Day 14- Fire Island, New York

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(Lois's note: There is just something about NYC I can't get over. I knew today would be the day we would get by the city, one way or another, and overnight my dreams were filled with anxiety scenes of bad sailing. I dreamt one of our dock lines was trailing in the water as we were sailing, and a squirrel ran by, grabbed onto it and ran up a tree, leaving us stuck to sail in circles around the tree.  I'm sure some dream analyst would have a field day with that. I should have brought peanut M&M's!*
*a reference to last year's trip through NYC when I nervously munched my way through the East River.

 And now back to the captain's more serious report....)


After a couple wonderful days at Atlantic Highlands we hauled anchor and headed north east with a perfect south west wind right behind us.  Being Sunday there was little commercial traffic which made crossing the shipping lanes into New York City very easy.  A dozen large freighters lay just outside waiting their turn into the harbor.  The spinnaker took us quickly past the anchored freighters and then we had the ocean to ourselves. 

The New York coast offers two ways to move north,  boating through the East River with Manahattan on one side and Brooklyn on the other eventually takes you into Long  Island Sound (the inside route). The outside route uses the ocean to transit the south shore of Long Island.  We have used the inside route before, so with very pleasant weather we choose the outside route.

We sailed big lazy jibes downwind crossing from our morning anchorage to Fire Island Inlet.  The ocean crossing was pleasant as could be.

"There be Dragons Here" is the theme of the guide book entries regarding Fire Island inlet.  We slowed the boat down, found the channel markers, and made our entry without problems. Didn't see any dragon's though.

Once inside we found thousands of people enjoying the beach, and hundreds of boats & jet skis.  The crowd started thinning as soon as we dropped anchor. There's now a much more comfortable 'personal space' between us and the next boat over, and a vibrant sunset on the horizon.

Shelby spent her day the same way she spends every sailing day.

And lastly, the moonlight looks very pretty on the water tonight.

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