We left with the first light. The ocean had a 4 to 5 foot swell to it and it wasn’t long before I was scrounging around in the medicine cabinet looking for seasickness meds. Best to be proactive! Of course it put me to sleep so I wasn’t much help to Skipper ‘scoe. But at least there wasn’t any clean up involved.
We ran for over 7 hours straight at 2400 rpm. Which for us means an average of 18 miles per hour. How many miles per gallon? Don’t really want to go there, but maybe between ½ to ¾ miles per gallon when we run that fast. Vince and Spike (our engines) never missed a beat.
This is the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. It is a double-decked bridge that connects Staten Island with Brooklyn.
Just before the bridge was the ruins of something. Upon investigation (the Internet is such a great tool) I discovered it is Swinburne Island. It was created to quarantine immigrants arriving at Ellis Island who had contagious diseases.
Once under the bridge we could see the skyline of Manhattan.
The Staten Island Ferry runs back and forth from Staten Island to Manhattan. It’s a trip of a bit over 5 miles and takes about 25 miles. 75,000 people a day travel on this ferry. It runs 24/7 and began service back in 1817. There are ferry boats everywhere and we had to keep a sharp lookout. The ferries are how people move around in this city.
It was an almost magical sense of awe I felt seeing Lady Liberty at the harbor entrance. I couldn’t help but wonder what all went through the minds of so many immigrants who came here in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Many left behind them God only knows what kind of lives and conditions.
By the way, the Statue of Liberty is in New Jersey. Not New York. I was shocked when I saw this on our navigation charts. Discovered we weren’t in New York last night either, but in New Jersey. Hey, I never said I was a good geography student.
This is Ellis Island and I think it also is located in New Jersey. It opened in 1892 and closed in 1954. Over 12 million immigrants passed through here. When the immigrants arrived they were asked 29 questions. Including name, occupation and how much money they carried.
Any of them with visible health problems or disease were sent home or held in the island hospital. More than 3,000 would be immigrants died while in quarantine.
It was a long day and we are glad to have this stint on the Atlantic behind us.
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