29 October 2016 | Georgia, USA
29 October 2016 | Georgia, USA
08 October 2016 | Brunswick, Georgia, USA
07 October 2016 | Hotel on West Side of Hwy I-95, Brunswick, GA, USA
07 October 2016 | Brunswick, Georgia, USA
06 October 2016 | Brunswick, Georgia, USA
05 October 2016 | Brunswick, Georgia, USA
04 October 2016 | Photo off Outer Banks near Cape Lookout, North Carolina.
27 September 2016 | Piankatank River, Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, USA
22 September 2016 | Current Position - Sassafras River, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA
16 September 2016 | Orient, Long Island, New York, USA
11 September 2016 | Ebenecook Harbor near Boothbay Harbor, Maine, USA
07 September 2016 | Penobscot Bay, Maine, USA
05 September 2016 | Penobscot Bay, Maine, USA
04 September 2016 | North Haven, Vinalhaven, Maine, USA
28 August 2016 | Castine, Maine, USA
27 August 2016 | Belfast, Maine, USA
12 August 2016 | Mount Washington, New Hampshire, USA
06 August 2016 | Canada/USA Border Crossing
04 August 2016 | La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada
I Fought the Law and ............
27 September 2012 | New York, New York, USA
Vicki - 23 deg Sunny
We were all looking forward to seeing New York City today so we left Long Island at a respectable time after calculating the tide to be 1 knot through the Hells Gate area which is at the junction of the three rivers, the Harlem, East and Hudson Rivers surrounding New York. Sauntering along the East River taking pictures and being innocent tourists, we saw that the tide wasn’t one knot, it was now a whopping 5 knots with us with rapids and whirlpools at Hells Gate. We looked at our instruments and with one engine on idle, we were doing a speed of 9.5 knots speed over ground. We were flying along and trying to keep the boat under control while staying out of the way of ferries crossing. We suddenly saw New York Police Department boats with flashing blue lights ahead patrolling the water near the United Nations Building. Oh geez Louise, what now!
The radio crackles and we strain to hear what they are saying and through heavy static we hear the word Vanish so yes, someone wants to talk to us and talk to us NOW. At the same time, a bilge light in the engine room lights up. Crikey. How typical and what good timing. Within a minute, we have a Coast Guard vessel alongside with four gun toting Officers boarding our vessel. This looks a bit serious. Jake had to help the Officers on board while Maynard kept Vanish at a reasonable speed so the Coast Guard could match our speed and transfer their men to our aft deck. Jake then quickly ran down to the engine room (followed closely by two of the Officers) to check the bilge. I escorted the other two Officers up to the bridge to meet Maynard. It didn’t look like they were here for just a cup of tea.
We were inspected and interviewed and phone calls made to Customs to verify our identities from our Drivers Licences, where we’d come from and where we were going, and all documents noted and recorded. Just read the blog boys! We learned that President Obama had been in town for a day or two earlier in the week and the General Assembly of the United Nations were meeting for the rest of the week so security was on high alert. We just happened to be passing through at an inopportune time. In fact, Jake had telephoned VTS before we arrived at Hells Gate and was advised that we needed to go under a 40 foot high bridge on the east channel of the East River as the west channel was blocked due to a meeting at the United Nations. We had no idea that we’d be targeted in such a way but since 9/11, the authorities are extremely edgy and our foreign flagged vessel seems to draw way too much attention in the USA. It gets old after a while. After over an hour of motoring up and down the East River being interrogated and being shadowed by the Coast Guard vessel with more blue lights flashing while all the above took place, we were finally given a tick of approval which I duly photographed for posterity. Drinking and driving is against the law, otherwise I think we would all have been plastered by the time we got to the Statue of Liberty.