Day 4 was a land day in NYC and not worthy of its own blog post, since there was no boat travel. I will say that Chelsea Piers marina, while well located, is not the best place to stay. First of all, the Hudson River is really rough due to its proximity to the Ocean and the non-stop heavy shipping traffic, and Elana got nauseous a few times just sitting on the boat. Secondly, there are no amenities of any kind, such as showers, restrooms, etc. However, there are many to do there, including a golf driving range, a pool, an ice skating rink, many types of gyms and fitness classes and more. That said, our only activity at Chelsea was to jog along the water early in the morning. In the afternoon, we saw a broadway show, School of Rock, which I have to say was quite entertaining. Ann got us 3rd row seats with an isle - the absolutely ideal place to sit!
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| Great Broadway show |
Besides seeing a great show, we did not do much in the city. Our meals were low key, and the one big dinner reservation we had was for Thursday night, and we ended up leaving before then. As we suspected all along when we planned this trip, we were not able to keep to our original itinerary. The plan was to stay in New York City until Friday, and then to head to Norwalk, CT. However, the weather forecast in NY and in CT for Friday was bad. So, we moved our itinerary up a day, and headed to Norwalk on Thursday instead. We will make up the day by staying two days in Mystic. So, trading one NYC day for a day in Mystic. Actually, I think that's a good tradeoff, as even in 2 days we had our fill of the city.
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| NYC to Norwalk |
I'm finding the marinas to be pretty flexible with cancellations and moving days around. Hopefully that will remain the case because as long as we are a day ahead of schedule, we'll have to shift things around in several places.
This morning, Ann and Elana walked back to the vegan restaurant By Chloe and picked up "pancakes" and other breakfast "food", and as soon as they returned to the boat around 8:45, I had everything ready, and we headed out for a 43 nautical mile boat ride to Norwalk. The Hudson was pretty rough, and in fact that was the roughest water we've encountered so far on this trip. We took it at around 10 knots so that Ann and Elana could eat in peace. Benny was still asleep.
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| Leaving Chelsea Piers behind us |
As we circled Manhattan, heading South on the Hudson, I took in the views of Manhattan one more time. The East River is extremely heavily trafficked with commercial vessels and ships, and I had to stay really focused, but I managed to snap a few photos.
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| Just passed under the Brooklyn Bridge |
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| So many pretty bridges around Manhattan |
Once we got past Hell Gate (much ado about nothing), we headed into Long Island Sound. The water could not have been more calm. Not even one foot waves. We are getting spoiled. In the Sound, we saw the deepest water we've seen on the trip so far.
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| Instrument reading 111.4 feet of depth. |
Had one hiccup leaving the Sound. My multi-function display plotter on the boat did not have chart details coming into the channel. So, I had no indication of depth or channel markers. I had two choices - just follow the channel markers and trust them, and use my waypoints to make sure I'm on course, or pull out my charting app on my iPhone and navigate using that. I ended up doing both - using my iPhone but following the waypoints on the charts and the channel markers. I will have to do the same when we leave tomorrow. Probably stressed me out more than it needed to, but I'm kind of a high strung person, and better safe than sorry in boating.
About 75 minutes after entering Long Island Sound, we arrived at Norwalk Cove Marina where we tied up stern-in to a really nice slip.
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| Tied up in Norwalk |
We are docked next to a gorgeous 80 foot yacht (named Dot Calm) with two tenders, including an open bow speedboat (Dot Net), with two 350HP outboards, that most people would probably be thrilled to have as their primary boat. I vowed not to have boat envy, as I just bought my dream boat, and no 80 foot yacht is going to change that. Amazing that no matter what you do, there is always one bigger.
After I checked in at the office, I had a nice chat with Grandpa Steve, my student Nick's grandfather who is the marina manager. Of course he spoke very highly of his over-achieving grandson!
Once we settled in, and I plugged into shore power and took care of all the details associated with docking in a new slip (fastening and securing all the lines, lining up the fenders, shutting down the generator and the instruments, washing the boat, etc), we took our dingy out for a nice cruise around Norwalk Cove. We cruised around the marina admiring the boats, and then headed out into the open water on plane. The dingy does a good 25 knots at 3/4 throttle, and that's as far as I felt like pushing it even though the water was completely flat. We crossed under a closed drawbridge which started opening, just as we were going under it, and scared the bejeebers out of me. Then we passed through an old spinning railroad bridge, and finally through a deep water marshy area where we saw a dozen or so swans. Gorgeous animals. Unfortunately, I did not bring my iPhone with me because I was worried about getting it wet, so we don't have any pictures of that.
I let Benny drive the dingy, and we took it out into the Sound and drove around the Southern/Eastern shore where saw a really nice beach. Finally, we came back and put the dingy away. The process of stowing the dingy in the chocks, flushing its engine, securing everything, tying the paddle board to it, and washing everything took me over forty minutes. There's always so much to do. We need to pump out again in the morning, but we're good on fuel and water for our trip to Mystic tomorrow, and there seems to be a pretty wide weather window. I'd like to get out on the paddle boards once we get there tomorrow. Haven't used them yet on this trip.
Shortly after we were done with the dingy, a strong storm came in. We enjoyed watching it from the comfort of our boat, secure in the slip and glad that we timed our travel well, but also aware that one day we may end up in something like that on the open water. Amazing how all of a sudden the waves whipped up, and it was awe inspiring to watch the fury with which water in the marina came to life.
Once the storm passed, we took an Uber to South Norwalk where every other establishment on Main Street looked like a nice restaurant.
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| It's always four O'Clock in South Norwalk. We were here around 7:45 pm. |
We settled for a Pho/Ramen place that accommodated all of our eating habits. I've never had Pho before, and probably won't rush back to have it again, but it was okay.
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| The Rubins eating Pho and Ramen in Norwalk |
We then settled in for the night. Ann reading, me working on my laptop, and Elana and Benny playing video games on their phones. Our plan is to watch a movie over Netflix using the high speed marina WiFi. Tomorrow, we head to Mystic, and we'll time our departure based on the forecasts here and over there. Hopefully we can keep our great weather streak with no waves alive for at least another day.
