first weekend at the marina

The day was Saturday, April 26th. It was the first full day of work at the Liberty Landing Marina. Syed and I arrived at the ferry terminal at approximately 9:30 and were greeted by the Mickey Murphy Water Taxi at 9:45. Once we landed at the marina things were already heating up, in more ways than one. The sun was out and the air was warm with a moderate breeze, and the night before one of the vessels entering the marina slammed into a finger dock and another vessel. This led to a completely broken finger dock, a bent finger dock, and a damaged vessel. It was quite the situation however Syed and I did not see it unfold firsthand however, George, one of the dockmasters had been there and told us about the whole situation when we arrived the following morning.

After being informed about the issue that had occurred the night before,  Syed and I went on a dockwalk. Which is essentially an inventory of the vessels located on docks C - R. That's 12 docks (excluding D dock) as there is a separate check-off list for D dock. The dockwalk isn't a difficult process but it is somewhat tedious. We have a list of vessels said to be docked in a given slip on a given dock, slips are numbered usually 1 - 38 with odd-numbered slips on the west (Side closer to New Jersey) and even slips on the east (Side Closer to New York). During the dock walk we check each slip and make one of three marks:

• ✓ - if the vessel listed is still in the slip
• O - If the slip is open/available
• Vessel Name - If the vessel in the slip does not correspond to the listed vessel

While on the dockwalk me and Syed had the opportunity to introduce ourselves to some of the people at the Marina and see one of Hornblower's new vessels the Espirit. Also seen some odd but interesting sculpture in the yard area of the Marina. After the dockwalk we headed over to Pier 25 with George and Chad (dockhand) to get a demonstration on how to put bridles and cones onto the morning as the following day, Sunday, me and Syed would be putting more bridles on by ourselves. After putting a bridle on we headed back to the marina.

Once we arrived back at the marina, we docked the launch and we all stepped on the pump out boat, we took the pump out boat up to the service station to get an idea of whether or not a vessel that we needed to tow up to service would fit. It appeared as so, so we headed back down to the vessel we had to tow and with George on the wheel of the pump out boat we set up lines on the starboard side of the vessel being towed. Once we had a decent line setup, we stepped onto the dock to cast off lines for the vessel being towed. Syed and I stood on the vessel being towed to point out the distance between the vessel being towed and other boats in the marina. We eventually got the vessel docked up at the service station, and that concluded the tasks for the day.