Weather whiplash.

We are underway eastbound in Long Island Sound, headed for Port Jefferson. It's nearly flat calm out here, excellent travel conditions. We got a fairly early start to catch the last of the fair tide, but as I start typing just a little after 11am we are pushing against it. We should have the anchor down in the early afternoon.

Sunrise over Great Kills Harbor, Staten Island, NYC.

Monday was a very long day. Seas picked up a little as we approached New York, but it was just a light chop. We had a nice dinner underway before intersecting the Sandy Hook Channel, and were surprised to find ourselves threading through the menhaden fleet, whom we had left behind in Reedville, Virginia just a week earlier, at anchor off the ocean side of Sandy Hook.

One of Ocean Harvesters' big menhaden boats, a long way from Omega Protein's Reedville plant.

We dropped the hook in a familiar spot just of the Coast Guard station (map) around 7:15. It was a very warm evening and we ran the pilothouse air conditioner the rest of the evening, starting the gen just before bedtime to cool down the rest of the boat and charge the batteries back up for the night. Seawater temperature kept us comfortable overnight in the stateroom.

The air conditioning was back on before 8am on Tuesday as a heat dome descended upon the entire region. The tide was absolutely wrong to try to make our way past Manhattan, and we ruminated over morning coffee about where to go to wait things out. We could not stay where we were, as the ferry wakes are miserable. It's only tolerable overnight, when the ferries are not running.

We're anchored in 25' but the beach is just a few boatlengths away.

With temperatures headed for the century mark, a dock with power would be ideal. But we are in the part of the country where a marina slip is north of $350 per night, if there is even a slip in our size range to be had. By contrast, it costs us maybe $2 per hour to run the generator, so even running it 24/7, which was not likely to be necessary, is less than a tenth of the marina rates. We decided to just head across Raritan Bay to the protection of Great Kills harbor, on Staten Island, for the day.

Here, we reasoned, we would have wave protection all around, but still get enough of whatever sea breeze there was to keep things a little less brutal than they were forecast to be inland. We had the hook down in one of the few open spots (map) before noon. We spent the rest of the day inside with the air conditioning running.

Battery Weed, Fort Wadsworth, defending The Narrows as we pass under the Verrazzano.

On the way to the harbor I had reached out to Kim and Michael aboard The Perch, who were docked in the harbor. I was hoping to connect over a beer, but by the time we got settled in, all agreed it was just too hot to even try. With the mercury over 100, Louise was not sure we could even go out for dinner unless it involved no walking at all.

A little before dinner time I called the Atlantis Marina and asked if we could tie the tender up for dinner at the Marina Cafe, which is right on their property. I made a dinner reservation for 6, after the worst heat of the day would be past, and we had a brutal five minutes in the dinghy to get ashore. The restaurant was blissfully cool and the food was good. Despite the very casual-sounding name, this is a white tablecloth place, with prices to match as well as what I like to call the waterfront surcharge. They also have an outdoor tiki bar right next to the dock, which is more casual. I felt for the staff, working in the heat.

We passed this research vessel completely motionless in the river, despite the current. She is using dynamic positioning to hold her position.

Wednesday was another brutally hot day, but first thing in the morning, while it was still in the low 90s, I tendered over to The Perch and spent a pleasant hour with Michael, Kim, and their pets Whistle the dog and Margo the bird. Whistle spent a good part of the hour in my lap. After I got home we again spent the entire day inside with the boat closed up and the air conditioning on. I cranked out what indoor projects I could.

By dinner time we were on the down side of the heat wave, and with the temperature hovering right around 90 we tendered ashore for the half-mile walk to Goodfellas, which we remembered as being good from our last visit. I was seated where I could see the enormous stack of fresh, uncut loaves of Italian bread, and as we paid the check I asked if they were for sale. Yes, as it happens, for $3 apiece, and we went home with one. This after eating more or less a whole loaf with dinner.

Downtown Manhattan as we leave the Buttermilk Channel.

By Thursday morning the tide had shifted to be in our favor with an early start, and so we weighed anchor at 0600 and headed for The Narrows. The ride got progressively choppier the closer we got, and rounding the eastern end of the island we found ourselves in 25 knots of wind on the nose. Against the incoming tide that made for a "rage" most of the way through the harbor. At one point on the East River our anemometer topped out at 43 mph, or 37 knots. Subtracting our forward speed that's still 30 knots, just below gale force.

We whizzed through Hell Gate at 11 knots, and were on track to have a push almost the whole way to Port Washington. But it ran out somewhere around the Whitestone bridge, and we soon found ourselves pushing against nearly a knot, even thought the tables said it was still behind us. This is the effect of those same high winds piling all the water up into the western end of Long Island Sound, with some of that water looking to escape down the east river.

I had to snap this because that is, I kid you not, the "Tooth Ferry."

We had the anchor down in our usual spot in Manhasset Bay (map) before lunch. By this time the temperatures had dropped into the 60s, a full 30° cooler than it had been just the day before. We were glad to be out of the oppressive heat, where we were running the AC all day and the generator about one hour of every four to keep the batteries charged. I warmed up by working in the engine room on an electrical project that has been on my list for a while, and whose parts were in my last Amazon shipment.

At dinner time we put on full fall regalia and tendered ashore for casual Italian at old standby Amalfi, followed by a provisioning stop at the Stop & Shop in the same plaza. In the evening we were treated to an unexpected but distant fireworks show over the sound at City Island, apparently in celebration of the last day of school in New York City.

I love this glass chandelier at Bosphorous.

Now that we are in the protected waters of Long Island sound and are well on track to make our commitments in a month, we can be on a more relaxed pace. So when it looked like conditions on the sound would not be great Friday, we opted to just spend another day in the familiar harbor of Port Washington. I spent the morning trying to finish my electrical project, at least until I ran into a brick wall when I found I do not have the right size Wago connectors on hand.

The last of the Edmund Fitzgerald porter that I picked up in Hopewell. I am on the hunt for another porter.

On a very pleasant afternoon I had a nice walk down to the Ace Hardware, who had the screws I needed for a hatch project. I also stopped at West Marine, who had nothing I needed, and Target, where I expected to pick up some wine until I realized, after two circuits of the grocery aisles, that NY is one of the states where you can not buy wine in the grocery. I stopped at a bottle shop instead.

At dinner time we tendered over to the Manorhaven dock, figuring on a pleasant walk to dinner, only to find the gate padlocked. It's a seasonal dock, but we are well in season and the village web site says the dock should be open. Oh well, nothing to be done about it on the weekend and so we just tendered back around to the North Port Washington dock and walked to Salvatore's from there for pizza and beer.

Sunset over City Island, or thereabouts, from Manhasset Bay.

Yesterday would have been a good day to continue east, with conditions similar to today, but while we were in Port Washington we decided to try a new stop, in Mattituck, as we head east from Port Jeff. It's a tiny anchorage there, with room for just a few boats, and word is that it gets crowded on the weekends. So we opted to slow down by a day, which also allowed me to place an Amazon order to Port Jeff that would not arrive until today. We'd rather spend the extra day in Port Washington, where everything is easier, than Port Jeff, and so we just stayed put.

That gave me a full day to try to dial the engine alignment in a bit further, and once I had it, I got out the big torque wrench and tightened everything down. In the afternoon I made use of my newly acquired screws to install a pair of handles I had ordered on Amazon onto our aft boat deck hatch. I'm not sure why it took me a full decade, and a friend's broken fingers, to get around to doing this; I think it is because we were afraid we'd kick it when standing on the hatch as we deck the tender. We ended the day with dinner at Bosphorous before doing exactly that (without kicking the handle) for an early start.

New hatch handle so we don't have to work our fingers under the edge any longer.

Update: We are anchored in a familiar spot off the power plant in Port Jefferson Harbor (map). When we arrived some sort of alarm was blaring from the plant, which went on for a very long time. I am sad to report that the alignment change did not help and actually made things worse, so we stopped mid-trip to back it out, which also did not help. So tightening everything down is the culprit this time and I will have to do another iteration. It is said that a pro can align an engine like this in a couple of hours but that an amateur can expect to spend up to six, and I am well out of pro territory now.

As long as I had to drill two bolt holes, I put this one on the other side to make it easier to close, too.

My Amazon packages are coming to a drop at the Staples store, which closes at 6, and since they are not yet delivered it looks like I will be heading up there on the county bus first thing in the morning. That should still give us plenty of time to get to Mattituck. Tonight we'll dinghy ashore to Danford's Marina and eat in their restaurant, which is actually pretty good.