Day 271: Sunday, June 2, 2013
Port to Port: New York City
Underway: 0:00 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 0 Stayed At: Mooring
Mile 146 to Mile 146: Last night was noisy. The Hudson is always moving. The current reverses every six hours. The wind creates waves. And swells from the ocean can be felt all the way up here. We discovered lots of new noises. The swift current bangs the centerboard back and forth. The large plastic mooring ball bangs against the boat as the tide switches directions. The dinghy doesn’t know which direction to go sometimes but likes to bump into things as is goes by. Add in all the normal creaks and groans and other mysterious noises and sleep can be somewhat difficult. We will get used to it but tomorrow we will have to do some noise mitigation projects.
With all the time and effort it took to get here, we have not had a chance to plan our exploration of NYC. With no specific plans, we just headed out in the general direction of Central Park to see what we could find. We had a cheap breakfast at McDonalds and meandered our way several blocks over to the park. It hard to miss since it runs lengthwise from West 58th St to the south all the way up to 110th St. in the north. We could spend our whole week just exploring this amazing resource. After stopping at a farmers market on the edge of the Park, we followed random paths through the park and stopped to rest at Shakespeare’s Garden, climbed the narrow circular stairs to the top of the Belvedere Castle, rested again on a shady park bench and watched the world go by, passed by the Boat House and didn’t rent a row boat, sat and enjoyed a group of young and old musicians playing and singing for passerbys, and watched the amazing mosaic of people that make up NYC enjoying a beautiful sunny Sunday on the Great Lawn and Sheep Meadow. We wished we had a blanket to lay on in the shady grass and take a much needed nap. Maybe tomorrow.
On our walk back to the marina, we found a street fair with art, food and all kinds of stuff you can’t live without. We found a Gyro we couldn’t live without and enjoyed people watching as we ate our really late lunch. We were exhausted so we dinghied back to the boat and immediately crashed for a long delayed nap. We will have to do some planning to see what’s next (or not).
