New York, New York

An early rise this morning – and surprisingly not too much grumpiness... Manhasset at dawn / sunrise was truly spectacular. The water was like glass, and the fish seemed to be having a high jump contest ... hundreds of them constantly jumping and splashing! Motoring out of the harbour we passed Princess K (the second!), a gorgeous super-yacht which apparently is 41 meters long! Just slightly larger than us ... and maybe slightly more plush ...

There was no wind at that hour, so we motored under the Throgs Neck bridge. Saw lots of planes taking off from La Guardia on our port side, and immediately after the airport Riker Island Correctional Facility, which is absolutely enormous... They have a huge fleet of buses and some boats, all marked with the word “CORRECTION” on the side... and directly across the river is a prison boat, which presumably holds the overflow “clients”...!

On downriver between South Brother and North Brother islands – there’s a beautiful old ruin on the northern island, completely overgrown, with a huge tree growing through the middle of it, which apparently was an old quarantine hospital where Typhoid Mary stayed.

Just as we approached the final bridge before the infamous Hell Gate, who came and passed us on our starboard side other than Princess K! She was moving significantly faster than us, and presumably the owners had enjoyed a nice breakfast before leaving Manhasset to catch up. A lady was on the top deck in what appeared to be a cocktail dress!!! Very vulgar really - we wait until much later in the day to dress for dinner on Dinah ...

So finally through Hell Gate (with the tide running with us as per the navigation plan) and down the east side of Manhattan, under the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. The Queen Mary is in harbour – we might ask her to give us a tow across that Atlantic on Sunday! And then of course the lovely Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ... What a unique way to see NY City - it really was quite an experience!!!

We’re now in Liberty Landing marina where we’ll be based until Sunday. We plan to do some touristy things, but there is also some serious work to be done to ready the boat for another Atlantic crossing. Jim and Tricia have kindly already started work on the first provisioning list (the “heavy and non perishable” list...) for us, so we can start to stack the boat before the weekend. Will keep you posted on our preparations...