Mother Nature was against us visiting the deli for breakfast. A strong downpour and wind gusts to 23 knots didn’t make the trade off of a wet dinghy ride to shore to have someone else make breakfast.... we enjoyed ours inside our dry warm boat. As forecasted, most of the rain let up around 10:30, just in time for our 10:45 departure to enter the East River just as the tide was changing.
The wind was cold out of the north about 14, gusting to the low 20’s, so our ride wasn’t anything like the sunny early morning trip we enjoyed on the ride up. The UN General Assembly is in session this week, so that means they close the west channel of the East River.... who knew? Well, the guys in the patrol boats with big guns did! They were very polite on the radio and directed traffic to the East River’s east channel on the east side of Roosevelt Island. Nice they had a planned detour in place, but this one included a low bridge, so there was a slight wait for it to open for us and a few other sail boats. From the radio chatter, everyone is headed for the Boat Show in Annapolis.
We decided to go on the east side of Governor’s Island to avoid some of the traffic, mainly high speed ferries zipping everywhere. They always gave us room (or maybe avoided hitting us), but between their wake and the wind, it wasn’t the best ride. In the mooring field for the barges, it paid off to stay alert, many were being moved by smaller tugs, but it was hard to tell which were stationary and which were being moved. One tug captain advised us to cut behind him just before he swung a barge around into our path.... we liked our early Sunday morning trip up in June, we had the whole place to ourselves.
We refueled in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, next to Sandy Hook. We took on 12.9 gallons of fuel for 17 hours running time... better than I anticipated. We anchored behind the breakwater at Atlantic Highlands and went into town for dinner. We ate at the Gaslight Grill, great food and great beer selection. We couldn’t help visiting the Carton Brewery in town. NJ law says you have to take a tour at a brewery before sampling the merchandise, so we took a quick tour and had a couple small samples.... good, not great. We dinghied back to the boat and went to bed early so we could depart at sunrise. The breakwater helped us get a nice quiet sleep.