New York
Thursday 6th October
Today the weather was beautiful, blue skies and forecast to hit 70F. Our plan was to get the subway out to Coney Island, famous for its boardwalk, theme park and home of Nathan’s hotdogs.
After an incident with a lady trying to claim our Uber as hers (she didn’t stand a chance) 😂 we got to the subway station and got a $3 each Metro ticket for the 35 minute trip to Coney Island.
Very easy to navigate, we made our way to the boardwalk, the side streets are on a par with some of the back streets of UK seaside resorts. Once up on the boardwalk it was lovely, very well maintained, lovely brick buildings housing restrooms and changing facilities, plenty of benches, stalls and shops selling food, drink and the usual seaside wares. The beach had good quality sports equipment and climbing frames for the kids. It is the end of the season so the amusement park was closed, there were plenty of people about though all enjoying the sunshine and plenty of local characters with their music and trying to earn a buck or two. The Bird man arrived on his scooter letting his birds out to sit on the handlebars and cages. He started singing and the birds joined in tweeting
We enjoyed a pleasant few hours and had an ice cream, a walk up the boardwalk and back then back to the station for the trip back to Carroll Street station to return to the ship.
I did a quick change once back and enjoyed a pleasant couple of hours in the pool at the back of the ship drinking Prosecco against a backdrop of Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan whilst chatting to new friends as Paul enjoyed a beer or two and dipped his feet.
It was an exciting few hours watching the goings on across in Manhattan and on the river. Joe Biden was arriving in the city and the river came to a standstill, Helicopters and drones circled above and the lights of the motor cavalcade could be seen as they made their way from Wall Street.
We enjoyed a glorious sail away as darkness fell, passing the Statue of Liberty and sailing under the Verrazano Narrows bridge where the ship only had a 5metre clearance 😅 we made it. Phew.
Good-bye for now New York.