Since it was so easy to day trip into NY from Port Washington, we decided to make one more trip into town. We saw Suffs on Broadway (history of suffragist movement — something neither of us knew much of anything about), and it had a great score and set. The biggest surprise was the Museum of Illusions. Fascinating how our brains interpret what we *think* we see! After martinis at the classic old Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station, we hopped on the train back to Port Washington and our boat.
After spending a few days in Port Washington, we headed further down the Sound to Huntington Harbor and then on to Port Jefferson. There, we met a long-time friend, Brian, from Minneapolis. He now lives in Manhattan and sails in NY Harbor as part of two sailing clubs. We’ve been trying to find a time that works for him to join us, and it finally clicked!
The three of us headed down Long Island Sound for a lovely anchorage at Oriental Point, literally the very tip of the north fork of Long Island. We could see Connecticut across the water on one side, and Montauk and Sag Harbor across the water to our south.
We did have unexpected excitement while anchoring. Our chain balled up and managed to knock out the connection for the windlass remote (the windlass raises and drops our anchor chain, which is MUCH too heavy to raise and drop manually). After some clever jury rigging by Jim, we were able to use it temporarily, and we also ordered one to be express delivered to the West Marine in Newport.
The next morning, we got our anchor raised and took the short trip to Block Island, RI. It’s a big resort area (only 1000 year round residents in the town of New Shoreham, the smallest town in the smallest state), and there were 100s of boats in the mooring field in the Great Salt Pond. We went ashore and explored the island a bit. The two best parts by far of the visit, however, happened the next morning. Brian spotted a pod of dolphins that swam around our boat AND we had the chance to buy pastries from Aldo’s, two guys in a boat who drive around the anchorage, offering pastries and coffee for sale in the morning and fresh seafood and ice cream in the afternoons. We were all a little sad not to be able to sample their afternoon wares!
From Block Island, it was a short trip to Newport. Newport is a fun town with a lot to offer, but it’s special for us to arrive here: this is where we ended our trip with Guidance when we brought her from Lake Superior last summer. On that trip, we traveled through the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence, through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to southern Nova Scotia, before finally jumping straight from Nova Scotia to Nantucket Sound and into Newport. This means that in the two boats, we have cruised in total from Bayfield, Wisconsin to Amelia Island, Florida.
Brian’s wife, Helen, met us in Newport. Helen and Brian have been friends with Anne for years before meeting Jim. We had a great dinner with them on the water in Newport. The next day, we enjoyed a driving trip around town, admiring the properties of all of the elite of East Coast Society in the Gilded Age (late 1800s to early 1900s). Families like the Vanderbilts had 25,000 square foot summer homes built on their ocean front estates to benefit from the sea breezes, escaping hot and humid Manhattan, where they had multiple mansions as well. We enjoyed imagining what those summers must have been like.
After a lovely walk along the cliffs overlooking the ocean, we enjoyed Connecticut lobster rolls. They are our favorite: simply warm chunks of lobster in butter on a toasted bun. What’s not to love?
