Plans don't always come together, or do they?

Hey everyone, Stéphanie here, mom and dad are busy so the blog for this evening has been left in my capable hands, or not, you can be the judge of that. Our plan for today was to be out of the Liberty Landing Marina by 11 and head North up the Hudson River. We did eventually head up the river, but not without a few changes in plans an a hiccup or two along the way.

I really wanted to go to Canal Street, but our days were so jam packed that we didn't have the opportunity to do so in the past two days. Considering we are all early risers and we had a few hours to spare I suggested a quick trip to Canal Street. Dad stayed back as he has no interest in shopping for purses and wallets, it's a shame because it was quite the adventure. Mom suggested that we take their bikes onto the ferry and travel through the New York streets in true New York fashion. The picture below does not display how much of an adventure it really was; mostly because the majority of our ride was spent weaving in and out of traffic trying to avoid hitting a pedestrian or getting hit by a car ourselves. Considering I didn't feel like dying in the mean streets of New York, I took the photos at the only time where there was very little traffic. 

Nevertheless, we finally made it to Canal Street and I had the opportunity to experience it as others have described it to me. I purchased a purse and matching wallet. Yippy!!

 Mom didn't buy anything, but she seemed to enjoy watching me experience it. She also feared that the bikes would end up like this one, so she opted to stick by the bikes while I explored a bit.

When we got back to the boat Dad had prepared the boat for the next few days adventure. He also took out what we needed in order to make a delicious brunch. Eleven o'clock rolled around and it was time to go Dad started the engines, but not without a bit of a struggle with one of them. After a few tries he finally got it up and running, so off we went. We were about 3 miles out along the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey when the engine cut out once again. At this point there was a lot of commotion as Mom and Dad tried to contact a nearby marina to take us in, but there was no service department and no space for our boat. Dad tried the starboard engine again and it started up again. This happened a few more times when all of the sudden the second engine gave out. We tried contacting the coast guard, tow boat U.S all while searching for another marina. Unfortunately, everyone continued to suggest returning to Liberty Landing and the tow boat U.S said it would be at least an hour and a half before we could get a tow. So here we are, floating back down river towards Liberty Landing Marina with no motors and no tow boat. We were being pushed back by the current faster than we had been going with both motors against it just moments before. 

Lucky for us, some New Jersey City Fire and Rescue guys came to our "rescue" and towed us back to Liberty Landing Marina. I was hoping they would be a bit more attractive, but at least they were kind and helpful Hahaha. After about an hour or so Dad got both motors back up and running and had a mechanic take a look at it just to be sure nothing was missed. Turns out there was some air in our fuel lines.

So off we go again up the Hudson River. We got to see the same sights three times, so they will forever be engraved in our minds. The only new thing we got to see was this very important flying Gieco advertisement hahaha. You'll have to zoom in to get the full effect like we did. 

 It was a short and uneventful trip back up river. We are now in Nyack, New York anchored next to a mooring field. You should see some of the huge mooring balls they have out here for the crane's and construction barges - sorry I don't have any pictures of them, I didn't think of it at the time. All photo's in tonight's blog were courtesy of me! :-)

Bonne Nuit, à demain! 

Love Steph 

                     

New York, New York day 2

OMG where do I begin. We walked and toured and walked and toured! Stephanie has a pedometer on her phone, so we set off with it going and we broke her record! A total of 28,790 steps. And 23.5 km. No wonder our feet hurt! Not to mention the 10km bike ride around Central park and the ride from Statue of Liberty docks to 911 Memorial site. So where did all these steps take us you ask?

Well we started at the Statue of Liberty of course. 

From there we made our way to the 911 memorial sight. I just cannot be in that place and not have tears come to my eyes. So many lives lost, so much devastation, it is just a really moving sight. 

We also got to see the survival tree. This is a tree that survived all this devastation around the twin towers. The tree was uprooted while they worked on rebuilding all this area. They moved it as far North as they could while still leaving it in New York.  It was nursed back to health in a rescue Nursery and then transplanted back in the memorial sight. It's root system is still a little week, so they have these cables holding it all in place. The tour guide explained that the root system will likely have sufficient width by next year for them to be able to remove all these cables.

From the Memorial, we made our way to Madam Tussaud's wax museum, where we got to play paparazzi and get our picture taken with all sorts of fake celebrities. We did stop along the way to grab some lunch at a street vendor. 

We left Madam Tussaud's and made our way to Central park where we rented some bikes and took a 2 hr guided tour of the park.

It really is quite a sight to see, a marvel of design really. You can have a busy city street, a few hundred yards away and not even realize it. 

The park is over 800 acres of greenery, among  a hustling, bustling city. We stopped at several places where many movies have been filmed, far too many to mention, but suffice it to say literally hundreds of movies have been filmed here. The picture here is the imagine Mosaic Donated to the city of New York in honor of John Lenon, who lived in the first building to the right of this Mosaic. 

We barely got off the bikes, that we had to rush for our appointment with the top of the Rock. We purchased tickets yesterday for this attraction and our time slot was 6:35pm so we quickly made our way down the 9-10 blocks to the Rockefeller centre and then waited for 10 min for our time slot! 

We finally did make it in there and once again were treated to a spectacular view of the city. This time a really nice view of Central park and it's 20 acre lake. So out of that building and into the subway we went. But not before Stephanie got to get a picture with Questlove, the Drummer from the Roots band who play nightly on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. This time, the real live version!

 


We caught the second to last ferry across to Jersey City and were starving. We stopped at a restaurant right by our marina, but they were full and had no seating for us. Once we got to the boat, we dropped our dinghy and rode across the channel to Surf City restaurant.

Not the dining experience we were hoping for but it did fill the hole in our tummy and we got to sit by the fire enjoying a drink as we closed off our evening.

By 10:30 pm we were all so exhausted nobody could keep their eyes open so we dropped into bed and into a sound sleep.  Hence why I did not post last night. I'm sure you will all forgive me!

New York Day 1

What  a Day we had. Stephanie missed her train in Albany due to a GPS error. Unfortunately that meant she could not get another train until 10am, which got her to New York at 1pm.

Jim and I took off from the Marina and took a ferry across the harbor. We did some walking around and found some interesting sights.

Apparently they really do not want anyone sitting on these water pipes!

Despite our late start with Stephanie, we still managed to put in a great sightseeing day.

We started at the Empire State building and made it all the way to the 86^th floor observation deck.  Yes, I even went out there and I have photographic proof!

We then made our way to the Museum of Sex. It was very interesting stuff in there. 

After making our way in, we had to go into the inflated boob house. Stephanie has never been surrounded by so many boobs!

From there we headed to the Rockefeller Centre where Stephanie got to pose with her favorite comedian, Jimmy Fallon. Unfortunately we could not go to the observation tower because they were sold out. We will get there tomorrow.  

We did get to time square and Oh my god is there ever a lot of lights! 

Then Discovery Time Square Museum, where I finally got to see the Body Worlds Pulse exhibit. I really wanted to catch it when they were traveling through Canada, but I never got there. This exhibit is just magnificent. 

We had a quick dinner at Guy Fieri's restaurant where Steph ordered his signature Bacon Mac and Cheese burger. Who in God's name can open their mouth wide enough for this one! She ended up cutting it in half and sharing with her dad. 

Then a quick and I mean quick walk back to the subway station because our last Ferry back to the marina was leaving @ 8:45 pm. We managed the make it despite my sore tootsies. We also had to walk past Madison Square Gardens, where Washington and New York Rangers are playing Game 7. It was not too hard to pull Jim away from there!

Tomorrow we get to do it all over again. Woo hoo! I better go soak my feet, cause these little dogs are hurting.

Good night all 

View of Freedom Tower from our boat

Engine trouble in New York Harbor.....again! 40◦22'.641 N 074◦07'.811 W

I did not blog last night, as we were having great difficulty getting internet service due to a storm. It did not rain for long, but lots of thunder and lightning. We did go for a walk around Staten Island Park before the rain started and we found some interesting sights. 

I guessed beaches were hard to come by when we saw this particular sight. Park the car and take out the law chairs! Hey whatever works for you. But we kept walking around.  

About 5 minutes later, we came across the Ocean side of the island and found this wonderful sight. We were left really confused; the beach was almost empty, and people were in their law chairs in the parking lot! Go figure!

We are now in New York Harbor. Can't really mistake this picture, can you.

We left the harbor in Staten Island this morning and made our way toward New York Harbor, however our engines had a déjà vu and both of them conked out in succession.  At least it was not simultaneous like the last time. Turns out it was some clogged fuel filters. Jim quickly changed the Starbord engine filters and got it going again, but then just before we entered the harbor, the port engine followed suit. Unfortunately we did not have a second set of filters, so we came into port on one engine. Thank god we have two of them!

We are at Liberty Landing Marina which is directly across the harbor from Manhattan Island. We had looked at some marinas in Manhattan, however with a location directly in the path of the ferries, we really thought we would rather be in a more protected area which was a bit more reasonably priced. It is a very nice marina and we are a short walk away from the ferries of Manhattan. We have a pretty wonderful view of Manhattan from here to. 

The day has finally arrived and our daughter Stéphanie will becoming  on the 9am train tomorrow, so we have a full day of sightseeing waiting for us.  I better get my beauty sleep while I can.

Good night all.