008-Rock and Roll at Ellis Island

NY harbor got me jazzed with all the boats, helicopters, jet skis, ferries, river currents, the Brooklyn Bridge, and grand buildings.   But all good things need to come to an end and in our case, we needed a place to call home for the night.  The few marinas in Manhattan were priced for the affluent; the high was $12/ft/night!  And we they don’t make the beds for that price.  As you would expect, the shoreline has been commercialized with piers, bulkheads, barges, ships, warehouses, and anything else that might make a buck except for one small spot just above Ellis Island.  It looks pretty big on the charts but in real life it’s not so big.  And even here it had remnants of prior attempts at commercialization with “underwater obstructions” noted on the charts, whatever that means (debris tossed over the side 100 years ago, rotten pilings from 150 years ago, Jimmy Hoffa’s concrete shoes).  But it’s too cool a place to pass the opportunity of watching the Manhattan skyline transition to night.  The anchorage was made even smaller by a very large schooner on a mooring and a Yacht Club Committee Barge as shown on the chart below but we fit right in between the two

just fine.

But in the city that never sleeps, those ferries and their wakes just kept on going all night long and there are a lot of ferries.  It was so not a “mill pond” anchorage, take a look.

But this is New York and unbeknownst to us, we dropped anchor right in the middle of a small boat regatta even though it was a designated anchorage.  Not just any ole regatta but one with a committee barge and launches shuttling people to and from “the club” back on Manhattan.  Laughing at all the goings on, they only added to our confusion by playing the theme from “Rocky” as winners passed the finish line – and as you might imagine it was played loud enough to overcome the din so the winners could relish in the moment.  I imagined Jerry and Elaine “stuck” on the barge complaining with about something.  It was actually fun for us to be in the middle of all this commotion and imagine their lives.   It really came across as pretty sweet, reveling on a barge overlooking Manhattan’s success, sporting in sailboats on a beautiful Spring breeze.  And as the sun started to set, the racers vanished and the launches emptied the barge, and the ferries slowed and the lights came on and we experienced an awesome sight as Manhattan transitioned into glimmering towers of light.  It was like magic.  

But the tarnish happened quickly as the barge was repopulated with party animals drinking, smoking, and dancing the night away with that unbelievable sound system.  I think I heard Kramer hooting and hollering at one point.  I’ll never forget it, really.