NY Harbor Vacation - Days 3 & 4

Day 3 (Sunday) started out with us having breakfast (muffins, fruit and coffee) in the salon of Seas The Day.  Vicky was hosting some colleagues and clients and it was a quiet start to what would become a very busy day.  

After breakfast, Vicky started her hobby of cleaning the boat while I worked on some old blog entries.  She soon had it "spick and span" and glistening in the sunlight.

Unfortunately, that is the last time you'll see the port side Seas The Day graphic in tip top shape... I evidently screwed up the departure and scuffed it on the dock.

Our guests arrived around midday, and we quickly got underway (despite the scraping sound) in order to get a quick trip out to the Statue, and still make our brunch reservation.  Ivy, below, is her colleague and the rest are clients here to do some USA marketing studies.  They seemed to enjoy the chance to see the Statue up close, but also seemed grateful for a very quick trip (it was quite choppy out in front of the Statue as usual).

We had a few minutes after the trip to go down to the waterfront for some quick photography.  I also stole a few min to practice my outdoor portraiture.

We then had a wonderful brunch at MaritimeParc.  It felt a bit odd to be the "hanger on" part of a business lunch.  The food was wonderful as it always is here.

After our guests departed, we relaxed for an hour or so then heard LOUD rock music coming up from the waterfront.  So we headed out for a walk to explore down there.  (First, I grabbed a couple of photos of the Morris Canal and our marina.)

Down at the waterfront, there was a small music festival taking place.  The band was great and one of the things I love about Jersey City is that it seems to be such a pleasant mixing of folks from all races... something hard to see in other parts of our country - especially now.

We walked around the band and got portraits of each other by the eastern edge of Liberty State Park, walked south to check out the Jersey Central Terminal and the Empty Sky memorial before returning to Seas The Day.

We were still kind of full from our late lunch, so we had wine, cheese, and fruit by LED candlelight in the cockpit before retiring for the night.

Day 4 (Monday) was another somewhat lazy day as we had no plans, but ended up walking west in Liberty State Park to the Liberty Science Center where I used to volunteer way back in the 90s.  They had renovated it a lot a few years back and it was interesting to see what they had done with the place.

We were able to catch the last day of the popular Myth Busters exhibit which was cool, but the overall LSC experience seemed even less interactive than before - much different than many other science museums and I still concluded that LSC is a missed opportunity for NJ.

NY Harbor Vacation - Days 1 & 2

With Vicky back in town, we have been saving our vacation days for a boat excursion.  This time we didn't do much planning... we knew we would be heading into NY Harbor, but from there we didn't know where we would head.  We planned a couple of days showing folks around NY Harbor, a couple of days of rest.  Possibilities included heading up the Hudson, or even over into Long Island Sound, but it also might be a "use the boat as a hotel" type of vacation and do some local sightseeing as well.

Day 1 (Friday), we headed up the turnpike early in the morning and loaded all the gear onto a cart and out to the launch.  There we found Diver Dan cleaning Seas The Day's bottom so we were sure to make good time.  We left our stuff and headed back into town for some lunch.

What's an Intuvo?  Just ask me...

We had lunch at Old Glory restaurant where we briefly ran into my son, John and a friend.

No... this is a waiter... I didn't want to embarass my son by being the photographer dad.

After lunch, we cast off from our mooring and started the trip east across Raritan Bay.  We didn't do any sailing.  We had to make NY Harbor before nightfall and couldn't afford to loose any time due to my sailing inefficiency.

Still it was relaxing to sit back and let Otto take the helm.

More relaxing for some...

We passed a couple of other sailboats and marveled how the sky turned from bright blue to cloudy.  I trusted the weather forecast for clouds without rain and it proved correct.

We pass the orange ship from time to time and it never looked as beautiful as when spotlighted by the sun through the clouds.  After picking our way through the deep spots just off the coast of Staten Island, we eventually reached the inlet to NY Harbor and turned north towards the bridge.

Of course, once you turn into NY Harbor, two things happen (at least for us each trip).  First, the big boys come out to play, and at the lower reaches of the harbor, it's hard for a novice to quickly discern which are in motion and which are anchored (or aground, two seemed to be aground this time).  

Secondly, it always seems to be much more choppy in NY Harbor for some reason.  I realize several bodies of water are coming together and winds get mixed due to the buildings.  We probably had a 2-foot chop through most of the harbor.

Vicky woke up as we entered the harbor and took the helm.  This gave me the chance to take some photos - of her and the many sights.

But you always get to see the fun sights like the SI Ferry and of course the Statue of Liberty...

The Sky brightened up a bit as we approached Manhattan and turned into the Morris Canal to Liberty Landing Marina, our home for the next few days.

Once we hit landfall, we quickly tied up and headed to our favorite restaurant, MaritimeParc.  Before returning to Seas The Day for the night.

Of course, after an Old Fashioned from MaritimeParc, this step across is much larger than it first seems.

Day 2 (Saturday) was basically a lazy day.  We lounged around on the boat.  Talked to a couple of our neighbors and John met us for dinner.  This is more of a working vacation for Vicky in her new role (doing two jobs for a few months), so she had some calls and lots of emails to care for.  I pretty much sat and relaxed.

We got into a big discussion of religion over dinner at MaritimeParc.  We agreed that the most important part of either Christianity or Buddhism seems to be how much you put into the collection plate or donation box.  Some things are constant the world over.

I finished the evening taking some photos of the MaritimeParc/Liberty Landing Marina building and heading down the waterfront to get my annual photo of the Manhattan Skyline at night.