Off to Great Kills
26 September 2008
Now before you think Judy and I have gone on a big game safari, Great Kills is a harbour on Staten Island. Kills, I am told is Dutch for river (Harry, Henny, Mike, is this correct?).
There is unsettled weather predicted for the next several days with fairly high winds and big seas so we won't be able to transit the New Jersey shore but also, staying at the 79th street Yacht Basin would be very uncomfortable. So we cast off around 9:00 to venture back down the Hudson, towards the end of Manhattan but then out past Brooklyn towards Staten Island. The same omelette of boats greeted us but this time we are much more confident as we wend our way through and past many zippy passenger ferries, barges, Staten Island Ferries, large tankers, barges, and just a few pleasure vessels. We pass under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge which I had run across some twenty plus years ago when I ran the New York City Marathon.
It was very pleasant and this would have been a short trip so we decide to sail for a while. So we kick around sailing in 10 knots of wind - very relaxed conditions. We know that the weather will turn snotty later today so we'll probably be storm stayed for a while.
Great Kills Harbour is very protected and there are several marinas. We pick up a mooring provided (at a cost of course) by the Richmond County Yacht Club. We then go into to "town" to explore and pick up a few provisions.
We have a funny contact with a friendly and helpful lady who we ask for directions to the grocery store. She asks us if are visiting and when we reply we're on our boat, her reply was, innocently, "where's the water?" (remember this is Staten ISLAND). Anyway Judy had a good laugh.