Liberty State Park, NJ – New York City - June 13, 2008

We had dinner last night with Bob and Margaret. We each provided a portion of the meal. We toasted our arrival in New York by having champagne that had been given to us when we started our trip.

This morning a swan came over to our boats. Bob brought out some bread and we got some good shots of it.

We are staying at the Newport Yacht Club & Marina for the next 4 days. It was only about 5 miles from our anchorage so we didn’t need to get an early start. We did some catch up jobs around the boat before leaving at 10:30. We cruised the 4.4 miles and were in and tied up at Newport Yacht Club & Marina by 11:15. We are on the New Jersey side of the Hudson but we can easily see Manhatten and the Empire State Building from our slip. The price is extremely good for here but there is a downside. There is major rolling during the day from all the ferries going by. We have heard it calms down at night and we hope that is right.

We decided to spend the afternoon visiting Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We took the light transit to the end of the line ($.95 each one way), then caught a shuttle to Liberty Park ($.65 each round trip). We got on the 3:00 ferry to Ellis Island. The pigeons are so used to the ferry’s they fly in and walk around looking for food.

Ellis Island was a very interesting place. There was so much information given about its history. Some called it the Isle of Hope and some the Isle of Tears. Approximately 12 million people passed through Ellis Island. 98% of the people arriving, after medical and legal checks, were permitted to stay while the other 2% had to return to the homeland they had left. There were many exhibits detailing why people left their homeland for America, the possessions they brought with them and how the inspection process occurred.

We spent so much time at Ellis Island that we didn’t have time to get off at Liberty Island. It was OK though, because the museum in its base was closed as was the inside of the monument. It was too late in the day.

We had to wait for the shuttle to pick us up for the return, then had another $.95 ticket each for the return on the light rail. You buy the ticket for the light rail, validate the time by machine and get on the train. You don’t have to turn in the ticket or have it checked by anyone. The transit police randomly check passenger tickets and assess stiff fines ($150) if you don’t have a valid ticket.

We arrived back at Newport about 6:30. We didn’t feel like cooking, yet no one wanted to eat out either. So we found an Italian restaurant and ordered pizza’s to go. We sat at the bar and had a drink while we waited. The pizza’s were good and quite reasonably priced.