Figured I start placing a quick summary of the day at the beginning of each daily entry.

Start: 0600 hrs, Westbrook, CT (N41°16.425’, W072°28.146’)
Stop: 1830 hrs, New York, NY (N40°44.149’, W073°56.814’)
Distance traveled: 79.81nm (91.78 miles)

We departed from Brewers Pilot's Point Marina at 0600 hours and planned to go to City Island, NY with an ETA of 1600 hours if conditions allowed for us to average 6.5 knots. Current was to be in our favor in the later part of the trip. Once arriving at City Island, NY we would wait until we could transit Hell Gate on the East River in New York City with an ebb tide... currents through Hell Gate can be 5 knots and you do not want to have a 5 knot current on your bow when you only do 7 knots with no current. The tide was suppose to change from ebb to flood at 1735 hours so we would have to wait until almost midnight to leave City Island, NY in order to go through Hell Gate with an ebb tide.

Once out of Westbrook and back in to Long Island Sound we found the wind and sea conditions to better than the day before... winds 20 knots and seas were 2-3 feet... but they were very short making the ride uncomfortable... as the day progressed the winds picked up and were steady 25 knots with gusts over 30 knots... but the wind direction had changed slightly from W to NW and we hugged the southern shore of Connecticut to get as much protection from the wind as we could but it was still a very uncomfortable ride.

As we approached the Stamford, CT area the seas started to diminish as the southern shore of Connecticut started to provide more protection from the NW wind and our ride became much more pleasant and our speed picked up with a little boost from the current... making 7.5 knots.

With the smoother seas and the speed boost we arrived to the City Island area sooner than anticipated and we estimated that we had just enough time to proceed down the East River and through Hell Gate with the last hour of ebb tide... so we did not stop at City Island and proceeded on into the East River and through Hell Gate... since it was the last few minutes of the ebb tide we only got a little speed boost... we got up to 8.4 knots for a few minutes.

After passing through Hell Gate we would soon have the current against us so we decided to stop as soon as possible... we had seen an anchorage on Active Captain just south of Roosevelt Island on the East River... we turned east into Newtown Creek and proceed up about 3/4 of a mile to Whale Creek. This is a small park with space for several boats... appears to be an old ship dock... has large rubber fender system designed for ships... the area is well lighted and not too difficult to tie up to. The only problem I saw is that the fender system is in two layers one over the other... we arrived at dead low tide and the lower fenders are cover with barnacles and would only be visible at low tide... they could cause some damage to your boat if gone undetected.