September 10 and 11, Monday and Tuesday Great Kills, New York

Monday dawned hot and cloudy with a little fog. We followed "Restless" out of Liberty Harbor a little after high tide to hit the narrows with a little push behind us. At max. the tide here runs at five knots with standing waves so attention to tides is critical. They won't be all that important to us again until Cape May where there are two bridges with 55 feet clearance... plus we want to ride the tide up the Delaware Bay, so a departure a little after low tide is important.

After dodging anchored ships in the upper harbor we ran into some very dense fog just beyond the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. We have not put the radar reflector back up since the mast stepping and although Mike had checked our radar in the morning, when we turned it on it was not working. So, we followed closely behind "Restless", listening to the ship horns and fog horns. It remained foggy and gray for the rest of the day. We arrived at Great Kills Harbor which is packed with mooring balls, and anchored on the north end in front of a park. It was a short day but the forecast for the next few days looks iffy for our first open ocean run.

We have developed alternator problems and spent the rest of the day testing and diagnosing. Voltages seem to be fine except for the out-put so the alternator need to be pulled and fixed. Bummer.

Tuesday.

So, we have turned off any non-essential electrical items and run the generator on occasion. We woke to rain on Tuesday, but when it stopped for a minute, Mike headed for town to look for a new regulator, even though we are quite sure that is not the problem. He came back with ice and a regulator and an attitude. At the first place he stopped, he explained his problem and he was told no one could tie a dinghy up unless they were a member of the club. He was told the same thing at the next place, but the guy let him tie up because it was Tuesday, and not much was going on. He says it's not much of a town anyway, but they certainly are not very friendly!

We had thunderstorms in the afternoon and lots of wind and rain. Steve and Carol from "Restless" called and invited us over for cocktails. We are trying to figure out a good time to head out for the next leg of the trip. During our conversation, Steve mentioned that he wished he had hooked up his radar before our trip yesterday! We were following him closely because we assumed he had his radar on-good thing we didn't know any better. We made it here safely, so it all worked out.

Wednesday

Too windy to travel today. We got restless and decided to go to shore for a walk. We stopped by to see if Steve and Carol wanted to go along, and we all walked into town to pick up a few things. Their dinghy is on their foredeck partially inflated, so we pick them up and visit their boat because our dinghy is easy to lower and raise. Hmm, reminds me of a certain Canadian couple who never had to get their dinghy off their foredeck on the ICW...clever ploy...