1 Night next to the Statue of Liberty

October 26, 2019 Kelly Comments 0 Comment

Stats for June 17, 2019

Origin: Atlantic City, NJ

Destination: The Statue of Liberty

Distance: 107 miles

Speed: 8.8 mph

Time on the Move: 12 hours and 11 minutes

**Okay okay, I’m finishing the blog, I promise!! I hear that all of you are telling my mom you want to finish the story, and Mike keeps telling me to work on the blog, and today even the librarian told me she’s waiting for more blog posts, so here I am!!! Thanks for being so patient and for still being interested!! It is so fun to look back on these amazing days!!**

We were up and out of Atlantic City early, excited about our destination for the day (RIGHT NEXT TO the Statue of Liberty!!), but first we had to make it through the gauntlet that is the New Jersey ICW. Remember how I mentioned that the ICW is extremely shallow and unpredictable? “If you’re not running aground in New Jersey, you aren’t boating” is what they say, and we were sure hoping to avoid any excitement like that.

The channel was certainly very narrow, but it was very calm and quite scenic along the route. Luckily we were able to stay in the channel without too much trouble, despite some shallow spots and a few 90 degree turns.

After about 60 miles, we headed out the Manasquan Inlet into the Atlantic Ocean. We weren’t quite sure what the ocean would bring us because…well, because it’s the OCEAN. We were watching possible afternoon storms for most of the morning, but so far we were able to avoid them, and we really hoped they would wait for us to get off the ocean before they showed up. At first glance, it seemed a little hazy and a little bouncy, but it turned out to be extremely calm. There were some well-spaced 3′ swells, but we surfed up and down them pretty easy.

Looks calm as can be, but I promise it was a little rolly.

Anytime we are in the ocean, we just never know what to expect. We try to plan ahead and make sure the water is as calm as can be (especially because it’s been a while since we were out there and we are chickens when we’re in the ocean!). I was a little on edge with the chance of storms and the haziness out there, still looking at 40 miles until the Statue of Liberty. But then, we noticed that a small little aluminum boat that followed us all morning through the ICW had also followed us out into the ocean. For a minute, Mike thought he might try waving us down for a ride, but after a while it became clear that he was just fine running in the ocean in that little aluminum boat in 3′ swells. We kept an eye on him to make sure he was safe, but also because it made me feel better that there was someone much crazier than us out there.

This boat was about 12′ long with a tarp rigged up over the top for protection. The guy was making coffee on his extra bench when we woke up in the morning in AC…sure seemed like he lived on it!! He followed us the whole entire morning, but I sure never thought he’d make the turn into the ocean!

We saw just a few other boats on our 40 mile run to NYC, but they were faster and obviously headed to other destinations. Any loopers we were keeping in touch with were stopping in Great Kills, NY, so we were pretty much on our own. Just us and the crazy aluminum boat guy.

Romer Shoal Lighthouse is north of Sandy Hook, NJ at the entrance to New York Harbor. It was first built in 1838 and badly damaged during Hurricane Sandy. This is about where we lost aluminum boat guy…he headed a bit more north towards Long Island.

The rain held off, the water stayed calm, and New York came into view in the distance. Woo Hoo!! We were on a close watch because of all the ferries and commercial traffic. A looper friend of ours had a close call with a ferry and we realized why when we passed through here. Those babies fly through the harbor out of nowhere and they’re HUGE!! I can’t imagine traveling through this area without AIS (automatic identification system) where commercial traffic can clearly see us on their navigation screens and we can see them.

Heading towards the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. It is a double decker bridge which was cool to see!! Two layers of traffic!! Heading through New York Harbor to the mouth of the Hudson River.

All kids were on deck for this exciting trip! Hayley was psyched to learn that 900 fashion companies are based in the city.

Manhattan to the right and Jersey City to the left!

We were watching our navigation app closely to lead us to our anchorage (marked here with the blue push pin), but we were also keeping a close eye out for ferry and commercial traffic.

The captain keeping a close eye on our situation.

We were so busy navigating, looking for boat traffic, and searching for fun New York facts when we had a spare minute, we arrived at the Statue of Liberty in a flash!! We heard about this amazing anchorage for months traveling the loop and now it was finally our turn to stay here!

Tobin drew a big apple to help him remember New York City’s “other name.”
(See who’s over his shoulder there?!)
He was also really hoping we could go to the Central Park Zoo to see Alex, the Alex (from Madagascar, the movie). When I told him that Alex was just a character in the movie, he agreed, but he said he knows the giraffe and the hippo really do live there…so…hmmm.

We had an amazing view of Lady Liberty and the skyline of Manhattan and Jersey City that changed but remained just as magnificent as it got dark. We did deal with some wakes from the ferries until they stopped in the evening (about an hour after we dropped anchor). It was so cool to sit with this view! We shared fun facts about New York and the Statue of Liberty all evening from the sundeck and told our personal stories from 9/11. The kids were in awe of the history of the city, as were we. It was a magical anchorage and really added to the experience of being in NYC for all of us!! It was one of those “hard to go to bed” nights because the view was just that amazing.