Day #338 – Catskill, NY

Happy 4th of July!

How lucky we are to be in a beautiful,  free country!

This land was purchased from the Indians in 1682

and the town of Catskill was established in 1788.

Norfolk, VA had their mermaids and Oriental, NC had dragons.  Catskill is very proud of their downtown and their cats.

Henry Hudson…

and Cornocupia, among many others.

This morning we walked to the Farmers Market, which even had entertainment.

It is located at the Point overlooking the Hudson River.

A boat parade went down the river right behind our boats.  They were all decorated for the 4th.

Patti spent all day making and cooking ribs.  They were on the grill for three hours.

And we are really glad she spent the time as they were outstanding!

The fireworks were great and we couldn’t think of a better place to spend the 4th of July than in Catskill, NY during the 400th Anniversary of the Hudson.

Life is good and God Bless America!

Day #330 – New York City, NY

We thought this was a funny sign at the marina boat ramp.  Guess they get their point across.

It just didn’t feel right this morning at 7:00 as we left Manasquan…without Salvage Crew.

They need further repairs to their exhaust system and will find out later today when the fix can be made.  The conditions for our last day out on the ocean were perfect so we made the decision to head to New York City and wait for them on the other side.

It was a calm day on the water with just rollers and no real waves, very comfortable.  Unfortunately, the skies were cloudy and there was a fair amount of haze which made visibility tough.

We crossed from the North Atlantic Ocean into Long Island Sound at 9:30.  We have officially completed our time on the Atlantic Ocean and glad to report we are no worse for the wear.  Immediately we picked up about two miles per hour with the current.

The sights of the city began to come into view through the haze.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge comes into view.  The commercial ship traffic does as well.

It is hard to believe that we are sitting in front of the Statue of Liberty on our own boat.  What a dream come true.

As we sat in front of the statue we played the National Anthem and again realized how proud we are to be Americans.  Note the people standing at the bottom of the picture to get a perspective on the size of the statue.

The Staten Island Ferry passes in front of us.  Water taxis are everywhere.

Ellis Island is off our port side.

As we head up the Hudson River

we pass this yacht named Le Grand Bleu, a 370 foot mega yacht.

Note in the picture it has a 74-foot sailboat and a 67-foot speedboat stored behind the sailboat on her aft deck.  She also makes room for a helicopter, a life boat and has a crew of 50.

In 2002, Le Grande Bleu was sold to Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea Football Club Roman Abramovich. In 2006, Roman Abramovich presented her as a gift to old friend Eugene Shvidler, an asset-management and one-time oil Russian billionaire.   Nice friend.  It is currently the 10th largest yacht in the world.

We pulled into Liberty Landing Marina.  This is the view off the bow of Good News.

This is the view out of our starboard pilot house door.

There is so much to see and do we are a bit overwhelmed.  Time to get on the water taxi and go exploring.  We still can’t believe we are in New York City.