New York

Sunday, June 10, 2018
Day 434
5,579 miles

I'll start with pictures of True North entering the New York Harbor on Friday:

Approaching the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, our entryway into the NY harbor.

The New York City Skyline

The boats of the Staten Island Ferry Line run continuously across the harbor.

We entered the Hudson River just north of the Statue of Liberty

Ellis Island

I never get tired of waving at other boats.  This one is a FDNY boat . . .

making this pretty spray!

The Empire State Building

The water around the Statue of Liberty is very busy. Traffic comes from the East River which empties into the harbor at this point along with the Hudson River heading north.  There are personal boats, barges, the Staten Island Ferry, water taxis, and numerous sight-seeing boats.  Add to that what must have been the start of a fishing tournament as we had at least 20 small to mid-sized fishing boats come screaming down the Hudson right toward us as we neared the statue.

The city stretches a long way, but once past it, the Hudson became just what we expected - banked by beautiful green hills.  The NY harbor was understandably churned up with all the traffic but the farther north we traveled the river became calm.

One thing did surprise us - the amount of debris.  Instead of crab pots, we were all on the lookout for floating wood.  Most pieces are small branches but some are large chunks of wood that could really wreck our day if we hit one.  So we traveled like on the inland rivers - slow.

We passed familiar names.  This is Younkers.

Songs popped into my head as we went by Scarborough 

("Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.")

and Palisades

("When I fell in love down at Palisades Park."

At 12:30 True North crossed the imaginary line in the river where New Jersey was no longer on our left (port).  Both sides of the Hudson were now part of the state of New York.

The marina was just past the Tappan Zee Bridge, which from a distance looked like snow capped mountains.  The name of the bridge has been changed to the Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge.

We docked at Half Moon Bay Marina at Croton-on-Hudson on Friday afternoon.  Many of the Looper boats that were at Great Kills Yacht Club on Staten Island with us on Thursday night also came to HMB.  While at Great Kills, the other boats all went out for dinner.  We did not join them that night, but invited all that were going to be at HMB to have docktails on True North Friday night.

From left, the women from:

Viridian, Bob-N-Along, Crows Nest, Rascals Retreat, Band Wagon, Oar Knot, and Miss Norma

Friday night sunset over the Hudson hills

  On Saturday Mike and Jim washed the boat while I made the trip into New York City by myself to go to the 9/11 Memorial Museum.  I have been to New York City several times and have done most of the touristy stuff so this was my sole destination.  I'm amazed I got there and back ok.  I won't say I am directionally challenged, but I am the one who consistently turns the wrong way when getting off an elevator heading to my hotel room.  No matter how many days I've been there.  Or I get confused when the blue dot on my phone map is going down when I feel I am heading up.
I took the Metro North train out of Croton Harmon to Grand Central Station in Manhattan.  My plan was to walk to the nearest exit and hail a taxi to the museum, but I saw signs for the subway inside the huge station. Knowing the subway would be cheaper than a taxi,  I asked a few questions and found out I could take the number 4 or 5 subway line to the Fulton Street stop, which would put me right at the museum.  I bought my ticket and entered the subway.  There is a #4 and 5 that go "Uptown" and a #4 and 5 that go "Downtown".  I had to stop and ask another person (a police officer) which direction I needed to go.  When I got off at Fulton Street, there wasn't a mass of people doing the same, so I had no "herd" to follow on how to exit.  My third question of the day was directed to a young lady, asking how I get to the museum.  She was on her way to work and walked me right out.

Sign in Grand Central Station.  With Saturday's visit to the 9/11 Memorial, I have now been to all these locations.

I was led out of the subway through this building - the Oculus - New York's $4 billion subway station.  It also houses a high end shopping mall.

When I exited the Oculus, the museum was right in front of me.

One World Trade Center, the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex.

I totally underestimated the amount of people that would be visiting the former World Trade Center site.  (As I was leaving the museum I asked an employee how many visitors a day go through the memorial.  The average is 10,000 a day!)  While standing in a long ticket line, I noticed there was no line for people who already had a ticket.  I went to the web site on my iPad, purchased a ticket, got out of the long line and after showing the e-ticket, I walked right in.  (There is also a separate line for family members of those who lost their lives in the attacks.)  I paid extra for an hour long guided tour, which was worth it.  I was an hour early for my start time, and the helpful guy at the tour desk recommended that I go to the "September 11, 2001 Historical Exhibition" and "In Memoriam" sections as they are not part of the guided tour.  Photographs are not allowed in these sections.
Here are some pictures from parts that could be photographed:

This picture hangs at the beginning of the exhibits.  It was taken at 8:30 am on the morning of September 11 - 16 seconds before American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the North Tower

These 2 steel columns were once on the east facade of the North Tower. Anticipating the possibility of a memorial or museum, workers painted "Save" on them.

"They rush in while others rush out."  The firemen of Ladder 3 were known to make it to the 35th floor of the North Tower, evacuating civilians, before it collapsed, killing all 12 that were inside.

"No Day Shall Erase You From The Memory Of Time"

A fitting sentiment for anyone who has lost a loved one.

There are 2983 pieces of blue paper on this wall - one for each victim.  The blue color represents the beautiful blue sky the morning of the attacks. The tiles are made out of paper, symbolizing the paper that was raining down from the office buildings.  

There are remains interred behind this wall, and work is still being done to identify those remains.

I walked around the entire footprint of the North tower.  These are the footings of the foundation. 

The Last Column

It was one of 47 columns that supported the inner core of the South Tower.  This remnant remained anchored in bedrock.  The different departments wrote how many of their First responders were killed on the steel support.   

Outside are two large pools, North and South, with the names of those that perished 

Just as we were all glued to our television sets on that day, I found myself watching the displays of the news footage of the planes crashing into the towers and their eventual collapse over and over.  I heard actual voicemail messages left by flight attendants and passengers to their loved ones.  I read written transcripts of other communications.  One fire chief had 59 messages from family and friends on his home phone voicemail that day, calling to make sure he was ok and that they were thinking of and praying for him.  He never got to hear the messages.  I listened to the voices of survivors recalling their actions that day.   The thousands of photographs, videos, and voices drew me back to that September day.   The tour guide did an excellent job of explaining what we were seeing and sharing information not found in the displays.


There were so many personal items on display that were found.  I'll mention one - Todd Beamer's watch.  Remarkably, it had very little cosmetic damage, but the date was on "11" and the hands were stopped at 10:03am, the time United Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all 44 persons onboard.  (Mike and I have been to the Shanksville site back in 2008).

The museum encompasses all the terrorist acts carried out by airplanes on September 11 - the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Shanksville.  It also had a section on the World Trade Center bombing that occurred in 1993, and the 6 victims of that truck bombing are included with the 2,977 from 2001.

17,400 people were working in the 7 buildings of the World Trade Center Complex that day.   All the buildings were destroyed with the collapse of the South and North Towers.

I have been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Oklahoma City National Memorial and now this National September 11 Memorial Museum.  They are all respectful in the handling of the difficult subject matter and produced the same heart wrenching emotions in me.  Horror at the depravity of fellow human beings, sadness at the tremendous loss of life, inspiration from the selfless acts of courage and heroism, and gratitude for those that survived.

I am solemn all over again just writing about my visit so there is no Unique and Random Photo of the Day.

Statue of Liberty

Friday, June 8, 2016
Day 432

Only two pictures because this moment was special enough without explaining the whole day.  That will come in my next post.

The Loop has several milestones - The inland rivers, getting to and crossing the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas (for some), the east coast, the Chesapeake Bay, the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, the Trent-Severn Canal (for some), Canada (North Channel) and Lake Michigan.

Today was one of those benchmarks for us - passing the Statue of Liberty on our own boat!  The only way it could have been better is if we were traveling with another boat that could have take a picture of True North in front of Lady Liberty.

I'm on the bow as True North approaches

We are grateful that Jim Dawson (Lucky Ducks) was onboard to take this picture so we didn't have to try to do a selfie!

Three States - One Day

Thursday, June 7, 2018
Day 431
5330 miles

With new crew member Jim on board, True North left Baltimore on Tuesday morning at 7 am under sunny skies.  The Inner Harbor is literally at the end of the Patapsco River so it takes over an hour just to get out of the river channel back into the Chesapeake Bay, mainly because we were dodging debris (a.k.a logs) and could never go above idle speed.

One last tribute to the Chesapeake Bay - written by Captain John Smith in 1674.

Sixty miles later we docked at Schaefer's Marina in Chesapeake City, right after entering the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.  We tied up to their long face dock after fighting a wicked current and strong wind that forced us to go past the marina, turn and come in against the flow.  Exactly the same conditions we had at Hoppies Marina on the Mississippi River back in September of 2016 - current and debris!

The C & D Canal is a 14 mile man-made waterway that connects the Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware River.  It was built (dug!) to chop off 300 miles for the ships going between Philadelphia and Baltimore.  (Philadelphia is up the Delaware River).  More than 2,600 men - many of them Irish - hacked away with shovels and pickaxes for seven years and the Canal opened to ship traffic in 1829.

C & D Canal

We passed the Delaware Explorer in the Canal

When we were in Chesapeake City, we were still in Maryland.  While on the C & D Canal on Wednesday True North crossed over into Delaware waters.  We didn't actually set foot on Delaware soil, but when you are on a boat, being in the waters of a region counts!

Exiting the canal, we were in the Delaware River which led to the Delaware Bay. It's not as large a body of water as the Chesapeake Bay, but big enough to want to cross under favorable wind conditions.  This day the Bay was like a washing machine and the boat handled it fine.

Our day ended at Cape May, New Jersey.  Several miles out we had to slow to a crawl again as we were in the middle of those pesky crab pots.  Being on crab pot watch cuts into my reading, knitting, and munching time.  But we were also rewarded with seeing dolphins playing at the entrance to the Cape May Canal off the Delaware Bay.

Crab pot watch.  It was FREEZING going into the wind!

Entrance to the Cape May Canal

Cape May Canal.  Once again we got to follow another boat through.

I had no expectations of Cape May, other than knowing that every Looper stops there because it is where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.  What a treat it turned out to be!  We arrived the day before the South Jersey Shark Tournament.  Greg got off the boat too early as he would have loved it here, including the on-site captains meeting.  The 40 boats entered in the tourney ranged from small center consoles to the big enclosed bridge Vikings.  The marina put us on the inside of the fuel dock so we had the opportunity to chat with several of the boats as they came in for fuel.  It was fascinating to us (being from shark-free waters!).  The boats can go no farther offshore than 60 miles.  They cannot bring in a shark less than 200 lbs.  Think of that - 200 pounds!  If a shark weighs less than that, it has not had a chance to spawn, thus depleting the population.  First prize is $110,000 and the Calcutta pays $200,000.   The marina normally doesn't open until 7 am, but due to the tournament, it was up and running at 5 am.  That meant when we left at 6:15 am today, there were dockhands to help us off.  You have to be thankful for the little things . . .
We were able to watch the boats head out for the 6 am start time before we shoved off.

All the fishing boats getting ready the night before

This fishing team had matching shirts. I thought they looked more like a bowling team!

Tournament scoreboard

              Notice our shammy pole on the bottom of the picture.  The structure middle left is where they hang the sharks when the boats come in.  We would have had a front row seat!  So tempting to stay and watch but the run in the Atlantic is totally dictated by weather and winds so Thursday was a "go" day.

I wasn't excited about having to get to a grocery store for a few things until Bob, a marina employee, drove us into the town of Cape May to the Acme Grocery store.  He dropped us off in the heart of downtown - a 3 block long pedestrian mall.  I don't know how many times I can keep calling these towns on the eastern seaboard "cute" or "charming" but Cape May fits the bill.
Since we were only there for one night, we would have missed going into town if we hadn't needed milk and bread!
Bob was also part tour guide.  Cape May is the oldest seaside resort area in the nation.  It is a wildlife hub for migratory species of all kinds.  The town itself is a National Historic Landmark.  Lots of things to do if we had more time.
Per Jim's recommendation, we went to dinner at The Lobster House, a Cape May landmark.  Thinking it was probably the last chance while in the "land of crab pots",  Mike finally ordered crab cakes.  Better late than never.

So our 3 states on Wednesday were Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.

Downtown pedestrian mall

The United States Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May.  It is the only recruit training center in the nation as all Coast Guard training functions were consolidated to this station in 1982.

We are on to a new chart book.  The New Jersey Coast.  We will only use this book for one day!

Enlarge the picture and see Cape May at the bottom.  We will start our day on Thursday there and end at the top - number 13.  At number 8, will we go by Little Egg Inlet.  We thought the boat might steer itself there as True North was built in New Jersey!

 "Back in the Atlantic again . . " - sung to the tune of "Back in the saddle again".
We left Cape May early Thursday morning through the Cape May Inlet for the 140+ mile trip to Great Kills Yacht Club on Staten Island.  We are running 3 miles offshore and still have internet coverage so I'm typing as we are traveling.  Every boater's hope is "Fair winds and following seas."

Jim at the helm while Mike navigates.  Better him driving than me.  It was cold today, too!

Atlantic City was our bailout if the ocean was too rough but all was good and we went right past.  We weren't as close as this picture looks - I really zoomed in.

By the end of today, we will be in New York!

                                                Unique and Random Photo of the Day:

Baltimore, Maryland

Monday, June 4, 2018
Day 428
5191 miles

We arrived in Baltimore at 11:15 am on Thursday morning.  The gray clouds and fog prevented me from getting a good photo of the downtown skyline as we made our way into the Inner Harbor.
What a great place to tie up for a few days!  The entire U-shaped area has been developed into a family-friendly, inviting destination.  Within walking distance was the Baltimore Aquarium, Maryland Science Center, American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore Civil War Museum, parks with playgrounds, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and an array of shops and restaurants.
Our view from the boat gave us a front row seat to all the traffic in the harbor, including water taxis, a pirate ship, lunch and dinner harbor cruise ships, and dragon paddleboats.

Old Bay is THE seasoning in the Chesapeake Bay.  They put it on everything.  Following my "When in Rome . . " philosophy, I bought a bag of Old Bay Potato Chips.  Mike and Karen liked them, but they were a little too spicy for me and Greg.  Friday was National Donut Day and a food truck in the plaza had one with Old Bay sprinkled on the top.  That actually wasn't too bad!

Coming into Baltimore, True North passed under the Francis Scott Key Bridge (above) and went by Fort McHenry (below).  During the War of 1812, Key witnessed the British attack of the fort.  Seeing the American flag still flying the next morning at dawn, he was inspired to write a poem that was later set to music.  A century later, President Woodrow Wilson officially designated it as our national anthem.

A peculiar odor filled the air - one we recognized from our years of living in Bay City - the home of Monitor (Big Chief) Sugar.

Inner Harbor

Brick walking path around the entire Inner Harbor

The Constellation - built in 1854 - is the last fighting vessel of the U.S. Navy powered by sails. 

The Chesapeake is a Lightship that was used to mark the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay.  By 1970, all lightships were replaced with constructed lighthouses and automatic beacons.  In front of the Chesapeake is the USS Torsk.  This submarine sunk the last Japanese frigate of WW II.

Both of these vessels, along with the Constellation are open to the public for tours.

Federal Hill sits behind the marina.  Karen and I climbed to the top, where we had a spectacular view of the Inner Harbor and downtown Baltimore.  In the foreground is the mast from the tall ship "Pride of Baltimore".  It capsized and sunk in the Caribbean Sea as it was returning to Baltimore.  The captain and 3 crew members perished and they are remembered in this memorial.

The city has a catchy nickname - B more

The Visionary Art Museum from atop Federal Hill.  Note the birds nest on the side and gold hand protruding from the back wall.

Another wall of the Art museum.  The words light up at night.

The Baltimore Orioles played 4 games at home while we were in town.  Sunday would have been our  day to go, but it poured rain all day.  From the boat we could see the fireworks after the Friday night game.

Babe Ruth was born in Baltimore

Follow the baseballs in the sidewalk from Camden Yards to the house Babe was born in, which is now a museum.

At one of the entrances to the ballpark are the numbers worn by past Oriole players.  I recognized them all, including Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray and Earl Weaver.  But this one is probably the most famous.

On land you see street sweepers.  This is the first time we've seen a garbage skimmer on the water.  It would cover the Inner Harbor every day, picking up debris.  And there was a lot of it!  

Another first at this marina - we've seen dockhands ride golf carts, ride bikes or plain run to slips that are a distance away from the office when needing to catch the lines of a boat that is docking.  At Inner Harbor Marina, the dock master got around on a Segway!

"Thurgood's Justice" - the name of this water taxi honors Thurgood Marshall, who was born in Baltimore.  He was the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.

Greg and Karen flew home on Saturday.  Jim Dawson (far left), came aboard True North on Sunday to help Mike and I as we continue up the east coast into the Hudson River.  Jim and his wife Terri were on the boat Lucky Ducks that we traveled with in the fall of 2016.

Jim's friends, Dave and Paula, live outside of Washington, D.C. and were kind enough on Monday to come to the marina and take us to lunch in the historic Fells Point district of Baltimore.

Unique and Random Photo of the Day:

I did, and it was a frozen custard! 

A small dish was a whopping $6.10, which seemed like a lot because I was already pretty happy when I went there!