776 feet high, including the 400-foot spire.  Publishing giant Condé Nast has already signed a 25-year lease to occupy a third of the commercial space – the 21^st through 40^th floors.

 

 There is plenty of history to be appreciated in Lower Manhattan.  We paused at the New York Stock Exchange.  On this site in 1792, twenty-four brokers began trading shares on the sidewalk on Wall Street.  The present building was constructed in 1903.

 

At the corner of Pearl Street and Broad Street sits Fraunces Tavern, the oldest surviving structure in Manhattan.  George Washington and the officers of the Continental Army spent a lot of time conferring in this building which is not only home to a restaurant and tavern but also houses two floors of Revolutionary War artifacts, paintings and antiques.  In 1783, George Washington bade farewell to his officers in the tavern’s ‘long room.’  We joined a tour and spent a few hours relearning our American history.

From 1892-1924, the immigration station on Ellis Island processed over 12 million immigrants seeking entry and a new life in America.  In 1954, Ellis Island was abandoned and fell into disrepair.  Fundraising efforts in the 1980’s by Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca, himself a son of Italian immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, helped fuel its restoration.  Today the minaret-topped, castle-like structure has been restored to its 1900’s appearance to give the visitor a sense of what greeted the hopeful immigrants who reached our shore after long and arduous journeys aboard crowded steamships.

A visit to Ellis Island had been on my bucket list for years so we boarded a ferry from Liberty State Park early on Sunday morning.  A park ranger led a tour through Registry Hall giving us a step-by-step overview of the entry process – the medical review, the legal questions, the money exchange.  One poignant exhibit, Treasures from Home, displays some of the possessions that the immigrants deemed necessary to bring from their homeland – everything from linens to rolling pins, tools of their trade to teddy bears, china, photographs and sewing machines.

Ellis Island

The ferry to Ellis Island also stops at Liberty Island where the 151-foot Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) stands.  Given to the United States by France to honor the American ideals of freedom and liberty, she has been standing watch over New York Harbor since 1886.  Millions of tourists visit her each year.

Another packed tour boat arrives at Liberty Island

Whenever we plan for an extra early departure something inevitably happens to thwart our plan.  July 18th would prove to be no exception...