July 30, 2009
My Last Post
The New York harbor pilot was scheduled to board the Queen Mary 2 at 3:45 this morning. I hit the deck a few minutes after he boarded, apparently, because the pilot boat was gone, and the ship was starting to stand slowly up Ambrose Channel.
Ambrose doesn’t offer the same degree of challenge as The Brambles, but it’s difficult. New York’s harbor mouth isn’t deep enough for the big boys, so Ambrose Channel is dredged but narrow. A ship starts out heading west toward New Jersey in the channel, then make about a ninety-degree right turn and stands into the harbor under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
When we picked up the pilot, I was one of only a handful of crazies on deck, but by the time we got to the narrows at about 5 am, several hundred people of all ages and descriptions were out on deck to watch the ship come in. When we passed under the bridge many (presumably Americans) burst into spontaneous applause.
Once in the harbor we headed for a pier in Brooklyn, rather than for the traditional landing at lower Manhattan on the Hudson River. I think this change was probably made for reasons of safety, cost, and to gain access to the city’s airports to the east without having to mess with Manhattan.
So you do pass abeam of the Statue of Liberty, but it’s on the opposite side of the harbor. We did get some nice views of it and lower Manhattan, however, and I tried to get some shots of our arrival using a tripod, as Barbara and I fought for space at the rail. The tripod was necessary because the ship docked at 6:06am, a few minutes before sunrise.
So ended our delightful twenty-five hour days at sea (you gain an hour every night westbound) eating, listening to great programs and music, and relaxing. We departed the ship at about 8am, reached LaGuardia airport about 9, and waited for our 3pm flight to Denver.
It was while jamming myself into an airline seat designed for somebody four feet six instead of six feet four, that I realized that our lovely, once-in-a-lifetime vacation in Britain, France, and on the sea was most emphatically over.
