“New York, New York…!”

Around five years ago Martin and I flew into New York for the first leg of a USA holiday

taking in the Big Apple, Grand Canyon, San Francisco and a long stretch of the Ocean Highway in an open top car (oh, the rows about whether we could close the top and use air conditioning when it got over 100 degrees!!!) Unknown to us, friends of Martin’s had just sailed into the Hudson River, New York and we ended up joining them aboard their boat for a drink, just a short walk from our hotel on the Upper West Side. The seed was sown…

Today, at 1.30pm local time, having sailed under the enormous Verrazano-Narrows Bridge which joins Staten Island to Manhattan, then right up close to the iconic Statue of Liberty and past the towering skyscrapers that define New York (including the new One World Trade Centre – to be visited asap), we turned Dawn Chorus’s nose into the West 79th St Basin, right where we’d met Martin’s friends all those years ago. After a celebratory cold beer aboard, we took Buzz for a walk in nearby Riverside Park – tomorrow, it will be Grand Central Park,

just another few blocks further. Tonight, we’ll be stepping out to celebrate some more, and no doubt discovering once again that New York bartenders take no prisoners! It’s so exciting to know we got here under our own steam and that all the wonderful sights and attractions of this teeming city are just a stone’s throw away. Yeah!!!

Our electronic chart – we’re the blue triangle.

Are we there yet?

Pleased? Me???

West 79th St Basin