Wednesday, April 25

Freedom Tower at Dusk

9/11 "Empty Skies" Memorial

The Lady

Finally, the winds shifted to the SW.  Still windy at 15 mph and seas running 4 to 6 ft. we would be running down wind and decided t go for it.  We were able to make good time on the outside.  100 miles and 3.5 hours later the skyline of New York City come into view.  We knew that entering New York Harbor on our "baby boat" would be one of the highlights of our Loop cruise.  Watching the skyline grow on the horizon as we approached the harbor was magnificent.
It is an 8 mile run across Lower Bay to the The Narrows into New York Harbor.  We ran just outside the busy main shipping lanes.  As we approached The Verrazano Narrows Bridge, eighth among the world's largest suspension bridges (it links Staten Island to Brooklyn) the Statue of Liberty - serene and beautiful- came into view.  It is very difficult to helm a boat entering the Narrows.  It is not so much the traffic, which is happy to run you over if you're in the wrong place, it's the visual overload that New York hits you with at water level.  Boats, ships, planes, helicopters, the skyline, The Lady and the new Freedom Tower.  Ellis Island, no afterthought itself, almost is.
We stayed at the Liberty Landing Marina located on the Jersey side of the Hudson directly across from Freedom Tower.  With 2 cranes on the rooftop it is a work in progress, still it towers over all surrounding sky scrappers.
It was an emotional moment to walk through the 9/11 Memorial erected in Liberty Park.  As you follow the pathway through the middle of the memorial, at eye level and etched in granite, are the names of all the New Jersey residents who died on that terrible day.  As you look back through the memorial it frames the skies where the Twin Towers once stood, thus getting it's name "Empty Skies".
Having been at this marina several years ago, courtesy of the Hansons, four things are different:  1.  The Freedom Tower looms above the renovated skyline,  2.  Uncle Rusty is not here to supervise,  3.  No evening Hudson River dinner cruise like on Liquidity,  4.  I have to pay for the fuel. 
As dusk approached, the lights of the city were beautiful.