June 7th, NYC to Northport, Long Island. We left Liberty Landing around 9:30 am, leaving time to stop at the fuel dock for a pump out, before we needed to catch the tide for Hell Gate on the East River, where the current runs 4 knots. It turns out we should have read the marina brochure, because they have a pump out boat that comes to your slip, but they came to the fuel dock for us.
The smoke from the Canadian wildfires was pretty thick, giving our ride up the East River a very post nuclear apoplectic feel to the journey. Cornell's campus in NYC still has no good signage facing Manhattan and yet a building three blocks away advertised their business on a very long door awning.
The smoke looked like a foggy day until you walked outside and smelled the wood smoke. We came into Huntington Harbour, but their was no space for anchoring and the marina in charge of the mooring balls was not answering us. We got in touch with them about 20 minutes later as we were rounding the corner for North Port, but they said they didn't have a mooring for a boat our size.
Northport did have a mooring ball, but when the lady on the phone learned that we could not see the smoke stacks on the shore, she had doubts that we would be able to find it. I guess she decided to give us an easier one because she then directed us to the only bright orange mooring ball in mooring field of a 50 white mooring balls. It was quite windy and there was current. We decided not to try to back up to the mooring ball and instead tried to pick up the bridle from the forward quarter on the boat where the railing was a couple feet closer to the water. Nancy had the 9 ft boat hook fully extended and grabbed the bridal, but the loops of the bridle were tied together and the hook jerked out of Nancy's hand and promptly sunk. Fortunately, we had a second boat hook, but it didn't solve how to get the connected loops in the hawse hole. Nancy brought it over the railing, but couldn't figure out how to untangle it into a bridle. The wind was not helpful. Jason had to do it an caught his finger in the process, luckily only bruising it. We have to admit there was much yelling involved and the slime on the bridle got the bow of the boat filthy. After hosing down the boat twice, we had dined on ham, mashed potatoes and peas.
June 8th Northport to Oyster Bay via Old Field
We left and visited Old Field, where Jason was born (see lighthouse to the right). They tore down the house his mom and father lived in and built a
giant black and glass house. We decided to spend the night at Oyster Bay, Long Island because it looked like it had a nice protected anchorage and there was bad weather in the forecast. Oyster Bay is surrounded by grand estates that reaffirmed the adage of the region being called the "Gold Coast". Everyone was on a mooring ball and with 5 ft tides, we thought it better to play it safe rather than sorry and grab a mooring ball. Nobody answered at the Marine Center that rented out the balls via Dockwa app. Jason and Nancy had an animated debate over which mooring ball to take, with Jason winning wanting to be closer in but on a smaller ball. Mooring went much better than the night before but we had to extend the mooring bridle with our own lines so that the wrap wouldn't be rubbed by the rough line of the bridle. We had a pleasant night on the boat. We had been trying to get Radar to use the pee pad on the back of the boat and he was being stubborn. He held it an impressive 30 hours before caving and using the pee pad with Nancy and Jason alternatively pleading with him to go. Whereas Radar would just sit down, many times on the pee pad, and look at us defiantly.
June 9th -Oyster Bay
We were both drained and exhausted from provisioning the boat and sightseeing in NY City, so we had a down day. Within 5 minutes of decided to relax, the marina called and asked us to move mooring balls, concerned about a storm coming in that afternoon. Jason found
it difficult to get out of the mindset of constantly fixing things and actually do nothing. Nancy had no such issues. We took Radar via dinghy to a great beach around the corner from the boat. There were lifeguard towers, so we thought it was public, but nobody was there on a Friday afternoon, so we wondered if it was okay for us to beach. Radar had a lot of fun, chasing birds and fetching the ball. The expected storm bypassed us.
Turns out that the mooring ball they moved us too was a little to short at low tide and our dinghy was hitting the empty mooring ball
behind us, making
us put the dinghy back on our platform. The
AC in the master cabin kept shutting down
for low pressure. Our service guy in Florida warned us that it was impossible to find AC repairmen in the Great Lakes and arranged for someone to meet us on the Hudson, but they couldn't get to us until the 11th.
June 10th Oyster Bay
Still tired, we decided to stay another night. Nancy took Radar by the marina boat shuttle to the town of Oyster Bay, which it turns out was having its annual Oyster Day festival, shutting down 3 of downtown streets with booths. It was very small town USA, they even had a dunking booth. Nancy enjoyed wandering through the town, especially happy that it had a rock shop. Radar got tons of attention and pets from of the festival goers. Nancy returned to the boat with pastries, sausage dogs, and a huge soft pretzel.
June 11th Oyster Bay, Long Island to Half Moon Marina, Hudson River
We left at 7 am to catch the tide returning through Hell Gate on the East River. We passed this massive blue and white ship that looked kind of like an Hospital Ship. Turns out it is an annex of Rikers Prison. Supposedly, inmates complain it is worse than the main prison. See collage to right with other weird NY City buildings).
The Hudson was on a different time schedule and wasn't going to turn favorable for another couple of hours. We stopped and fueled up and took more pictures at the Statue of Liberty, but were still an hour behind the tide. Jason was unable to stay at 6 miles per hours, so we went the entire 30 miles up slightly against the tide. The Hudson was beautiful even with a layer of smoke that had returned to NY. Its towering bluffs truly our magnificent. The wind picked up as we entered Half Moon Bay Marina, the tight entrance became more interesting as a 50 ft cabin cruiser was trying to exit at the same time. Fortunately, a loud guy from NJ was able to direct both boats to safety. There were more than a dozen looper boats at the marina and someone organized an evening get together.
Nancy attended and got lots of people's cards. She also got a ride to the grocery store for the next morning. Very important, since somehow we were already low on water and drinks, which are very heavy.
June 12th
Nancy arrived back with the groceries at the same time as the AC repairman showed up. We had a pressure leak. Unfortunately, they also spotted a more serious salt water leak in the engine compartment--Jason as been unable to find the source of the leak. He tightened some fittings up, so we will see if that solves it.
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