Eventually, we loaded up and headed out. Vicky's colleague, Andrew, and his husband, Rafael, joined us. They live in Manhattan and took the train down to Keyport Saturday morning. Vicky picked them (and some sushi) up while I finished cleaning up Seas The Day and we headed out. Andrew and Raf had brought along a fine bottle of campaign and while I don't normally drink while underway, with the sushi it was one of the most incredible spreads we've had on board (so yes, I did sip a little).
We found some wind and hoisted the mainsail and guessing that our bottom was just cleaned, we made a nice 5 to 6 knots without even trying. We headed out across Raritan Bay towards the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
Now the mast on Seas The Day is a bit over 50 ft, and the clearance under the bridge is about 250 ft, so there's plenty of space, but each time as we go under and I look up, well the perspective is a bit disturbing. But we made it through and continued sailing into NY Harbor, looking at all the different ship traffic as we headed up along the belt parkway on the Brooklyn side.
The wind was behind us and about a mile or so past the bridge, I decided that rather than risking an uncontrolled jibe, we would do a jibe, sail across the harbor and continue on with the wind in a better position. That was the plan.
It was not executed well. For some reason... perhaps the fact that we were under mainsail alone, possibly because the current was behind us... I really don't know... but we ended up spinning around 180 degrees and suddenly in irons. Not elegant and furthermore, we couldn't get out. So drifting towards Brooklyn (and all the rocks along the parkway) we tried to get the mainsail in...
... and the winding rope came out of it's track. (Sorry, I don't have photos of this.) Fortunately, I had read that particular manual and took a winch handle forward and cranked the main back into the mast. (Having a furling main is great most of the time... that was one time it wasn't.) We then motored on the last mile or two to our marina.
I'm always amazed at the sheer volume and variety of boat traffic around the Statue of Liberty.
We arrived (helped by Liberty Landing's fabulous dock hand again), said goodbye to Andrew and Raf and got them headed to the water taxi back to Manhattan. We then had a fabulous (if long) dinner at Maritime Parc (the restaurant attached to the marina office). And we headed down to the end of the pier to photograph the city.
The following morning (and late the night before) Vicky decided to tackle the remaining birds!t on the bimini cover, even at the risk of wearing away all the fabric. She did a wonderful job and then decided to clean the boat as well. I'll admit here that we had a bit of a disagreement. Vicky can spend hours scrubbing a perfectly clean boat. We don't see eye to eye on that, but it does sparkle when she is finished. Our marina neighbors even noticed.
Finally, we headed out knowing that we had to get all the way back to Keyport, then to Delaware, so with the wind on our nose the whole time, we motored, taking a few min to grab a nice photo of the Statue in the morning light.
We then headed across the harbor, under the bridge and while heading back across the Raritan Bay even let Otto steer for a while.
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