We had never been down the East River or transited the famous Hell's Gate so I was keen to get some local knowledge before departing Port Washington. As it turns out we met a couple on the harbour shuttle who have done the trip in both directions for several years. The advice was to leave our anchorage one hour before high tide, this would put us at the entrance to the river at high tide. Long Island Sound is about 100 miles long and when the tide ebbs the East River is the only exit point for the west end of the sound, causing extremely strong and at times dangerous currents. Needless to say it commands a lot of respect.

The entrance to the East River is spanned by the Throgs Neck bridge, the first of 12 or 13 bridges; as we approached it our ground speed increased from 6 knots to about 8.5. At this point the river is close to a mile wide making for a stable ride. We had a chance to take in the sights as we motored by LaGuardia airport and Riker's Island prison, but when we made the 90 degree turn to run parallel to Manhattan things changed dramatically. The entrance to the Hell's Gate section is marked appropriately by Hell's Gate Island as the river narrows to a few hundred yards. In no time our ground speed increased to 12.5 knots and would remain there until we crossed under the Brooklyn Bridge. Obviously Otto was given the day off as I constantly worked the wheel to keep Dagny on course, it was amazing to see small standing waves in some sections as well as rapids along the edges. Unfortunately, I never had much of a chance to take in the sights as small water taxis crisscrossed the river and crowded tour boats steamed by keeping me on my toes. As we steamed by the UN building a helicopter was landing adding to the already deafening noise of the city. It was very impressive to see him land on a floating pier at the edge of the river while he couldn't have been more then 100 feet from the concrete wall! Sometimes you wonder what people are thinking, when we were in one of the strongest sections of current we met a guy in a 30 sailboat motoring against the tide, actually at that point he wasn't making any headway. Before we knew it we were spit out the bottom of the river at The Battery and had a relaxing ride as we rode the ebb tide the rest of the way to Great Kills Harbour.

Today's picture is a sight that never fails to impress.