Cruising New York - Rockaway Inlet
Rockaway Inlet is outside of New York Harbor but included here because it is a continuation of the Brooklyn waterfront as it exits New York Harbor and wraps around the southern coast of Brooklyn on the Atlantic coast and into Rockaway Inlet. NOAA Charts 12327 "New York Harbor", and 12350 "Jamaica Bay and Rockaway Inlet" covers this area.
The trip from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the entrance to Rockaway Inlet is about 6 NM down the Lower Bay and along the Brooklyn Atlantic coast. In the Lower Bay the Brooklyn waterfront curves inland creating Gravesend Bay, named for the Gravesend section of Brooklyn. Passing Gravesend Bay and rounding Norton Point at the tip of Coney Island, Brooklyn, navigation aids mark Coney Island Channel along a short stretch of Atlantic coast to Rockaway Inlet. That section of the Atlantic coast includes public beaches at the shorefront Brooklyn communities of Coney Island, Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach.
Rockaway Inlet is named for the Rockaway Pennisula, behind which it enters, containing the communities of Rockaway Point, Rockaway and Far Rockaway. These are all parts of the New York City Borough of Queens. The inlet leads to Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn and Jamaica Bay Queens, with New York's JFK Airport, also in Queens, at the east end. Rockaway Inlet is the only outlet.
Sheepshead Bay lies behind Manhattan Beach on the east end of the Coney Island Pennisula. It's a small bay with moorings and limited dockage. Sheepshead Bay ajoins the Brooklyn community of Sheepshead Bay which offers a very wide assortment of restaurants. Other marinas, both private and public, offer transient dockage within a mile east of Sheepshead Bay.