We then sailed past lady liberty and Ellis Island and found a great anchorage right behind the statue to have lunch and wait for the tide to change before taking on the East River and an area called Hell Gate!
After about 3 hours, the tide started to switch and we pulled up anchor . The mouth to the East River (which separates Manhattan and Brooklyn) was very busy with barges and ferries and was a little hairy at first. Once we'd gone under the Brooklyn Bridge (again, the one we got to ride bikes over a few weeks ago), the traffic had mostly died and was down to just us and a couple of barges.
It was really fun to also go under the cable car tram that runs over to Roosevelt Island that we'd taken just a few days before with our Cocoa Beach peeps
Next came Hell Gate. This is an area where the Harlem River (runs from the Hudson to the East River), the East River and the Long Island Sound all converge. With the various tidal swings and currents, this area has seen it's share of boat wrecks. Our illustrious captain timed the passage such that we arrived at the Gate just at slack current (the current can rip through there at up to 5 knots so we really needed it to be slack or at least slowly flowing in the direction we were going). Well, after all of the build up, we cruised through with absolutely no issues and found ourselves at the southwestern most point of Long Island Sound just in time for happy hour, sunset and a full moon rising!
The next morning we pulled up anchor and sailed to Port Jefferson, NY. An adorable town southeast of Southport, CT (our next planned stop). We got a complimentary town dock mooring ball for 2 nights and really enjoyed walking the town as well as the surrounding beach areas. The beaches (they face the Long Island Sound not the Atlantic Ocean) are covered in wonderfully smooth and colorful rocks. We were able to find a brewery in town (and even managed sneak in around the yoga class they were having out front - not that we wouldn't or at least shouldn't have joined in but we weren't dressed properly). Next, we found a great seafood restaurant where we got a really good lobster roll and a fish and chips. We were happy cruisers!
The next morning, we untied from our mooring ball and had a great sail (at least the first couple of hours) over to Southport, CT to the Pequot Yacht Club where we met with our friends Doug and Sandy Bissett again (word of warning - if you're nice to cruisers the first time, they just keep coming back and this time even brought dirty laundry)!!
As we type this, we are sitting on their fabulous deck overlooking the Long Island Sound house-sitting while Sandy is off to work and Doug is out running errands. Not a bad gig!!! We plan to stay here are least one more night before heading further up the Long Island Sound. We have way more stops on our list than we have time for so we'll see how far we can get before we have to turn around and head back south. Until next post!
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