Destination Huntington Bay

Picking up where we left off last time…I woke up on Saturday hoping to start the dinghy and run around Manhasset Bay. The water was glass like with no wind.

Unfortunately, the dinghy motor wasn’t interested in starting. I naively called up a marine service company thinking “they’ll help me”. Of course, it’s just one of the busiest weekends of the entire boating industry, surely they’ll jump into a skiff and run right out to service my engine. We walked through some troubleshooting tips most of which I dismissed including the “bad gas” idea. After we hung up, I’m sure he told his crew about our amusing conversation. Thinking about it some more, I took my old gas and properly disposed of it and re-filled the can with fresh gasoline. I saw the largest catamaran I’ve ever seen on the way to the gas dock. Measuring over 110 feet, the guy who owns it rarely sails it.

Disatisfied with the dinghy situation and growing tired of not moving, we dropped the penant on the mooring and motored up to Huntington Bay.

Once we got into Huntington Bay, unbeknown to us, we rolled up in the middle of a massive on-the-water concert. Skyward navigated through rows and rows of anchored boats listening to the band on a temporary stage at the top of the lighthouse blaring music through it’s amplifiers. Water police slowed everyone down to less than 5 knots. We were too busy navigating to take any pictures. It was no joke wall-to-wall boats; not something we’ve experienced yet.

And just like that, we are in the narrowest cut we’ve ever gone through; maybe 100 foot wide and not well marked. We traveled deep into Hungtington to find our mooring. When we hooked up, the wind aligned all of the boats and we discovered that we were put on a mooring where there was only 50 ft between us and a docked boat.

That 50 ft was the MAIN passageway/channel for all boats in the harbor to pass through.

Boats of all sizes including large fishing charter boats rolled through this channel all night long. Our Wind Pilot Pacific Plus hangs about 3 feet out from the transom, so we put a pile of glow-in-the-dark fluorescent sticks on the unit to give boaters a signal to stay far away.

We took the dinghy for a very short ride despite the fact that it was not running well whatsoever; it would die constantly, and I would have to restart it with all of us in the dinghy.

We tied up at a public dock and went into town where we found some crab and lobster snacks at a restaurant, a 7-1-1 for Slurpees and my bucket list: Coney’s Marina. It was a neat to see where Coney’s was at and to see their launch set up with single davit/crane(s).

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We woke up on Sunday to overcast skies, dampness in the air, strong winds from the South and cool weather. Our neighbor was really close to us, yikes!

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I decided to scrub the water-line, so I spent about an hour or so giving the sides of the boat a wash and scrub. After lunch, we decided to dive into the dinghy motor and attempt to fix it ourselves. That we did. We tore about the engine just enough to pull out the carburetor. We disassembled the carburetor and discovered that the bad gas that we had had created globules, crystals and other gooey substances that coated the bowl. I knew this was the problem and set to work with toothbrushes and picks to clean it out. We slapped it back together and took it for a test drive. It worked flawlessly!

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We loaded up the kids and went out to West Beach which is also referred to as Hobart Beach Park. We navigated strong winds and light chop in the bay and came around Sand City Island to beach the dinghy. It was 2.8 nm away from the boat which is now our longest dinghy ride to-date. We walked along the rocky shore and climbed on the breakwall. Along the way, Matt found horseshoe crabs that had died. He dissected a couple of them which showed us his intellectual curiosity in a different light.

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We had a fun and bumpy ride back to the boat as we fought a 20 knot headwind and decent chop.

That was probably one of my most favorite family experiences ever. We just fixed our car / dinghy and took the kids on an adventure. To some it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but to us it was memorable.

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We got back to the boat ate dinner like normal people and enjoyed another evening watching TV shows after packing up for the return trip home. But that sounds too easy. Rachel discovered a drip above the generator as we were looking over the mechanical space during our preparations. It pays to take the time to look things over before you embark on a trip.

We came up with a temporary fix to this problem so that we could get underway. We wanted to go to City Island, and that was according to our plan to return home on Tuesday night. But we learned Monday morning that Matt had football practice at 9am on Tuesday morning. So we cancelled our reservation at City Island Yacht Club and pulled away from the mooring headed for Atlantic Highlands, NJ.

We headed out into Long Island Sound and tried to catch wind.

It started out promising getting up to around 10 knots or more.

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Then, we headed West towards Throgs Neck Bridge, and that is when we lost almost all wind. We kept the mainsail up for balance and just motor sailed to the bridge. We kept debating back and forth which part of the Neck we should traverse; we took Rachel’s preferred path.

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Once we rounded the corner at the SUNY Maritime College, the winds were 20+ knots head on.

We also were battling wind and current in opposite direction in that stretch leading up to Riker’s Island, so it was a little sporty. I tried to trim the main with the traveler biased to one side to try to catch some wind in the main.

Soon, we were plowing through Hell Gate at 9-11 knots speed over ground thanks to the current at high ebb. Hell Gate itself wasn’t too bad, but just South of that the chop and whirlpools were intense.

We followed a tugboat pushing a barge all the way through the East River. We actually traded lead and follower positions throughout the traversal.

As we approached the UN area, a ferry was trying to squeeze through the 200 feet of space between us and the tugboat, which I thought was unsafe. Making the hand gesture to the ferry captain made him mad, I guess, but I think he was putting us all in jeopardy of collision. Nevertheless, he went astern and we kept plowing forward. (No pictures!)

Approaching the Brooklyn Bridge, we had three ferrys, the barge/tugboat and a few large power boat/yachts coming at us. One of the ferrys stopped, started blowing its horn and held position about 500 feet in front of us (still moving 10 knots). So we had to navigate this weird situation with all of these boats within 300-500 feet of each other in a high current area.

The wind picked up dramatically just as we plodded towards the West side of Governor’s Island. We were getting 20+ knot winds, and the boat was loving it. I went upfront to organize the headsails, and I got drenched a few times. Also a no-no with no safety vest on. Once we got past Governor’s Island, a fleet of Marine Ospreys came flying North passed us at low altitude. They were amazing to see from the water. They flew into lower Manhattan then circled back to our position and then returned.

After we passed the Verrazzano Bridge, we killed the engine and just sailed. We maintained about 7-8 knots for an hour or so. It was so peaceful. We approached a shorter Pearson with bare sticks (no sails), and we passed it without an issue.

Then, we saw a fellow yacht club member pass us going North on his 50′ Hinckley Bermuda, and he was fully reefed. He told me later that he just doesn’t like to “push” it too hard.

The wind was only blowing about 15 knots at this time, and we had the jib and full main. Hard to explain the quiet that goes along with only sails and no engine.

We finally arrived at the mooring after unintentionally whizzing past a few boats a little fast in the marina due to a strong headwind, That was the end of an exhilarating trip home and is an example of what it is like to not be a full-time cruiser. There is always an orchestration of moving things from home to the boat and then back again when the trip is over.