West Winds

West Winds    ...   1^st October 2012

We awoke to the strong westerly wind just as the forecast had promised.  We chose to take the advice of the cruising gurus and avoid the hours of beating to windward.  Rather than continue down the Long Island sound to the west, we decided to go explore Port Jefferson.  A longish dinghy ride took us to many docks before we found the correct spot.  (Mike adds - the first place said it was OK to tie up, but it was right by the car ferry and the dock itself was pretty rough and the only other dinghy had fenders, which we did not, so we moved on. The second place, the Setauket yacht club is noted in the guide as being friendly, and they were very courteous when they told us we couldn't tie up there. Apparently, unless we were renting a mooring their liability insurance would't cover them.  I don't doubt their reasons were genuine and they did point us to an alternative spot rather than asking us to pay the $25 fee that would have been required, but what a load of bull!  Danford's Marina were happy for us to tie up and weren't interested in collecting their advertised $10 fee!) This put us into a much better frame of mind.  We found a fantastic bakery/coffee shop where we had coffee and shared a cheese Danish.  The bakery had a many pastry cases and the overall effect was stunning.  There was even Linzer tort! We strolled around the town, visited the public library and found a place for lunch.  Michael decided that he could live in Port Jefferson.  I’m still trying to figure out if that was based on the pastry shop or the restaurant where we had lunch … A second (decidedly damp) dinghy ride took us back to Cotinga.  Mike made a further foray to a pretty, sheltered cove. On the way in yesterday we had looked at this cove as a spot to anchor or moor.  We found there a large floating sign informing us that ‘taking a mooring without permission from the town officials is an offense that will result in a citation’.  There must have been forty moorings and about three boats that looked to have been abandoned there.  Go figure. 

Gloria

The excellent pastry shop in Port Jefferson

View from the bar separating Long Island Sound from Mount Misery Cove - note all the empty moorings

"Wind Bikes"

 Conch on the beach