We weighed anchor and headed up the East River. Our trip today isn’t too long, but we have to travel past Roosevelt Island (“The island was called Minnehanonck by the Lenape and Varkens Eylandt (Hog Island) by New Netherlanders, and during the colonial era and later as Blackwell’s Island. It was known as Welfare Island when it was used principally for hospitals, from 1921 to 1973. It was renamed Roosevelt Island (in honor of Franklin D. Roosevelt) in 1973.”) We passed Rikers and LaGuardia and finally through what is called Hell’s Gate. We started picking up speed as we were getting a good push from the current. This is another time we had to make sure we timed the current correctly. We saw a boat traveling behind us and I made contact on the VHF to let them know our intentions when we got to a split. Once confirmed they let us know we had docked with them back at Elizabeth’s Dock in the Dismal Swamp! They were heading in the same direction as us today except they were going to go farther than we had planned. I played every New York song I could find as we wound through downtown Manhattan and Long Island. With the current pushing us we made good time. We finally came out in Long Island Sound having navigated through it all without issue. We rounded Hewlett Point and entered Manhasset Bay where Port Washington is. Port Washington is a known cruisers stop and has a few marinas as well as a mooring field which offers one night free and $25 each additional night. What a bargain. I contacted the Harbormaster on the radio and confirmed the rates and availability. The moorings are first come first serve so we made our way in and snagged a ball. Once secured we relaxed a bit. The trip only took us three hours and we had arrived about 10am.
Now that we were secured we decided to take Frank to shore and walk around a bit. We went up and down the street and checked out what was around. We returned back to the boat and planned a short excursion for later to get some needed cat litter and other miscellaneous stuff. Even though we were at a Walmart not too long ago, we can only carry so much on the bikes so we have to wisely choose what to get at that time. Lauren has found a Target not too far away and it looked like we could land the dinghy somewhat close to it. I again called the Harbormaster and he told me we could tie up at the dock near where we wanted to go. We eventually made it to the Target and back with our supplies. The cats should be happy about that. We determined our next stop will be Oyster Bay where we found what looks like a nice anchorage not too far away. No reason to make long jumps when we don’t have to and we still have time on our hands…