Escape From New York

The Verrazano Narrows
40 36.95 N 074 03.03 W

We are escaping from New York as I write. The Staten Island Ferry seen in morning light is evidence.

We met up with our friends Bob & Sandra on Carpe Diem Monday evening. They spent the summer in Maine and now both of us are heading for Marathon. Tuesday, we played NY tourists. We took the water taxi from Liberty Landing to the World Financial Center, then we split up. I saw ground zero. Then I went up to the Inrepid Museum to see the aircraft carrier, the submarine Growler, and the SR-70 airplant sitting on the deck. Soon the space shuttle Enterprise will be there on deck.

Then I walked over to 5th avenue to buy a new camera. On the way I went through Chinatown, the diamond district, the theater district, and Times Square. Wow, NYC sure has a lot of culture to offer. When I got to the camera stores I was overwhelmed by too many choices. I didn't know what I wanted, so I walked away empty handed. I'll have to shop again after figuring out what to buy.

Meanwhile, Bob was studying the weather. He came to an unhappy conclusion. I looked too and I concur.   We are leaving today facing two days of light headwinds. We'll have to motor all the way to Norfolk. Libby and I hate doing that. It's against our policy. However, the alternative is to wait more than a week. Winds and waves will only get worse after Friday. Even if we do wait a week, there is no guarantee of a good weather window the following week. A couple of years back, our friend Andre waited 4 weeks and still no good weather came for him.

I think we've been spoiled. For the past several years, every time we arrived at NYC a nice weather window just happened to come along at the right time. That's uncommonly good luck. Now mother nature is merely correcting the averages.

Anyhow, we should be out there 60 hours. No guarantee that I'll be able to post blogs until arrival. It has been a long time since I used the SSB radio.

p.s. With all the United Nations mucky mucks mucking around, this harbor has police and Coast Guard swarming around like a swarm of angry bees.  It will be nice to escape that too.