East bound and down

We are under way eastbound in Long Island Sound, bound for Port Jefferson. We wrapped up a nearly two week stay in Manhattan yesterday morning, and by the time the tide was favorable mid-afternoon, we were more than ready to vacate the Hudson amid the escalating wakes of the holiday weekend boating crowd.

Approaching the historic High Bridge aqueduct and its landmark water tower yesterday. We walked across this during our stay.

Most of the remainder of our stay consisted of shuttling back and forth to Washington Heights on the subway. Just to change things up a bit on the dining front, we stayed on the train all the way to the last stop at 207th one night so we could have a beer at the Tubby Hook Tavern, the final pub in the triumvirate of north end pubs, and then walk across the street for Thai food at Yummy Thai, which was a nice change but nothing special. It was only after we'd eaten that we discovered the Inwood Local Wine Bar & Beer Garden right next door, with 16 beers on tap. We've made a note for our next visit.

Tuesday was the exception to all the gallivanting about upper Manhattan. Our friends Stacey and Dave aboard Stinkpot were passing through town, and we agreed to meet them in Croton, where marinas and other shoreside services are both more accessible and more reasonably priced. We hoofed it over to Broadway and took the Bx7 bus a few stops north to the Marble Hill train station, where Metro North took us all the way to Croton. We had a very nice visit over takeout Sicilian pizza. It was a late evening by the time we returned to Vector, but it was great seeing them and catching up.

Inwood Local Wine Bar & Beer Garden.

Wednesday was too hot to want to get on the subway, or really anything else. In the relative cool of the morning I went ashore for a nice walk through Inwood Hill Park, and then we just spent the day on the boat with the AC running. We went ashore in the evening, after the worst had passed, and walked to the Park View for dinner. The food was good, they had several drafts, and we had the air-conditioned place mostly to ourselves.

Yesterday we heaved anchor at 3:15pm, just as the tide was changing on the Harlem. That put us at a tide level that allowed us to make the transit with our mast up, just by lowering all the antennas. We had the hook down in our usual spot in Manhasset Bay (map) just before 6pm, splashed the tender, and headed ashore to old standby Amalfi's for dinner. We picked up a few things at the Stop & Shop supermarket next door before heading home.

Stacey, Dave, Louise, and me in front of a red sunset at Croton-on-Hudson.

Today's tide did not become favorable until noon, and so I went ashore for a brief walk before we decked the tender. We weighed anchor at 11am, close to high tide, and headed over to the pump-out dock. Normally we just call the pump-out boat in this harbor, but today we also needed water. The dock is barely half Vector's length and so it was a tight squeeze; I'm sorry I did not snap a photo. We got it all done and were headed out of the harbor just as the tide became fair.

I still have not heard back from the boatyard. When I called on Friday they told me the production manager was still out, returning Tuesday. We'll probably be right here in Port Jefferson until we hear from them and have some sense of if and when they can get us in. [Update: We are anchored in Port Jefferson harbor (map), and had a pleasant dinner at Joey Z's.]