August 14, 2017 — Carefully retracing the breadcrumbs back out of Barnegat Light and tiptoeing around “the Mound” the intrepid crew head North for the Big Apple. Now why is New York the Big Apple? The rumor that there was a famous whorehouse in Manhattan run by a Madame called Eve turns out to be a 1995 web hoax (early days of fake news). Truth is, nobody seems to know.
Boaters claim that a sea entry into New York harbor is both spectacular visually – tough to beat the view of downtown Manhattan – and emotionally as you pass the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (where Karin’s forebears – not Thach’s – came through three generations ago). And they’re not wrong.
To enhance the mood, we decided to blare “New York, New York” through Emmanou’s PA system as we went under the Verazano Bridge – risking a torpedo from the Coast Guards. At Liberty Landing on the New Jersey side of the Hudson we were met by Andy, Caroline and Kit Hobart on vacation from England, Emma and Josie Leach, and Rebecca Norrod, a high school friend of Karin’s.
After launching the tender and jetski, Emmanou went back out for her photo shoot in front of Lady Liberty. Evan’s introduction to the joys of jetskiing earning him a reprimand from the coast guard for buzzing boats in the harbor. Thach figured out that there was an exclusion zone around Liberty Island when he bumped into one of the exclusion buoys. In the end no harm done and everyone survived the excursion, including Caroline Hobart who did her best impersonation of a human radar “Ferry at seven o’clock! Jetskis at three o’clock!! Another Ferry behind you!!! Aaaargh!”
The next day we decide to drop the Hobarts off near their trendy Williamsburg pad on our way up the East River. Turns out that there is nowhere to alight in New York city in a small motor boat. We finally used the Marine Air terminal landing on the upper East Side. When confronted by a security guard, Tony paid him off with $20 – that’s the cost of getting past Homeland Security…
