S/V Geru: Halloween and Movie Stars

We spent six days in New York at the cheapest "hotel" New York had to offer (30$ a night), although it was a bit bouncy due to the boat wakes and current. It did include free showers and laundry if you didn't mind a wet dinghy ride in. It was a two-block walk to Broadway and the subway, which we took downtown several times during our stay.

We had intended to spend three days in New York, however the remnants of hurricane Noel kept us in town (not a bad place to wait out a hurricane). The effects we felt were strong winds and associated bigger waves, but no rain.

On our first day in New York we took a trip to the local West Marine store (on 37th Street) to pick up some of the items we have found we needed for the boat - although it was a fun trip, the store had very little of what we wanted due to the fact that New York is not really a sailing city. What made the trip more interesting was the sighting of Kim Cattrall (Samantha) from "Sex and the City" who was busy shooting a scene for "Sex and the City: The Movie" (Click here for a picture of the scene we saw).

Day two in New York was October 31, Halloween. The harbour master at the marina suggested that we might want to go to the Halloween parade in Greenwich Village. Everything in New York is big and the parade certainly followed this rule - we stood in a huge crowd for two and a half hours watching all manner of costume and floats go by. (see flikr for photos and Vimeo for videos).

After a day of resting and cleaning ourselves and the boat up a bit, we headed over to Liberty Landing by water taxi on day four to check out the marina there. It was the biggest marina any of us had ever seen - over 500 boats! On the way back from downtown we stopped by a grocery store not far from the marina. It was an amazing grocery store - jammed packed. It was a smaller store than a "superstore" in Ottawa and it had no big isles, but it had better selection and more variety than anything we've ever seen. The evening came with strong winds and yet more waves as hurricane Noel passed by New York.

On day five, Al was going to leave early in the morning, but it was still too wavy and windy to get him and his suitcases to shore safely with the dinghy, so we spent the morning hanging out on the boat. In the afternoon we walked quite a way up Broadway (it's a nice neighbourhood around Broadway around 79th - the upper West side).

We left New York on day six (Sunday, November 4th) - Al back to Ottawa, and us South. Thank you, Al, for your invaluable help in getting us this far.