Saturday - Sunday, June 22 - 23, 2019
Our New York City Adventure on the way to Half Moon Bay (Croton-on-Hudson, NY)
We departed Staten Island around 8:40am moving through New York’s Lower Bay, under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to the Upper Bay. The bridge connects Staten Island to Brooklyn on Long Island. It’s named in honor of Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer who was the first European to chart the New York Bay area for the French King in 1524. [On a side note, he came to an early demise in 1528 when he and a handful of crew were attacked and eaten by the natives on what they thought was an uninhabited island in the Lesser Antilles.] The Narrows part of the name is for the narrow section of the bay where the Lower Bay and Upper Bay of New York meet.
Once in the Upper Bay, we cruised past the Statue of Liberty, a moving experience to see her from a boat on the water. Lady Liberty is truly magnificent with the glowing golden flame of her torch. It is hard to imagine how the millions of immigrants felt when they saw her as they approached America after weeks at sea, hoping for a new chance at a better life. Going past Ellis Island was also touching when seeing the buildings for entry, plus the many others used for housing those deemed unhealthy and in need of care before being allowed to enter the country.
On through Upper Bay and onto the Hudson River. Such a variety of buildings as we traveled through Manhattan! Tall and short, ferry terminals and marinas, we even saw a ballyhoo-media billboard boat – it had LED billboards on both sides of a large panel in a boat chugging along the river! We were surprised when we saw an old friend, the 157-foot Arabella sailing yacht, which is now a private charter boat that still has 20 private cabins and looks great! We sailed on her a couple of times quite a few years ago in the British Virgin Islands. What are the chances that we’d see the Arabella anchored in NY’s Upper Bay!
It is surprising how few bridges cross over the Hudson River. Throughout the Jersey City / NYC area there are tunnels to avoid having bridges over the water. But further north, you need to go a long way to crossover from one side to the other. We went under the George Washington Bridge after traveling 18 miles up the Hudson from the Verrazzano-Narrow Bridge, though that would be 34 miles (NJ side) or 28 miles (NY side) by road.
TFurther up the Hudson River, the Palisades along NJ shoreline are stunningly beautiful! We also went by the famous Sing Sing maximum security prison, in Westchester County. We were expecting it to appear more evil than it looked as viewed from the Hudson River.
Around 2:30pm, we arrived at our destination as the wind picked up, naturally making docking more challenging than needed. Half Moon Bay is in the town of Croton-on-Hudson, NY, where we planned to stay for two nights. The dock we were on was in the process of being repaired so we had a 20-foot section that had about four planks, each about 4 inches wide running its length to get across it, without any handrails, over choppy water. Bo especially didn’t like it, but we all managed it without falling in. It was an easy walk into town, less than a mile. We could get to a post office, small grocery store, liquor store, CVS and a nice little diner called Croton Colonial. The wind died down on Sunday and the sun was shining so Bo got a bath on the dock. It’s not one of his favorite activities, but he puts up with it. He’s more than happy to share the water throughout the process, so we all ended up getting wet!