Atlantic Highlands, through NY to western LI Sound

Rainbow from Thursday's storm. 

Friday, Aug 11. We will sail to the NY Harbor entrance and take East River through Hell Gate to Western LI Sound bay to anchor for the night. 

Departing 9 am. It's about a 4 hr sail to the harbor, so it's nice to get some sailing in.

After a policeboat welcoming committee, that seemed to stop "all" the other boats, we were let through after they clearly looked at our hailing port and name on the stern and quickly paid attn to their next subject.

After finally going under the Verrazanno Bridge that we could see from Atl Hghlnds, navigation was a team effort.

Thunder sees NYC for the first time (as far as we know)

In NYC Harbor, there are so many AIS signals, it almost makes it hard to see the chart symbols. Zooming in is definitely required to separate objects. It's a good test for a new user to find all the things that are happening at the moment.

We saw fast catamaran ferries, anchored barges, moving barges, dredge boats (USACE), tourboats, recreational boats, policeboats. AIS shows where all these are going (or not going), making it easier to stay out of the way. Though the direction of travel shown by the AIS signals only show their direction "at the moment", we were not always sure where they were headed till they moved along and we followed them on the chart.

We heard car and train traffic from the bridges, pile driving at construction sites, helecopters galore, a seaplane takeoff, later the airport takeoffs and landings at LaGuardia Airport. NYC Police wizzing by and the wakes- The wakes were bouncing off the sidewalls. 

We tried to grab some snacks between photo taking. Had to hold on to make it to the destination.

Thunder stayed in the cockpit looking around, interrupted by catnaps by our feet.

We were on time to go through Hell Gate at a "pleasant" time with just a little tide push, despite waiting for a barge or two to cross us.

Approaching "Hell Gate" proper, where the tidal current CAN be the strongest (5 or 6 knots!) unless traveling during slack or near-slack times.

Look there! A ripple!

So, just like on our 2019 trip, no excitement, but gladly.

Looking back

For a moment, Dave misses the fun part of his flying job...

Sails up now.

Having just sailed under the Throgs Neck bridge, the channel markers are reversed. We are now going "out to sea". We keep red markers to our left and green to the right.

(lighthouses to be labeled later : )  )