New York Story

The Intrepid Jerry is resting in Connecticut now after a whirlwind tour of NYC. After noticing that both public dinghy docks and affordable marinas in the NYC environs were sorely lacking, the crew ended up anchoring out and basing their NYC excursions out of the Atlantic Highlands Marina/anchorage in New Jersey. Based on the sheer number of masts attached to sailboats bobbing on mooring balls and at anchor, this is apparently what you are supposed to do. “New Jersey: Go Have Your NYC Fun. You’ll Be Back…”

The photos of this post will tell the story of visits to The Empire State Building, 30 Rock, the MOMA, the Intrepid, the Museum of Illusions, Chinatown, a comedy club, a gaming café, and Nordstrom. “Nordstrom?” you may ask. Of course! You see, when people from Omaha visit any other city at all, they visit the GOOD department stores.  

We also did something that Mel has been dreaming about ever since we decided to go up the East Coast: sail by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Akin to her experience when viewing Mount Rushmore in person, Mel was surprised to find that she underestimated how amazing it is to be in proximity to something that you know so well from photos. You can’t appreciate the feeling evoked by a monument until you experience how it scales with its setting and your own body.  There also must be some sort of aromatherapy wafting out of Lady Liberty’s torch, as hope and optimism about the future filled Mel’s heart, emotions sorely lacking since her people (big-hearted nerds) came under attack this January.

While eating amazing bagels and paninis in the shade of a 40-story building as smiling, brightly adorned people meandered through the streets after the boisterous Dominican Day Parade, Jerry’s crew came to understand why “Summertime in New York” has inspired so much art, music, and culture. Mel’s Midwestern apprehension about visiting a city so huge and fast-paced melted away as her mentoring instincts were triggered by the twenty-something comedians practicing their material on them at the Greenwich Village “Comedy Cellar is Sold Out” Comedy Club. To get a deeper look at the culture, Mel bought a book of New York stories written by a native called Only in New York, Vol. 3.  Turns out it was a self-published book erratically written by an adventurous old coot.  If this coot’s experience is representative of the broader populace, Mel learned the following things about New Yorkers: New Yorkers like to try things with low likelihood of success but potentially big payouts. New Yorkers take pride in working hard. New Yorkers believe that being from NYC makes them different somehow, but they are not sure exactly how. New Yorkers like to figure things out for themselves. And finally: New Yorkers are gracious with tourists but become assholes when they travel.

Mel highly recommends this book if you want to spend a few hours reminiscing with a weirdo!

One more story to tell. Tales of cruisers’ land explorations always begin with a drawn-out tale of how they got to land in the first place. To get to NYC from their anchorage in New Jersey, Jerry’s crew ended up using a super-fast, 37 kt power catamaran called SeaStreak. As the first step to get to the terminal, the Atlantic Highlands Marina provided a water taxi service to and from land for those at anchor.

Unfortunately, this taxi service was the source of our first Sea Story. As Mel boarded the Water Taxi in the morning for their first venture into NYC, she reflected how awesome it was that there were so many different methods of transport in and into the city.  Ferry, car, taxi, Uber, subway… Unfortunately, that night she added an overlooked method to her list: swimming.

The adventure began with a rare 45-minute delay in the SeaStreak schedule.  Anxiety increased when the Water Taxi service was not returning our calls to confirm our pickup time 30 minutes before they were supposed to close.  At 10 PM, technically closing time for the Water Taxi, an Uber from the SeaStreak terminal deposited Jerry’s crew at a marina bedding down for the night.  The Water Taxi office was deserted. The moon was just waking up, and only a few dim anchor lights were visible.  The crew faced a travel challenge: how do they get to their boat bobbing at anchor, 200 yards from a beach, new dinghy hanging uselessly on its davits, in the dark of night without a tender?  Clearly, inspiring NYC had rubbed off on them: “Just get a hotel” was not an option – they could figure this out!

At first, the group split up, and Greg and Isaak wandered the docks, hoping to chance on an awake cruiser with a dinghy. Mel’s crew inquired if the workers closing the marina’s bar/restaurant happened to live on a boat and could give them a ride. “I wish! Not with how much they pay us!” was the answer from the smiling cook. She also discouraged us from inquiring the same of the salty barflies upstairs – “They are in no shape to help you.” We then decided to get as close as possible to Jerry to help determine if we should “borrow” a fishing kayak sitting in the weeds by the side of a bike trail. Stepping over a field of expired horseshoe crabs, the crew finally located Jerry, despite a dead anchor light. Feeling weird about generating security video of them dragging an old kayak to the beach, the Captain made a decision: he will swim to the boat!

After Mel sent an invisible force field of her brain waves warding off any jellyfish, Greg entered the water and began to swim to the boat.

Quickly losing sight of Greg in the murk, the crew waited breathlessly for a sign he had reached the boat and boarded using our emergency cat overboard ladder. A miscalculation regarding how far away the boat actually was, plus lack of knowledge that Greg switched to a slow backstroke, caused a little panic about 5 minutes in.  But the gamble paid off: he made it!

Afterwards the Burnetts chalked the whole situation to being in New Jersey at the time. 

So after all of this high-octane travel and misadventures, is Mel ready to return to comfortable Omaha with its more limited but less calamitous transportation options? Hmmmm, let’s check in on what Omaha is up to:

Uh, no.

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