Big City Life

We took almost a two week hiatus on Fisher's Island, NY. This little slice of Atlantic paradise is located just off of the coast of Connecticut, on the outer edge of the Long Island Sound. Sam had a few doctors appointments he had to go to mainly to figure out how he was going to get his diabetes supplies in some not so easy to reach parts of the world. We also had some various things to fix on the boat, nothing to huge and had to do a trip into New York City to prepare for our arrival there. This Island is not made up of very many people, especially during the colder winter months, but every person we met there gave us a very warm welcome and treated us as one of their fellow islanders. It was great! We met some very awesome people who immediately showed support for what we were doing. They fed us, gave us help on the boat, and even a few had some inspiring tales to tell about life on the sea.

We left Fishers Island around 930am on Friday. We were generally headed towards NYC, but we knew that we didn’t want to go through the East River at night because we would need to time ourselves with the tides to make it through. So our plan was to head towards NYC down the Long Island Sound and drop our anchor somewhere near the mouth of the East River, get some quick sleep, and wake up the next morning leaving a full day to navigate the area known as Hell Gate in the East River. (sounds fun, right?)

Tilikum tied up to the wharf at Fishers Island Yacht Club

 We had a great passage averaging 6.5 knots with a strong breeze on our starboard forward quarter putting us on a close reach. Sailing was quite easy and Sam and I were having a great day listening to a New York Hispanic reggae channel, breaking into mini dance offs once every so often. There were a few other ships, but for the most part, we were all alone out there.  We were cooking along all day and well into the evening.

Tilikum pounding her way through the swell flying towards NYC. 

As the sun went down we began to see what we originally thought were stars, and later found out that they were in fact, moving across the sky and not stars, but planes. There were more planes in the sky than there were stars. It was nuts! You could see the halo of light illuminating NYC as we got closer.  The light continued to get brighter and brighter until eventually we could make out individual buildings and saw the entire NYC Skyline. In celebration of this milestone Sam and I celebrated by playing a game of Battleship.
Side note: Before we left, Sam and I had a debate about whether we should bring this game or not. I argued that it took too much space and that if it was dropped that it would explode shooting its little pieces everywhere in the cabin. Many of which would likely never be found again, or would end up in the bilge. Sam argued that it was a great nautically themed game that could provide us with endless hours of entertainment and that if dropped the tiny little plastic clasps that hold the case together would protect us from an explosion. On the way to Fishers Island from Nova Scotia the game exploded, twice.. and we still find peices of it almost everyday.
So in order to justify us bringing the game and picking up all the tiny little pieces, twice, we played the game, which I will admit was a lot of fun in the middle of Long Island Sound at night, even though Sam won.  

The first glimpse of the New York City Skyline from the Long Island Sound (Check out a cool black and white rendition on our Team Tilikum Facebook page!)

We arrived at a harbor called Glen Cove and could see from the charts that there was a breakwater that would give us a great anchorage, sheltering us from the strong North winds that were slaming against the shore. We tucked Tilikum in behind the breakwater and dropped the hook around 1230am on Saturday morning. We went below, made a little late night snack and then passed out very quickly.

We woke up the next morning at 530am to the coldest morning yet! It was that kind of cold where you lay in your sleeping bag watching your own breath waiting for the sun to come up to warm things up (a little), wishing that you could stay in your sleeping bag all day. It reminded me of  two years ago while backpacking on the Appaliachian Trail where I had the bright idea of deciding that it was warm enough that I would mail my sleeping bag home to "save weight". The next few nights I spent attempting to sleep with every item of clothing I was carrying on, with my feet stuffed in my backpack acting as a makeshift sleeping bag. I would lay awake most of the night just waiting for there to be a glimmer of light outside. 

However, on this day the excitement of going to NYC overruled the desire to stay warm, so we got up, bundled ourselves up like Ralphie’s little brother from The Christmas Story, started the engine, pulled up the anchor and headed straight towards the East River. IT WAS COLD!

Sam layered up as we sail out of Glen Cove having never even saw our surroundings in daylight.

Sam Quote: "The nice thing about 6 layers, is that you can't tell that I haven't showered in a week."

The East River is known for its swift currents. There is one section on this river that is known as Hell Gate which is marked by the Hell Gate Bridge. This one section can have currents reaching and sometimes exceeding 6 knots! Just an FYI for people who might not know, this is fast. Tilikum can only go 6.3 knots with her engine on and with no wind pushing against her. So you need to time your passage through this channel carefully and if you hit it right, you can actually speed through it with ease. We hit it on and reached Speed over Ground (SOG) speeds of 11 knots. We felt like we were F1 racers watching the land fly by so quickly. At one point we were sailing alongside the FDR when we noticed that we were actually going faster than the traffic that was right next to us.

Comforting sights to see considering the recent events in Paris

NYC Skyline and the FDR Parkway as we raced the adjacent traffic down river. 

We eventually reached the heart of NYC near the Freedom Tower and where the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Governors Island are. There was a flurry of activity, numerous helicopters flying overhead, ferries zig zagging across the channel and police boats everywhere. It was quite overwhelming at the time!

Comforting sight to see considering the recent events is Paris.

The Freedom Tower

We turned around the Southern end of Manhattan and up into the Hudson headed for 79^th Street Boat Basin. On the way there we hailed them to alert them of our arrival and to see which mooring to tie up to. They replied that they were hauling up their moorings today and that there was dock space available but that it was around $100 a night.  We had heard such great things about the Boat Basin but this was triple what we had expected to pay so we decided to see what our options were. We pulled into Liberty Landing Wharf on the NY side but were quickly told that we needed to leave because they were closed for the season. So after some phone calls we decided to head up river towards New Jersey to where Sam's cousin kept his boat. On our way there we saw a few floating docks with plenty of open room on the NY side right next to Chelsea Pier driving range. So, we decided to give it a shot. As we pulled up to the wharf a French man came up to us. I said to him “Hey, we’re looking for a place to stay tonight, you know what the rate is here.”
He replied, “This place is closed but you should try Liberty Landing.”
I responded, “We tried that and they kicked us out.”
The French guy then said the magic words we had been hoping for… “Free.” He said “well that sucks, I guess you guys can tie up here then, I don’t care. Just remember though, if anyone asks, you never saw me.”
… Jackpot!
We quickly tied up the lines and began to pack up some things to take into the city. 

Our freebie birth on Chelsea Pier.