East River at South Street

Mary Sargent © 2008 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

And now for something completely different. Not a walk at all. Saturday evening, nine days ago, Barbara and I set out to see the waterfalls of Olafur Eliasson – we had tickets to the 8:30 thirty minute waterfall boat trip from pier 16 at the South Street Seaport. It's so nice to be on a boat on a summer night, leaning against the railing, watching the sky gradually darken, feeling the breezes.

After a while it began to dawn on us that we weren't seeing any waterfalls and we'd already been out at least 30 minutes and, uh, we were probably on the wrong boat. But they took our tickets and let us on! Well, what could you do? We just leaned on the railing and enjoyed the ride and, after about an hour we did tour the waterfalls.

This is at the beginning, when the boat had started south down the East River (not a river), and this is the Staten Island Ferry. The last time I took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry was in the olden days when the fare was 50¢ and now it's free! Unbelievable. You should go. I should go.