New York, New York

After our brief stop in Block Island, we made the overnight passage from the Great Salt Pond to Centerport, NY. For those who do not know, Centerport sits in the center of Northport Bay with Northport to the east and Huntington to the west. While our main reason for stopping in Centerport was to visit family, it also served as a bit of nostalgia. Northport was the destination of our first "long" voyage on Shiloh and one we sadly hadn't made since.

As we dropped the sails and tied up, eager for some sleep, we heard cheering across the water. While we would like to think the town was applauding our sailing skills, we knew that was not the case. As it turned out, we came into town when Northport was having its annual Cow Harbor Weekend. Upon some internet sleuthing, we discovered this festival is held every year in Northport to celebrate the Northport community. It begins with a 10k race (the cheering we heard) and transitions to a festival with live music, parades, vendor stalls, delicious food and you guessed it.....people dressed like cows. Northport was actually originally named Great Cow Harbor by English settlers who thought the land was perfectly suited for grazing cattle. While the name was changed, the town sticks to it's bovine heritage for the celebration. Shiloh got lucky with this stop!

After an unintended extended stay in Centerport due to our dingy (Dingus) deciding to spend the day at the beach without us, we pushed off for our home away from home, Port Washington. Nestled in Manhasset Bay, Port Washington is a popular destination for boaters when visiting the sound. Its large mooring field, proximity to services and protection make it an attractive spot. We used the time in Port Washington to visit with family, catch up on repairs and do some provisioning before heading across the sound to Harlem Yacht Club.

Harlem Yacht Club is located on City Island, not in Harlem as the name implies. The club "...was initially founded at 124th Street and the East River in June of 1883. It spent most of its first two decades three blocks further south at the old Randall mansion (former home of the same Randalls who owned Randalls Island), and it also operated a ‘station’ at College Point from whence most of its regattas were conducted. In 1894, the club gave up its station at College Point in favor of one on property it had purchased at City Island." Schneider, Evelyn. https://www.hyc.org/history. We became members of Harlem Yacht Club when we purchased Shiloh back in 2019. Shiloh's prior owner was a member and once he discovered we were also from New York, he encouraged us to check out an open house. We walked into that open house as strangers, walked out with some amazing friends and have been flying the HYC burgee ever since.

We used the time at HYC to visit fellow members and to host a meetup of some friends and family. The weather was perfect and were able to have a lovely sunny Sunday with good laughs and amazing food. Thank you Chef Anne! Seeing everyone depart was definitely bittersweet, but we were excited for the next step in our adventure, sailing through the East River and to destinations further south!

After some thought, we decided to take the afternoon tide for our Hell Gate departure. While Sean had done this trip before, I had not so I was very excited to see the city from the water. We were expecting some significant speed as we crossed through the gate, but surprisingly it was pretty tame. Perhaps that is a good thing. Once we turned into the East River my face lit up like a Christmas tree. (Which is saying a lot considering it's the East River.) With the sun slowly setting behind the buildings, we got to see Gotham in her glowing glory as we slowly motored past. By the time we crossed into Upper New York Harbor and the city was behind us, the sun had officially set. So began our overnight trip down the New Jersey coast to Atlantic City.

- Shiloh Crew