NY Harbor Trip

Vicky came back from China and we had a couple of weeks off from work together, so we decided to head back into NY harbor for a few days (mostly using Seas The Day as a movable hotel room).

However, the trip almost didn't happen.  The night before our planned departure I was cooking some chicken breasts and encountered a wave of a different sorts - hot cooking oil.  The result was a deep second degree burn on my inner wrist.  While we could have self-treated, I decided prudence was the better path and we delayed a day so I could see the doc and confirm things were as OK as they could be.  I'll spare you the gross photos that Doc gets to see.

DAY 1  

So instead of Monday, it was Tuesday when we took lunch aboard Seas The Day and headed out across the Raritan Bay.  We make this trip at least once each year (this year we did it twice).  Tuesday was probably the coolest day in a long time and we were actually bundled up quite a bit.  Wind was in the high teens and there were white caps on the bay making it a bit rough.

Vicky had just returned from China and it was the middle of the night for her.  I'm sure the rocking helped her sleep a little bit.

I encountered a tanker crossing the channel... these always gets the right of way.

After going through Hoffman Narrows, we turn north under the Verazzano bridge and with the wind no longer on my nose, we could pull out a sail and sail into NY Harbor.  Once in NY Harbor, we usually encounter all sorts of marine traffic.

Eventually we sailed in front of Miss Liberty.  I always try to take her portrait.  This year a shaft of sunlight hit her just as the clouds were clearing.  It seemed like an apt metaphor for this year in general.

We then rounded the buoy right after the NJ Train Station just north of Ellis Island and soon we were home for the next few days at Liberty Landing Marina.  We tied up and headed to Liberty House restaurant for a post cruise feast.

DAY 2

We awoke after a night of rain to the clouds lingering over Manhattan.  Later in the day it was supposed to clear up so we took the ferry across the Hudson, having lunch at a nice place overlooking the river.  Later we headed up to the Met and toured some of their galleries.

Rather than our typical fight over who had to clean the boat, we engaged the services of a boat detailer.  He texted us the photo below to let us know their work was finished. As we came back to the dock, Seas The Day gleamed!

John later joined us for dinner at Maritime Parc (our favorite restaurant here).

DAY 3

Today was a relaxing day.  We lounged around the marina most of the morning, then took the ferry across the Hudson, where we found a lovely park in Battery Park City.  Vicky had a fashion fitting up in NoHo and I read my Kindle and fooled around on some of the software I'm responsible for at work while I waited on her.  We came back and had a simple dinner on board (cheese, crackers and fruit), and enjoyed the evening.

Day 4

The fourth day was Maggie's day.  Maggie is Vicky's childhood friend and we usually try and include her on a boating excursion each year (here, here and here).  We started the day by taking the ferry across the Morris canal to Jersey City for a nice relaxing lunch, then later headed out for a tour of the harbor before another dinner at Maritime Parc.

After seeing Maggie off, we had some quality time reading in the cockpit enjoying the moonlight and later reading in the berth.

DAY 5

All good things come to an end.  Today was a day to get some fuel, get rid of some Sh!t (literally - a pump out of our holding tank), and head back.  This time we had the wind on the nose the whole way south through NY Harbor, but after reaching the bridge, we turned west and had a fabulous day of sailing all the way across Raritan Bay.

The sailing was perfect with 10 to 12 knot winds and a beam reach making for much more pleasant sailing than the trip out!

After a drink at the KYC bar, and dinner with John at Nemo's in Keyport, we drove down the turnpike and was greeted by the full moon.

Gotta Get a Day in Somehow with this Weather. (Also... Intuvoing on the Water)

Saying the weather has been "unsettled" lately is an understatement.

Yesterday, I didn't even try to get to Keyport... in Delaware we had a cycle every few hours - drenching thunderstorms followed by beautiful sunshine followed by drenching thunderstorms.  It was supposed to be better today, but my three different weather sources (Accuweather, Sailflow and Wind) didn't seem to agree.

Still, I needed to refuel (getting ready for Vicky to get back home), and was getting sick of sitting at home.  I've made more than one trip up the turnpike only to turn around... what's another one?

I did the Wawa thing to get some lunch and stopped at Pedersens for diesel and headed out the KYC dock.  I noticed that for a Sunday in the summer, the place was deserted.  The launch captains said the weather was keeping folks away.  The captains were debating whether we would get thunderstorms at 1:00PM (I arrived around 10:00AM - I know that as a sailor I'm expected to use 24hr times, but I never picked that up.) There was an ominous bank of clouds hanging out over Staten Island, but I decided to take the launch anyway.  I needed to at least get the fuel in the  tank.

Sailboats don't use a lot of fuel, so you always have to put in fuel treatment to keep it from going bad.  These days, that's the most spill-prone part of the operation.  The jerry cans have all sorts of safety features that prevent spills (and make the refueling extremely slow).  Nevertheless, I keep a small absorbent pad handy for the inevitable few drops.

Keyport had gorgeous weather... but all around there were clouds maybe a few dozen miles away.  Despite the clouds, I threw off the mooring lines and motored out for a bit.  Mostly to mix the fuel and treatment from the sloshing of being underway.

It was a nice little outing while staying close to KYC, just in case.

The next few photos need a bit of context.  In my real life, I do inbound marketing for the software aspects of the GC instruments my company builds.  That means that I work with the customers to understand what they want, and then write requirements that go onto the software guys who in turn write the code.

Yes... before everyone posts this clip, allow me.  I literally have THIS GUY'S position in my company.  

(Hopefully I have better people skills.)

So one interesting thing about the instrument (called Intuvo) we launched recently is that in it's guts is the ability to serve up a web page with all sorts of status and diagnostics.  The original intent is that a chemist could check in on their instrument from their office across the hall, or a conference room, or perhaps the cafeteria in their building.

But I like to push things, and regularly fool around on the instrument to what can be accomplished from where.  I've accessed my GC in Wilmington from my home in Newark, my Doc's office in NYC, a great brew pub in Germany and even from our condo in Guangzhou.  I have "worked from boat" before but that is usually from the KYC mooring field which has great on-the-water WiFi.

In a presentation, a friend recently gave me credit for accessing my Intuvo from "the middle of the ocean" which is giving me a lot of sailing cred that I don't deserve.  But my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to see what I could do with cellular technology (I have a Verizon MiFi and a Verizon cellular iPad).

Of course I could get it at the KYC mooring field...

(Checking Intuvo status)

But I also could get it while under sail in the middle of the bay...

(Running Intuvo diagnostics)

(About 2.5 miles out from Keyport... maybe a mile from Conaskonk Point.)

Interestingly, my Verizon iPad gets a signal pretty much anywhere out in the bay (much farther than my ATT iPhone), but in any case, you could Intuvo pretty much anywhere I sail.  (And yes, you could do it from the middle of the ocean, but I think that would be cost prohibited - some sort of satellite thing would be required.)

Anyway, you could see in all those photos that the clouds all around were basically boiling up.  They started looking a bit threatening and I decided a beer at the KYC bar was in order, rather than chancing getting caught out in a storm.