We departed from Oyster Bay, NY at approximately 1040 hours. We planned our destination for the day to be New York City… anchoring behind the Statue of Liberty in a small anchorage area adjacent to Liberty State Park.

We departed late on purpose so that we would have favorable currents through the East River and Hell Gate. It switched from flood to ebb tide at approximately 1430 hours at Hell Gate… leaving after 1000 hours would put us at Hell Gate at approximately 30 minutes after the tide switched to ebb.

We arrived to Hell Gate at 1506 hours and we were already getting a 1.5 knot boost in speed and soon we were going 9 knots down the East River. It’s really nice when you get a boost of speed like this and I was not even running at cruising rpm… we should have been going about 6 knots at the rpm I was running and we were doing 9 knots… very nice!

Being Saturday the boaters were out and playing… saw too many boats to even begin to recount them now. One thing was nice was that we noticed a lot of boats that were doing as we are… heading south to warmer weather. I imagine the further south we see even more cruisers headed south.

Wind and waves were not an issue today… we did see winds up to 30 knots but they were not creating any waves to speak of… 1-2 seas all day… well almost all day. When we got to New York Harbor and the Hudson River the waves did pick up but not from the wind…. From the boat and ship traffic… it always seems to the case in this location.

We pulled past the Statue of Liberty and into our anchorage area and who did we run into but one of our winter neighbors from Punta Gorda. Dick who was our neighbor almost directly behind us at Fishermen’s Village… can’t remember his last name… but there he was aboard his 34’ Marine Trader. We swung along side and exchanged some hellos and small talk… sure was nice to run into him. He is headed back to Punta Gorda again this year. So I am sure our paths will cross again as we travel south.

We anchored at approximately 1630 hours at N40°41.763’, W074°03.875’. There is a boat ramp just west of us that has a floating dock. Makes it real handy to go ashore and walk Beecha.

We traveled today for 5 hours and 50 minutes covering 36.65 nautical miles averaging 6.28 knots.