A sailboat at dusk.

It looks sweetly out of place.



IN THE COMMENTS: The boat is a schooner, I'm told, though it might be a ketch.

MORE IN THE COMMENTS: A former crew member stops by to tell us it's the Pioneer. Some info:

The 102-foot, nineteenth-century Pioneer is a sleek but sturdy sailing vessel made of iron and steel (the only iron-hulled merchant ship still in existence, in fact) and topped by a pair of masts reaching 76 feet. Six days a week, the Pioneer shoves off from Pier 16, on the East River at Fulton Street, for a two-hour sail from the South Street Seaport around lower Manhattan. A volunteer crew from the seaport museum skippers the ship (the route varies), and there’s room for 35 passengers. Once you’re out from Pier 16, the motors are cut, the massive canvas sails catch the wind, and you’re clipping swiftly through New York Harbor the way generations of sailors have clipped before you.... Slip past haunting old Governor’s Island (with its empty barracks and Colonial houses), under the Brooklyn Bridge (opened just two years before the Pioneer was built), and around the Statue of Liberty.

And Knoxwhirled says the first photo is so blue it looks Photoshopped. The truth is, I tweak all my photos in iPhoto, but the only thing I did to that one is straighten it a tad. It really was that blue here last night. Then, I decided to tweak it. So, here. A newer and bluer schooner has been sighted in the vicinity of this blog:



ADDED: No one noticed the allusion. I'm surprised. Someone always notices....