July 3-4 -- We're Off! City island to Cold Spring Harbor, 17 Miles

July 3 was for transporting the rest of our stuff from home to boat, including our most precious cargo, our amazing cats, excited to start their eleventh sailing season; well not really, not in the heat.

Then to the supermarket for the final provisioning of perishables, and after stowing them, returning our car to the garage in our building in Manhattan where it will not be subject to flooding in the event of nor'easters. The subway trip back was the most amazingly fast trip ever, with zero waiting time for the local, the express, the local again and the bus. Miraculous timing, perhaps an omen for the cruise? We also missed the rain which occurred during our time in the restaurant. Living a charmed life.






City Island sunset.

 A very peaceful night on our mooring, though quite hot.

Next morning we departed the Harlem at 8:30 and motored out east to the entrance of Oyster Bay in zero wind. I did not even put up the main. Then a bit of wind from the north permitted us to sail, slowly, under genoa only, on port broad reach, south, the last few miles into Cold Spring Harbor, where we anchored, near its east side, in 17 feet of water.
While motoring, a lot of interior cleaning got done. I experienced our new electronics -- the beginning of our learning curve on how to use item. We have most of the basics down already but there is still a lot to learn.
One feature will need to be tweaked: the AIS (Automatic Identification System) shows all other AIS equipped boats near us, as little triangles on the chart displayed on the MFD. It shows a line from the bow of each, indicating its course. And we can look up more information including its name so we can call a boat before we can see its name on its hull, if communications would be useful to prevent accidents. Not all boats broadcast their AIS information, including ILENE. Larger boats are required to broadcast but we have only the cheaper passive AIS, so we recieve signals from other boats without broadcasting our own. One drawback is that AIS could distract the helmsperson from the important task of looking about, burying his eyes in the screen instead, in which event he or she will not see boats, like ILENE, that are not broadcasting AIS. And it being July Fourth, there was a huge amount of traffic off the north shore of Long Island that we were traversing. A useful feature is that AIS presents alarms (audible and visual) whenever it thinks we will get too close to another boat broadcasting AIS. This will be useful when out at sea at night. But today it was  incessant with so many boats nearby. I'm sure there must be a way to turn off the alarms or decrease their frequency, and we will have to learn how to use it.
In Cold Spring Harbor we saw a boat that looked familiar and we closed to her. It was "Aria",

formerly owned by my friend Jim. A 26 foot Ocean Voyager. I sailed with him many times on her, including from Baltimore to the Harlem. It brought back such great memories. Her new owner, on the bow, lives in Brooklyn.
Several little ten minute projects got done -- too hot for the big ones, the outdoor cleaning jobs..We moored in twenty feet of water with a lot of chain out. It was a bit roly by day due to many powerboat wakes, but they most all left before bedtime and we had a quiet night, We lazed about drinking liquids to prevent hypothermia and enjoying our food and rest.  I have seen enough fireworks to last a lifetime and the cats never particularly liked them.