To my chagrin, they take pictures of you everywhere. This is just getting on the cruise ship, where we decided to add a little joy and class to the festivities. I took a picture of their picture:
What is she taking a picture of?
That’s Manhattan, with the newly topped out World Trade Center there in the middle, rising 1,776 feet. We’re departing out of Bayonne, NJ — which sounds like it should be exotic, but don’t be misled — and heading to Bermuda.
Here is a look at some of the vessels coming up the Hudson River as we are departing. This is the Blue Rose. She’s a 6-year-old oil and chemical tanker that can carry 38,500 tons, flying the flag of the Marshall Islands.
The Osaka Car is just four years old. She’s a car carrier, and can tote 12,321 tons safely. This vessel flies the flag of Singapore and cruises at an average of 13.4 knots per hour. If you’ve ever wondered what 183 meters looks like, today is your lucky day.
And here is Panama’s New Century I. Built in 2001, she’s 199 meters long and 32 meters wide. This is a Roll-on/roll-off and passenger ship. That sounds like an awful lot of fun.
But not as fun as our trip. As you leave the Hudson River basin you see Brooklyn on one side and Staten Island on the other. You cross under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, a double-decked suspension bridge, which was the largest suspension bridge in the world from 1964 until 1981. (It is now the 10th longest.)
What matters today is the vertical clearance. Anything under 228 feet can get under it. And while I can’t find any measurements for our ship’s height, we’re close enough to the bridge to make this a possibility in any child’s mind:
She stretched soooo hard to reach that bridge. She didn’t make it. She’ll just have to go to Bermuda with the rest of us.
Meanwhile, Allie is watching over things:
