Day 2

Above: (starting from the bottom)  The Throgs Neck Bridge - our first bridge of the journey; lower Manhattan; a container ship in Brooklyn stacked all the way up to the tall bridge - no wonder these containers are found floating just at the surface of the sea all over the world;  And finally, the Verrazano bridge - that's one verrry big bridge.

We have had a different NY experience from City Island through Hells Gate, under the bridges of the the East River and finally sailing down lower NY Harbor to Great Kills Harbor in Staten Island.  No matter how many times you have done it there is something special about seeing Manhattan from your boat.  With the current at times we were doing double our usual 5 knot speed.  It was fun to see that we were keeping up with the rush hour traffic on the FDR.  A loud roaring sound puzzled us until we realized we were hearing cars, trucks, and trains on bridges over our heads.  The river was not very busy - in contrast to the lower harbor that was full of ferries, tugs, ships, and barges.  We were able to sail the lower harbor and finally dowsed our sails as the wind gusted to 30 knots just as we arrived at the entrance to Great Kills Harbor.  We are fueled up and contemplating an overnight sail in the company of another boat from Ontario, Canada.