Monday, July 28, 2008

Greetings from Bridgeport, CT!  If you look at a map, you’ll see that we’ve not covered a lot of miles this week, but we’ve had a wide variety of experiences on both shores of Long Island Sound!When we left you last Monday we were docked in Huntington Harbor at the West Side Marina.  We roamed Huntington Harbor in the dinghy, and discovered a restaurant with a dinghy dock.  Nice treat to have dinner 'out'.Tuesday morning Fred did ship's work--his list of projects is a pretty long one.  Many projects don't change the performance of the boat, but make it more conveninent or comfortable to use! As we left the Marina he found a satellite overlay (Google earth photo) in his navigation computer and using it was able to easily locate the channel through Huntington Harbor.  On the day the photo was taken there were almost as many boats as on the day we wound our way through, and it was much easier to see the ‘road’ from the sky!  Navigation has taken a new turn! Huntington Bay has six Harbors.  We passed Lloyd, looped in and out of Centerport, and went on to Northport, where we picked up Orange Mooring Ball #9--owned by Seymour Marina.  Time was when Harbors had lots of room to anchor, but with so many boats needing summer homes, most open spaces are filled with floating mooring balls tied to huge, heavy ‘mushrooms’ that sit on the bottom and hold a boat in place.  Marinas place moorings in the water and are able to rent the space (and provide launch service to shore) to transients like us.  We went ashore in our dinghy and walked about the cute little town--found fresh fruit and flowers, as well as the obligatory ice cream!Rain poured down on us while we ate dinner, and then it cleared to a beautiful starry night.  At midnight when we turned in, the fish were jumpin’--now I understand  Summertime from ‘Porgy and Bess’!  Schools of them surrounded the boat with backfins out of the water just like miniature sharks!It was a wet Wednesday!  Thundershowers about every half hour from 6:30 am till noon.  The afternoon cleared, though, and so I took the Seymour’s Launch, and then a taxi (I only had to taxi one way, as a guide at the museum lives in Northport and offered  me a ride ‘home‘.) to the William Vanderbilt Mansion that overlooks Northport, but is actually located in Centerport.  I visited the dinosaur exhibit, skipped the planetarium show, and spent 3 hours wandering through the Mansion and Marine Museum.  ‘Willie’, as he’s called by the locals, was a great grandson of Cornelius--who had 13 children, many many descendants, and a fortune large enough to support them all.  Willie didn’t need to work, so he devoted 30 years of his life to marine activities--and creating this museum for Suffolk County.  He sailed his 151’ yacht Alva around the world--visiting  heads of state in many countries (his wife had 15 steamer trunks of clothing aboard), and collecting and meticulously documenting an amazing variety of marine specimens, which are on display in the two story Marine Museum.  When WWII broke out,willie donated Alva to the Navy, and she was camouflaged (to no avail), and refitted to suit military purposes.  Sadly, she was sunk by a Germam Uboat off the coast of NC.   Ironically, Alva was built in the same German shipyard as the U Boat that destroyed her.  Plan A was for Fred and I to return to the Mansion for an outdoor presentation of Romeo and Juliet, but a very large, very black cloud deterred us, and boy did it rain!  We were snug in our floating condo. Thursday morning we motored east toward Port Jefferson, making a brief detour into Eaton’s Cove where the Coast Guard has the 4th busiest station in the country. (San Francisco, Miami and Cape May out-busy Eaton’s, in case you’d want to know.  I did.)  We spent two days in Port Jeff--a former shipbuilding center named for Thomas Jefferson--highlights included (but were not limited to: A concert in the Village Green by Milagro, a group that played a very good tribute to Santana Being tied up next to a boat from Newburgh NY--a couple whom we’ve never met, but will probably run into in the grocery store very soon Enjoying the summer beach town atmosphere--it almost felt like a carnival…. A large variety of ice cream stores within walking distance On Friday afternoon we came back across the Sound to the Connecticut shore.  En route, in addition to staying out of the way of the Port Jeff-Bridgeport Ferry Boats, we practiced kite flying!  Saturday was a Power Squadron event at the harbor, and we enjoyed spending the day with friends--business meeting in the morning and very un-business-like dinghy races (blindfolded), kite and paper airplane flying contests, hula hooping and yo-yo competitions all afternoon.  The festivities concluded with a lobster dinner and a Big Band singer who entertained--and had to compete with the Brazillian Luau that started downstairs at 10pm.  Over 1000 young people partied until 2am! 4 other Power Squadron members had come to the event by boat (and one in a "Land Yacht"--a 35’ RV).  We all had Sunday brunch at the RV’s parking lot, then, as the weather worsened, 8 of us gathered on YA for a late lunch and early movie.  It thundered, lightninged, rained and blew and we didn’t care a bit. Today the sun is shining.  One boat went home early this morning and has phoned to say that the waves were one to two inches high on the Sound.  So we’re off to points East! See you next week!Fred and Linda