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On The Waterside
Sailing the East End of Long Island, New York
| It's full sail until the snow begins to fall. Photos, blogs, videos and a weekly view of our island, from just off the shore. |
There is a point beyond that last familiar buoy when
you have to depend upon your curiosity to get you
there. You have the charts, the guide books, the
stories from friends that you might half believe but all
of that does not stop a small feeling of dread creep
into the morning of a long voyage. Home waters are
comforting but it is the unknown of an undiscovered
harbor that provides experiences remembered for a
long time.
The 26 mile trip from Sunset Harbor to Zack’s Bay
began with a pre-dawn trip to the deli. Nothing
inspires confidence like a well stocked refrigerator.
With bags and backpacks I opened the sailboat up.
The windows came down and the hatches went up.
The engine coughed a bit but roared to life and all
dread of the unfamiliar course faded into the
excitement of new beginnings. Before the engine
had time to warm, the sails were up and we were
heading west, with a strong morning sun warming our
backs.
Most people when faced with a decision “cross that
bridge when they get to it.” Sailors cross under their
bridges and when we flew beneath the Robert Moses
Bridge we had come back down to earth. The wind
died, the sails were furled and the purr of a strong
diesel pushed us through the State Channel. That’s
when the Long Island Expressway came to Great
South Bay. Dozens of floating McMansions came
roaring by, throwing wakes you could surf off of.
Speedboats, jet skis, runabouts and Garveys formed
convoys and armadas, hogging the narrow deep
channel and bouncing us towards the too-near
coastline. (Stink-pots…..that’s the derogatory name
sailors give to the motor boating side of the realm…..
now they’re poor stink-potters with the price of gas
and diesel…..)
Zack’s Bay, the air show and the BlownAway Too all
arrived at the same time. We slid our way through
hundreds of boats, most anchored separately but
many rafted up like small partying islands. There
was music blasting, flags waving, horns blaring and
the excitement of extreme flying machines buzzing
the beach and the bay. We dropped anchor just as
the Raptor fighter jet roared above the hundreds of
thousands of spectators. It actually hovered, nose to
the sky and flames from its tail, just off shore in the
Atlantic. Then it dipped its beak and took off into the
clouds.
The next several hours had us dumbstruck and
open-mouthed. The acrobatics of the smaller planes
were amazing. The cargo jets buzzing the beach
were massive. The Blue Angels finale had the theme
song to Top Gun blaring in everyone’s mind, as they
executed impressive precision team flying and totally
vertical climbs.
As they slowly disappeared into the afternoon haze,
the real speed event began, as the fleet of
spectators began to race through the narrow
channels back to the bay. We stayed at anchor.
The sun was too hot, the breeze too refreshing and
the day too perfect to rush back to the marina.
By the time we entered the western tip of Great
South Bay, the wind was gusting over 20kts. and we
were surfing the swells. We topped 7kts.; often.
As darkness spread from the east we motored back
to the familiar at Sunset Harbor Marina and put the
sailboat to a well earned sleep. The day exceeded
so many of its expectations, with excitement, thrills
and new waters traveled.
Zack’s Bay will be an anchorage for another
evening, definitely when a name act is performing at
the Jones Beach amphitheater. The cockpit of my
sailboat just might be the best seat in that house.
