Boom Times Sailing!: Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

Temporary new addition to the crew. Dominique, Cassy's friend, who's wedding we just attended in Winnipeg is joining us for a week on board. Great, deck hands needed!

A few more days in Long Island and then we set sail around to NYC. Perfect sailing day and sailing into New York Harbour is always spectacular, the bridges, Lady Liberty, the city skyline, the tour boats & ferries and on this 4th of July holiday weekend there were so many other sailboats it was picture perfect.

Up to the 79th st. Boat Basin, thanks to our friends Logan & Caroline for arranging a mooring ball for us (all the transient ones were taken!). You may remember we met these two experienced sailors in Wrightsville NC and hoped to cross paths again in the Bahamas but kept missing each other. They run a sailboat charter, school and summer camp out in NYC and it was heart warming to see many little faces beaming with enthusiasm for sailing.

I love NYC but visiting always kicks my butt. I've been several times so I'm not really into the tourist stuff anymore but prefer to just hang out. It was Dominique's first time and Cassy's second so it worked out well because the girls could take off and run the sight seeing gauntlet while I did my thang (jogging, boat maintenance, fill propane)

I know this will sound ridiculous to most but one touristy thing I did really want to do was take a tour of the NY Stock Exchange on Wall Street. See the trading floor, the center of the financial universe! Where it all goes down! There was some tour information on the internet but ultimately turned out to be outdated because they no longer give tours (hello post 9/11 world). Second best was the Federal Reserve down the street, where they keep a quarter of the world's gold in vaults five floors down. Even the girls would like to see that! No tours for my available days though. Finally I just cut my losses, grabbed a coffee and read an interesting economist book at a table on the pedestrian mall in front of the exchange.

We saw the Broadway show Kinky Boots and the girls went to Les Mis the next night. Our last night was a stand-up comedy show that I'll always remember because so many of the comics bombed!

The 79th st Boat Basin is not my favourite anchorage in the world; strong and shifting tidal currents, the frequent "wind against current" effect and the wakes of heavy commercial and recreational traffic make for a bumpy spot to say the least. There was a front coming through, when it hit we were at a show but it must have hit something fierce because when we got back to the basin some boats had dragged their moorings and were hitting each other. At the entry gate we crossed one very panicked owner racing out to save his baby. One boater told us that it was so rough the bow on his moored 42ft yacht was plunging beneath the waves! Topanga was OK, some things thrown around the cabin. Poor Dexter was on board alone for it all, in the dark (I forgot to leave a light on) but not a word of complaint. What a soldier.

Thanks for visiting Dom!

Now up the mighty Hudson to unstep the mast and motor towards home.