The triple-deck luxury yacht Zephyr pulls away from Pier 16 around 6:20pm and glides into the East River. Everyone aboard begins this Hidden Harbor Tour by gazing upward -- at magnificent bridges, the New York City skyline and the deep blue sky beyond. It's a glorious summer evening, a perfect night for exploring the working waterfront of the Port of New York and New Jersey. 

Tour co-host Capt. John Doswell, executive director of the Working Harbor Committee, which sponsors the popular Hidden Harbor Tours, conjures up an image of NYC's shoreline 200 years ago, when scores of docks poked into the waterways and ships of all sizes jostled for space.  

Understanding that the average New Yorker is unaware of the commercial shipping that continues to power this region's economy, the Working Harbor Committee offers these special boat tours to remind people of the port's history and its contemporary significance. "Most people don't know how much their lives are touched by the shipping industry," Mr. Doswell said. "What you are wearing or have in your apartment -- almost everything you own -- was shipped in by container ship, at a low cost and in a very green way."

Sassafras, a handsome tug owned by Vane Brothers, passes on the port side, and tour co-host Lucy Ambrosino, a Port Authority executive, calls attention to the modern-day working waterfront: the giant cranes of the Red Hook Container Terminal (above right).   

At 65 and a half acres, "this is the smallest of the six Port Authority terminals," she says. The largest, Maher Terminal on Newark Bay (see Port Authority map at right), is 450 acres. One of the main tenants at Red Hook is Phoenix Beverage. "So if you like your Heinekin and Red Bull," Ms. Ambrosino says, "this is how it gets to New York." People stand, crane their necks, admire the colorful cranes  and the German container ship Spica. 

Zephyr dips into Erie Basin, where Hughes Marine, Reinauer and NY Water Taxi vessels are parked and where Ikea vexed the maritime community several years ago by paving over a graving dock, an essential part of the maritime service industry. Soon Zephyr is cruising across the harbor and into the Kill van Kull, a waterway leading to four of the region's six container terminals (see map above) and heavily used by commercial vessels. On the port side is Caddell Dry Dock and Repair and on the starboard side are tankers moored at the oil fields of Bayonne, NJ.  

Several cormorants stretch their wings atop a red buoy. An enormous container ship, the Najran, owned by the United Arab Shipping Company, passes under the Bayonne Bridge. Ms. Ambrosino notes that the Port Authority recently was approved for expedited federal financing to raise the roadbed of the bridge, in order to accommodate massive post-Panamax ships by 2014 when the widened Panama Canal reopens. Check the PA web site to see a video about the raising of the bridge roadbed. 

Zephyr heads into Newark Bay. Cranes, tankers, tugs and barges are everywhere. Containers clang as they're picked up by giant grabbers and moved off each ship. "It used to take days to unload a ship," Mr. Doswell comments. "Now it takes hours." The Port of NY and NJ receives, on average, 18 ships arrivals each day. Five and a half million containers per year works out to an average of 15,000 containers delivered per day.  

As construction workers maneuver bulldozers and spread sand to restore a degrading marsh island called Yellow Bar Hassock in Jamaica Bay, their work has been closely observed by an area resident.

"For the past few months we've seen him on the site," said Melissa Alvarez, a Senior Project Biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District. She is referring to a Harbor Seal who suns himself on the dredge pipeline delivering the sand.

Yellow Bar Hassock is part of a marsh island complex located within the 26-square mile Jamaica Bay Park and Wildlife Refuge, the country's first national urban park. Incorporating portions of Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau counties, the area's shorelines are heavily developed and include John F. Kennedy International Airport, the Belt Parkway and several landfills.

Since 1924 nearly 80 percent of the Jamaica Bay marsh islands have disappeared. Scientists blame this degradation on urban development and estimate that the marsh islands could vanish by 2025.

According to Alvarez, a certified Professional Wetlands Scientist, maintaining the health of these marsh islands is critical to the well being of wildlife and the 20 million people who live and work in this urban region. "The marsh islands are home for a variety of wildlife, including fish and shellfish, which are an important food source for birds and help improve water quality," she said. "The islands also serve as flood protection and shoreline erosion control for the bay's homes and businesses. They dissipate wave energy and minimize storm surge."  

For the past decade, the Army Corps, in partnership with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, National Park Service, NYC Department of Environmental Protection, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, National Resources Conservation Service, and the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program, has restored 180-acres of marsh in Jamaica Bay, including Elders East and Elders West marsh islands and Gerritsen Creek.

To restore Yellow Bar Hassock, 375,000 cubic yards of dredged sand was pumped onto the island, adding 42 acres to the shoreline and restoring it to a 156-acre habitat. The dredged sand came from the Ambrose Channel and was part of the Army Corps' NY/NJ Harbor Deepening Project. In the past, this sand would have been dumped into the ocean.

Workers then seeded the low marsh areas with smooth cordgrass, a natural anchor for the marsh sediment and tolerant of salt and low tides. In the high elevations of the marsh they planted over 100,000 2-inch plugs of saltmarsh meadow grass and spikegrass.  

Project Manager Lisa Baron is pleased. "The marsh islands we restored look incredibly vibrant and healthy," she said. Next month, the Army Corps will begin to restore the Black Wall and Rulers Bar Hassock marsh islands.

Yellow Bar Hassock is thriving. Ms. Alvarez has already spotted Horseshoe crabs -- not seen in the area for some time -- laying eggs on the island. "The old adage of 'Build it and they will come' suits Jamaica Bay's islands and specifically Yellow Bar Hassock very well," she said.

Story by JoAnne Castagna, public affairs specialist/writer for the Army Corps of Engineers, NY District

Photos by Melissa Alvarez and Lisa Baron