Three Long Days

Great Kills to Port Washington
Port Washington to Port Jefferson
Port Jefferson to Orient Harbor, NY

Sometimes it pays to hustle. A combination of weather, geography, and scheduling demands it. Often it is not evident when it is happening until the final destination is reached and a collective sigh of relief goes out. Carrie Rose has done this twice this year . . . so far.

The first was from Cape May, NJ to Great Kills on Staten Island. It was done by two legs: 71.2 nm and 60 nm respectively. I have written about Barnegat Bay earlier, and of the leg from the bay to Great Kills, the most that can be said is the NYC skyline overwhelmed other concerns. The NYC environs while heavily trafficked are occupied by professional mariners and though this does not make me any less diligent, for all their bulk and horsepower, they do their best to keep pleasure boaters out of harms way.

The currents through NYC harbor and the East River are a concern. There is much written about when to make a favorable transit and we followed the recommendations almost to the minute. Carrie Rose pulled along with the current from Battery Park through the East River, Hells Gate (13.8knots) and into Long Island Sound. Talk about a bridge over trouble waters, the bridge over Hells Gate has seen a lot. We were thankful we picked the correct time to pass through.

Long Island is justly named. Great Kills, NY to Orient Harbor on the east end of Long Island took 3 days and 123 nm. The stretch from Port Jefferson to Plum Gut, the passage into Gardiner Bay on the North Fork of Long Island, is 50 miles of under inhabited beach.

Port Washington, the first stop out of NYC, offered free moorings. This is a busy recreational harbor and a noisy one with a nonstop stream of helicopters flying the moneyed class to idyllic summer retreats. After extended stays at Cape May and Great Kills we did not bother to explore the town, preferring Carrie Rose’s wood lined interior to gather strength for the trek north.

Port Jefferson is an industrial harbor with an oil fired power plant and a repository of crushed stone being pushed around by large yellow machines. Impressive tug and barge combinations restocked both while we swung on a mooring across the canal from the action. A succession of three towering car ferries overwhelmed us into the night. Town provided wine, used books (Khrushchev Remembers), pastries, bread, and ice cream — all staples of our cruising lifestyle.

The morning departure was delayed waiting for the fuel dock to open at 8AM. 120 gallons of diesel via a high speed pump designed for the insatiable mega yachts scattered around the marina filled our puny tank. Seven hours later, delaying our passage through Plum Gut to avoid two ferries, Carrie Rose raced through the understated “tide rip” written in numerous places on the chart.

We backtracked four miles, cut around a sandy spit with a beautiful old lighthouse perched on stilts, passed the skinny poles of a fishing weir, and anchored in boisterous Orient Harbor. A stabilizer was deployed over the side (pulling it out the next day would give me the wrenched back that I had thus far avoided) and a sound sleep was had under the Milky Way while the deserted lighthouse flashed white once a second.