We had a pleasant ride down the East River, through New York City. We were a little ahead of schedule for when we wanted to get to Hell Gate for the tide to change so we turned off the motor and put up some sails instead. There wasn’t a lot of wind so we sailed very slowly past LaGuardia Airport and Rikers Island, New York City’s main prison. I got to watch the planes as they landed and took off for a while. When we finally got to Hell Gate, which has a reputation for having very strong currents, we entered just as two large ships were coming in the other direction. No problem though, we were motoring again by then. There was plenty of room for all of us and the tide was at slack water.

The city looks beautiful from the water. The picture above, that Bill took of Manhattan, looks like it should be on a post card! We went through at rush hour and we could see that the traffic was horrible. Another reason we don’t miss having jobs in the city! We had some great views of the Statue of Liberty and of the many bridges that go over the East River.

New York was a lot of fun to go through. It didn’t seem like there were as many ferry boats this year as there were last year but we did get in the way of at least three of the Staten Island Ferries. The captain of one called us on the VHF radio to tell us which way she would go around us. I was impressed it was a woman captain. She said “See you on two whistles”. Luckily Bill knew that that meant she would pass us on our port side. He replied “Roger that.. two whistles”. It’s always interesting on the water, especially in New York Harbor!