We departed from City Island, NY at 0700 hours just as the sun was rising… the forecast was for 10-15 knots winds out of the SW with late morning and afternoon rain. We had to go down the East River through New York City and new York Harbor and out into the Atlantic Ocean… there is not really any inside passage for the Jersey shore… we had to go to at least Manasquan before we could bail from the Atlantic and take and inside route. But with the SW winds we should be ok if we stayed close to the shoreline and in the lee of the wind.

The East River can pretty intense with current and you want to try and transit it with a following current… as the currents can be 4-5 knots in places… when your boat cruises at best 7.5 knots you really do not want to have a 4-5 knot current against you… but today we would… the worst area is called Hell Gate and is where the Harlem and East Rivers meet,,, the slack current was predicted for 1000 hours and it would only take us about an hour and a half to make it to Hell Gate and we would still have 3 plus against us… but it was either wait until 0900 to leave, go really really slow from City Island to Hell Gate or just go for it… we chose to go for it… ?

We experienced 3.5 knots against us just before Hell Gate and all the way through it past Roosevelt Island… then the river widens and the current velocity decreases… but we made it unscathed and soon the tide had switched from flood to ebb and we were flying along between 8 and 10 knots… YEP… 10 knots… as we passed under the Verrazano Bridge we were doing 10.2 knots… it was awesome… ? We maintained a good boost from the ebb current to well outside New York Harbor and it’s approaches and down the Jersey shoreline… it was after noon before we lost our boost.

The seas were not bad with the SW winds… we hugged the shoreline and had a few places where it was a little bouncy but there were no 4-6 breaking waves as we had seen the day before… thank goodness… really did not want another rough ride. We decided to stop early today and set our goal as Manasquan, NJ… coming north this spring this inlet had been closed due to a capsized 70 foot fishing vessel and Susan was a little concerned that the inlet would be a challenge… especially after our experience with Barnegat Light Inlet on the trip north… I assured her it would be fine and it was… smooth as silk… could not have asked for a better passage through the inlet.

One of the biggest differences about today’s leg fo the trip was that we saw a lot of other boat traffic… the minute we entered the East River we started seeing tugs with barges, fast ferrys, water taxis, a large motor yacht that passed us and sent a 4 foot wake our way… not very considerate boater… and of course New York harbor was filled with traffic of all types… mostly commercial… a huge ship passed us we were approaching the Verrazano Bridge… and one of the Stanton Island Ferry’s was being escorted by two US Coast Guard boats… must have been someone important on board…

And as always one of the best things is seeing the Statue of Liberty… so beautiful!!!

At approximately 1550 hours we were safely docked at the Shrimp Box Restaurant at Manasquan, NY. We had traveled for 8 hours and 50 minutes covering 55.33 nautical miles averaging 6.28 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 191.07 nautical miles
Hours: 31 hours 31 minures
Avg Spd: 6.06 knots