North Shore of Long Island

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. We've been wandering around the north shore of Long Island for the last several weeks in the hottest New York July on record. Even being on the water doesn't mitigate the heat. I suppose it is better than being in the concrete jungle of Manhattan, but not by much. That said we're having a great time.

We went home to Cleveland for a couple of days because Jim had a post-op appointment with his cataract surgeon. After we got back to New York we kept the rental car and did a day of sightseeing on Long Island. We went to Sagamore Hill, Teddy Roosevelt's home and to see the home of William Vanderbilt. The two homes were built about 25 years apart and the contrast in architectural style was interesting. Roosevelt's home was generally quite dark with dark walls and small windows in all the rooms except for the parlor. Vanderbilt's home was much more open with lots of windows that took in the view of the bay and the Sound.

Teddy's place had lots of gifts he had been given while President, he was before the time when presidential gifts were considered to be given to the country not the person. But the construction of the house and the furnishings were all local products. Vanderbilt's home was much more like Hearst Castle in California, put together with walls, ceilings and furniture imported from Italy, France and Germany. My favorite relocated items in the Vanderbilt estate were the two cast iron eagles at the entrance. They were from a set of 12 that had been atop Grand Central Station when the trains came into the city on the surface street level. When the city required the Vanderbilts (the owners) to re-design the station to support underground trains, William took two of the eagle to his house.

After re-provisioning and doing the laundry, we headed east along the north shore of Long Island. Our first stop was Port Jefferson, a cutesy little town near the Stoney Brook campus of SUNY. One night there and then on to the eastern end of Long Island, the so-called fish tale. If you look at a map of Long Island you'll see that the eastern end has two points with a big bay between them. We rounded the northern point, called the North Fork by the locals, and went first to an anchorage in Shelter Island, an island in the middle of the bay.

Shelter Island is a well known summer/vacation home destination for many folks in the northeast. We arrived about 3:30 PM, put the anchor down in a large anchorage with about a dozen boats, and settled into for a quiet night on the hook. Three hours later all hell broke loose. A severe thunderstorm with 70 mile/hour winds and impenetrable rain hit the anchorage. Our anchor held, but the anchor of the sailboat in front of us didn't. All we could see was a sailboat coming right at us through the rain. Fortunately, they didn't snag our anchor when they crossed over it, nor did they hit our boat. But the wind was just tossing them everywhere. I was scared, they must have been terrified! It didn't last long, less that 15 minutes but it seemed like a lifetime.

The next day we went into the town of Greenport on the North Fork, a typical summer destination town in the wine country of Long Island. From there we went across to a different harbor on Shelter Island to spend two days at the Shelter Island Yacht Club. I was able to get off the boat and walk around. Given the reputation/prices on Shelter Island I was expecting nothing but mansions. While there were plenty of those, there were also a surprising number of simple summer cottage types of places. But you really need to be able to amuse yourself if you come here. The big Sunday entertainment is going to the pastry store to get coffee and the Sunday NY Times. Nothing much happening here.

Tomorrow we're off to Sag Harbor, another ritzy destination on the eastern end of Long Island. Then we'll head across the Sound to Connecticut, Newport, Rhode Island and Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts. I'm beginning to realize there is more to see out here than we can hope to do in a single summer.

New York Harbor to Long Island Sound

I've marked off one thing on my bucket list. I've always wanted to drive my boat past the Statue of Liberty and on Monday we did just that. We had beautiful weather (the last nice day before it became blazingly hot!) and calm seas in New York Harbor. There were two container ships, one tug pushing a barge and the Staten Island Ferry to dodge. Not bad for a harbor as busy as New York.

We also went past Ellis Island before turning up the East River.

Taking your boat up the East River is just plain cool! You go under the Brooklyn Bridge,

under the Manhattan Bridge,

past the Empire State Building,

past the United Nations

and under the Queensboro Bridge.

You have Manhattan to the west and Brooklyn to the East. We timed it right, running with the rising tide, so we made great time and had a wonderful trip.

We didn't actually see many other boats until we got to Long Island Sound. Then we remembered that it was a holiday. The winds were light but they were enough to move the sailboats which were out in force in the Sound. We tucked into the first major bay on the north shore of Long Island, Manhasset Bay, picked up a mooring and decided to wait until everyone else went back to work before we explored further. It worked. On Tuesday, when we headed east to Oyster Bay, there were only 2-3 other boats out there with us.

Oyster Bay is where Sagamore Hill, Teddy Roosevelt's summer White House, is located. It seems that Teddy was the first president to decamp with all of his aides to summer quarters. He kept his boat here and liked to sail in the summer. Under normal weather circumstances we probably would have walked over to see Sagamore Hill, but it is 2.5 miles away and this is the week that New York is experiencing 100+ temperatures. So we'll visit Sagamore Hill when we have a car weekend after next.

Happy Independence Day

There is a reason why tourists do tourist things -- they are fun! For all the times Jim and I have been in New York, we had never done the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour. We did both this week and they were very interesting. I never knew that Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) designed the interior structure that holds up the State of Liberty. Nor did I realize that it was the tallest structure in New York City when it was erected.

Ellis Island is the only island in the USA owned by two states -- New York and New Jersey. New York owns the part where the Reception Center is and New Jersey owns all of the island created over the years by landfill (the area where the hospital ruins are located, for example) because New Jersey owned the seabed where the landfill was placed. All of which was decided as recently as 1998 by a Supreme Court case. They should have settled the dispute the same way they determined the ownership of Staten Island, with a sailboat race.

Staten Island has been an interesting stop. It is very much a typical suburb with tree lined streets and kids riding their bikes up and down the street, but it has all of the local small shops you find tucked away in the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Two days ago I got a fantastic Italian sandwich at a gas station store.

Last night we went to the official Staten Island fireworks show, brought to you by the Borough President. From the park of the southeastern shore of the island, we could see four other fireworks shows going on at the same time across the Lower Bay in New Jersey.

The best entertainment of the evening, however, was not the fireworks but NYPD's finest trying to direct traffic when the fireworks were over. We had gotten to the event on a city bus, so we were waiting at the bus stop in front of the park as the hundreds and hundreds of people were leaving. Six cops were directing the traffic and not a one of them had any reflective gear on, no lighted batons, and no plan for what they were doing. Each cop seemed to be making his own decisions. We saw cops direct cars into lines of pedestrians who had been told to go, we saw cops try to direct lines of traffic into each other, we saw pedestrians decide to cross in front of an emergency vehicle coming down the main street and the cops do nothing. It was absolute chaos, truly a miracle no one was killed and no accidents happened.

Tonight, like the rest of America, we'll watch the New York fireworks on television. We have tried for three days to figure out if there is a place on Staten Island where you can go to see the fireworks without having to leave the island. The answer appears to be no. While I'd happily go to Manhattan and mingle with the crowds, the last launch from the yacht club dock back to our boat is at 11:45 PM and we couldn't be assured of making it home in time to get back to the boat.

New York, NY

It is a week later and we're in New York, on Staten Island to be precise. We'll be here through the 4th of July holiday, then we'll move on to Long Island Sound.

When we left Chesapeake City the weather forecast for the Delaware Bay wasn't good -- wind speeds too high and in the wrong direction. But when we actually got to Delaware Bay we found very benign conditions and decided to head on down the Bay to Cape May, New Jersey. We had a wonderful trip with the tide behind us pushing us to 9+ knots of speed. We normally travel at 7 1/2 to 8 knots, but the extra speed was welcome because Chesapeake City to Cape May is a 70 mile day.

Cape May's claim to fame (in addition to its lovely beaches) is its collection of Victorian houses. About half of them seem to have been turned into hotels or B&Bs. The rest remain as private residences, many with georgeous gardens. I got to see them all because downtown Cape May is a 2 mile walk from the marinas and there is no public transportation.

After two days in Cape May, we headed out to the Atlantic to run up the east coast of New Jersey to Atlantic City. It was a short day, but half of it was spent driving through fog. The next day we ran from Atlantic City to Staten Island, a 10 1/2 hour day, the first 5 of which were in fog. Driving your boat through fog is a real act of faith. You set the boat's autopilot on the course (carefully plotted to not get too close to the shore or any in water obstacles) and turn on the radar, which you hope will let you see any other boats around you. It is really a two person process, one to watch the radar and one to continually scan the water to see anything that might not be caught by the radar. Fortunately, the only thing I saw while scanning the water was a pair of dolphins.

We did hear one poor sail boat captain radio to a power boat that was approaching him in the fog at a speed of 19 knots or about 21 miles per hour. The first time he called, he said he wanted the power boater to know that he was approaching a sailboat in the fog. The power boater thanked him for the heads up and kept right on coming. He called twice more, with no apparent affect on the power boater's behavior. the last time he called he said "you are 1/2 mile from me, TURN NOW!" Since we didn't hear any mayday calls, the power boater must have turned finally. Blowing along at 20 miles an hour when you don't have any brakes and can't see even 1/10 of a mile is not cool.

We've never been to Staten Island before. It is a bit unnerving. Everyone looks like they came from central casting, just exactly what non-New Yorkers think New Yorkers look like. I swear within 2 hours of getting off the boat, someone had already said "youse guys" to us and we had heard someone else say "fugedaboutit." I keep expecting to see Tony Soprano come down to his boat.

I didn't do the laundry in Cape May because the prices were so outrageous. I discovered on Staten Island that the Cape May prices were standard, $2.75 - $3.75 for a washer and $2.00 to dry. Boat slips are available at premium prices as well, $4.00 a foot at the Liberty marina in New Jersey. That is why we are in Staten Island, moorings are only $25 a night. To get to Manhattan you take the free Staten Island Railroad to the free Staten Island ferry, or the $2.55 express bus that stops a block from the marina and takes you directly to Mid-town. I'm gathering from people we talk with that the prices will be like this for the rest of this year's trip.

Tomorrow we're visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Bye for now.

Oh say can you see...

We had a wonderful couple of days in Baltimore. On our way up the Patapsco River we passed a red, white and blue buoy the National Park Service puts in the water to mark the spot where they think Francis Scott Key was when he saw "by the dawn's early light...that our flag was still there." The next day we went to Fort McHenry where the Star Spangled Banner flag was flying during the War of 1812. They have a 13 star replica of the flag that they fly today if the weather conditions are right. The flag is so big that it needs at least 5 knots of wind to move, but more that 12 knots of wind puts too much strain on the flag pole so they have to replace it with a smaller flag. We got lucky, the conditions were right and they were flying the replica flag.

We also went to the National Aquarium, which I recommend but not on a hot Saturday afternoon in the summer. It was crowded. They allegedly control the crowds by selling timed entrance tickets, but the Aquarium's thoughts on how many people are appropriate and my thoughts on the same subject vary widely.

On Sunday friends of ours from Marathon, Andy and Dinata Misovec, stopped by for lunch. They were in Baltimore for a wedding, then they are heading off to by campground monitors in the Smokey Mountain National Park for the summer. Much better than sittingg in Marathon wondering which will get you first -- the oil or a hurricane.

Monday we headed off up a nice flat, calm Chesapeake Bay headed for Chesapeake City on the C&D Canal. The C&D Canal is a 12 mile man-made canal that connects the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays and cuts nearly 300 miles off of the sea route from Philadelphia to Balitmore. It was first proposed in 1661, was started in 1788 and finished in 1829. Today it is used by commercial shipping, military vessels and pleasure craft. The picture is of the ship coming out of the Canal cas we were trying to enter it.

Chesapeake City is a little town on the Chesapeake end of the canal that encourages pleasure craft stopping by offering free dockage at a city dock. Fortunately, for a fee, you can also use the City's power, since it was 90+ degrees and 90%+ humidity. In Chesapeake City we met up with Lee O'Brien, a former client, for drinks and dinner.

I can't get away from the Potomac!

I said I was never going up the Potomac again, but then our boat detailer flaked out on us. Instead of coming back from Cleveland to a clean, waxed boat, she was in the same shape (cleaning-wise) as she was when we left. So Jim talked me into taking the boat back to Theresa at Olverson's Marina, a great boat detailer in a bad location, six miles up the Potomac. But this time, just to mess with my head I'm sure, the Potomac was a well behaved pleasure to boat on, both going in and coming out three days later.

We're headed for Baltimore more now, but we're taking our time getting there. We plan to spend the weekend at a marina in Baltimore Harbor. We learned last year that Marylanders are avid weekend boaters, so our best defense against thundering hordes and lots of boat wake is to hole up somewhere on weekends and let the locals have the water.

The trip from the Potomac to Baltimore has been leisurely and pleasant, except for the 90+ degree weather and equally high humidity. We've had comfortable rides between empty or nearly empty anchorages. No drama this week, it has been wonderful. Just lots of nesting ospreys on the tops of the waterway markers. It is the ospreys that remind me that this is our second summer of the trip. I remember trying to get a decent picture of baby ospreys for last year's postings.

We did see a stingray in Crab Alley Creek this afternoon. It caught us both by surprise. We haven't seen a stingray since Florida. We didn't even know they came into the Chesapeake. Maybe this one heard the waters off Florida are getting oily and he is scouting for a place to spend the summer.

Back into the Chesapeake and beyond

It took us four days to get down the Potomac and the Potomac kicked our fannies two of those four days. It would have kicked us three days, but we were going with the high seas and winds on our final morning, so we just surfed down waves instead of beating into them. From now on, the only way I go up the Potomac is in a plane!

The boat is now out of the water in Zannheiser's Boat Yard in Solomons Island, Maryland. Jim's 45th high school reunion was held in Starkville, MS over Memorial Day weekend, so we took the opportunity to have the boat hauled and some maintenance done. Between leaving the Potomac and having the boat hauled, we had a week to gunk around the Patuxent River, anchoring in quiet spots with no other boats, taking the dinghy into dinner or lunch in out of the way waterfront restaurants. It occurred to me that we don't do much of that type of boating on this trip. Mostly we go to places we want to see, then spend our days doing the tourist thing. Just hanging out on the hook was fun.

After the reunion, we came back to Cleveland because Jim needs to have cataract surgery on one eye. Next week we're headed back to continue this year's travels. The schedule this year includes:

• heading north through the Chesapeake to the C and D Canal,
• going down Delaware Bay to Cape May, NJ
• going up the coast of New Jersey to Sandy Hook ( in a one day or 1 overnight trip weather permitting),
• crossing New York Harbor to Long Island Sound and spending a month or so gunk-holing around Long Island Sound (July/August), then
• heading up the Hudson River (September) to the Erie Barge Canal where the boat will spend the winter.

If any of that sounds interesting to you, guests are always welcome. Give us a call.