Dynamic Sixth Boro

Bowsprite tattooed my back about two years ago, and I never felt a thing, didn’t even know about it til a few days later.  See evidence in the eighth foto here.  The tattoo she incised had the best feature: dynamism.  Without  washing or submitting myself to laser-burn or chemical-peel ink removal, that design–beautiful as it was– disappeared; pristine skin prevailed and could morph again.

Being a tabula rasa is the beauty of the sixth boro as it exists today.  Not pristine as 500 years ago, it’s nevertheless mostly cleaner than it was 50 years ago.  And unencumbered.  The land right down to the sea’s threshold submits to the struggles and gainful laborings of planners and builders, but the water resists.  Change is constant here, like light.

May the two above paragraphs exorcise the defensiveness I’m feeling these days.  Repeatedly I feel restored by the surprises borne in and out upon the expanse of water I call the sixth boro.  Like this, yesterday.  I dismissed it at first as a replica.

But it turns out to be the real thing:  A Trumpy built at Mathis Yacht Building Company in 1926, now restored, a near-sister of the yacht that hosted seven US presidents.

One goal I had yesterday was to get a frontal shot of the figurehead on Eos, but not finding a conveyance, this is the best I could get of Anh Duong‘s work.  Today these eyes behold . . .  the cliffs of Hoboken; some months from now they may look upon the skyline of Moorea Bay.

Bold  (ex-Victorious) . . .  I saw her sail past us on Delaware Bay;  eight months ago and thousands of miles later, she glides through the Narrows.

In hazy light, CGC Ridley and Gibraltar-flagged cargo vessel Bremer Johanna seem flat-bottomed shapes floating in ether in front of a geometric continent.

Trawler Fluke . .  here today . . . who knows where next month.

Tug Mary Beth D (ex-Fort Edisto, 1954) pushes a Weeks scow past inbound MOL Endeavor. Last time I saw Mary Beth D,  the creeks on the south side of Raritan Bay were  encrusted.

Ventura lives in North Cove and sails here outside the Narrows.

Anthony L Miller reminds this curvaceous yacht to respect the “slow bell;”  Lazzara doesn’t design exactly my kind of vessel, but the sixth boro is a summer stop in the migrations of Spring Time.

A final shot for now . . . looking into the wheelhouse of that 1926 Trumpy, as helmsman surveys the open spaces ahead.

My vision of the sixth boro . . .  keep it dynamic.

All fotos taken in the past weeks by Will Van Dorp.