July 29, 2009
America Approaches
We’re still in very thick fog, with about a hundred yards of visibility. So we had two stormy days, one beautiful one, and two foggy ones. This morning we were south of Halifax, running southwest. By midnight or so we’ll be passing Mantauk Point on Long Island. The pilot’s call at Ambrose Channel, the entrance to New York harbor,ver is for 3:45am, so I may just stay up all night. Of course, if we’ve got this hundred-yard visibility all the way to the pier, there won’t be much point.
Tie up is at 6am(?!) at Brooklyn(?!) The Brooklyn thing I generally get, though it robs us of the classic moment of steaming past the Statue of Liberty. They don’t want to risk these big ships in the Hudson River (and perhaps can’t afford to use Manhattan real estate to moor ships nowadays).
The 6am I also get (it gives them a full day for turnaround, with departure in the evening), though I begrudge. As Michael Palin observed, the interesting part of sailing is when you’re in sight of land. Thanks to these dawn-and-dusk schedules you get a couple of hours, but only if you want to get up at 2am. So good for them, but bad for us. Well, I shall take what’s on offer . . . very early. A drowsy end to the trip of a lifetime.
