Leaving Manhattan

8/4/07 – My dad and I awoke this morning and ate a breakfast of oatmeal. We had invited Margo to join us on the sail around Manhattan so we picked her up at the dock and departed. We went south, passing the skyline and the Statue of Liberty before turning north on the East River and going under the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and several other huge bridges. People had been warning me about the area called Hell Gate ever since I had left Florida and we came to it at around 9:00am. This area is infamous for extremely strong currents (up to five knots) and numerous eddies and horrendous chop kicked up by moderate breezes. Hundreds of ships have sunk there in the past few hundred years. I had planned our departure time from the marina so that our arrival at Hell Gate would coincide with slack tide, the time at which the tide-driven currents are still. We were a little bit late but not enough to make it dangerous so we passed through with ease. We dropped Margo off at a marina on City Island where she took a bus back to Manhattan. My dad and I continued along in Long Island Sound for the day until we got to South Norwalk. We got to a marina and took showers before walking into town. It just so happened that the day we were there was the weekend of the biggest city festival of the year: the SoNo Arts Celebration. We walked around and saw some of the booths before going to a local steakhouse for dinner. We got some ice cream before going back to the boat since the lady playing music at the main stage was not very good. We looked on the internet and found that another band was playing later that night so we waited until they started and then walked back over there. They were called Otis and the Hurricanes and were very good.