Sandy Hook, NJ

We left City Island on Tuesday, September 3 in the early afternoon so we didn’t have to fight the current on the East River.  In the morning, Jonny took the launch to the hardware store to buy marine caulk so he could caulk the leaky window.  Let’s hope it works!

After lunch we took off for our afternoon cruise through New York City - as always so impressively scenic!  The traffic wasn’t too bad but we had to be hyper-vigilant in those roiling waters.  Lynn is obviously fascinated by bridges...

It was a short cruise and we ended up in a rather open anchorage in Sandy Hook, NJ next to what appeared to be military housing.  The anchorage was pretty rolly but we decided not to move.

We had cod for dinner and played Bananagrams. This was Jonny’s first time playing and it reinforced the fact that games are not his favorite amusement! We went to bed early knowing that the next day would be a long one.  We planned to leave early to see how far we could get - maybe even Atlantic City.  And just for the record, there is no end to the fabulous sunsets that we witness nearly every night!

City Island, NY

We had another short three hour cruise on Saturday, August 31 as we traveled from Oyster Bay to City Island on a fine summer day with flat seas and partly cloudy skies. We had the NYC skyline in our sight for the entire journey. 

More boats were around as we were in a more populated area and it was Labor Day weekend.  We had been wanting to go to City Island for a couple of years.  Its reputation intrigued us as it is very small with a lot of boaters, a real sense of neighborhood, and the home of residents whose families have been there for generations.  We planned to get a mooring at the Harlem Yacht Club, one of the country’s oldest.

We arrived promptly and the launch came to greet us.  After we got situated, we called it to take us to shore where we had lunch at the yacht club’s  comfortable restaurant.  City Island is very small, one and a half miles long by a half mile wide. With only 4500 residents living in mostly modest, well kept dwellings, City Island is more like a small New England shoreline village than a New York City enclave. It was originally part of Westchester, NY but is now part of the Bronx.  

We strolled down City Island Ave., the main drag and found our way to the City Island Nautical Museum.  There, a friendly docent told us about the history of City Island.  Interestingly, it had been a major boat building center with several well known yacht manufacturers located here. Many America Cup yachts were built in shipyards here including several winners of that most coveted award.  Sadly, all of them are now closed and the primary industry is tourism, specifically, seafood restaurants.

We had the obligatory ice cream at Lickety Split, a cute little place with mediocre ice cream and after strolling through half the town, we returned to Zendo where we had dinner onboard.

The next day we took the bus to the New York Botanical Garden located in the Bronx right across from the Bronx Zoo. 

What an absolutely beautiful garden! We spent the entire day wandering around. 

A fantastic exhibit was underway featuring the work of Roberto Burle Marx (a noted landscape architect and conservationist).  This was particularly relevant to us because he was the landscape designer of the sidewalks next to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts that extend all the way down Biscayne Blvd. in Miami.  The exhibit was was gorgeous and because he is Brazilian, several of the exhibit sections had Brazilian  music playing in the background!

Before leaving we watched a Brazilian band perform in  a courtyard where they got everyone on their feet, including us, to dance to the intoxicating rhythms!

On the way home we stopped for dinner at the Lobster House, one of the aforementioned seafood restaurants on City Island.  It was packed at 5:00 on Sunday and we had to wait at the bar to be seated.  The servings were so plentiful that we that we split a broiled seafood dinner and took enough home for a second meal!

We expected to leave the next day but stayed an extra night because the weather window had shifted. So on Labor Day itself, we took the launch into town to go to the grocery store which, fortunately, was open.  Jonny wanted to find a hardware store to buy some marine caulk to fix our leaky window but none were open.  Instead, we took a long walk exploring the other half of the island and in so doing found the home where the movie, City Island, that we had just watched, was filmed.

Later that afternoon, we met Dora, a friend of our friend Cathy Tisdale, who Lynn had met at Cathy’s 60th birthday party.  Dora lives on City Island in a 100 year old home. We met for a drink at the yacht club and had a lively conversation getting to know each other and learning about her fascinating career. 

That night we took the launch back to Zendo, ate the remainder of our seafood dinner from the Lobster House and enjoyed yet another gorgeous sunset.

Oyster Bay, NY (return trip)

We departed our Norwalk anchorage on Friday, August 30 at 7:30 am for a short two hour cruise to Oyster Bay on Long Island.

We were returning to visit Sagamore Hill which we were unable to get tickets for when we were there earlier in the month with Stephanie. We left early to avoid  the winds that were expected to pick up as the day wore on.  We wound our way through Oyster Bay where there must have been almost 300 sailboats moored or anchored. We passed a section of beautiful classic wooden sailboats that we always admire but never desire anymore.  

We found our way to the eastern edge of the mooring field where most of the smaller power boats were.  We wanted to be closer to the shore so it wouldn’t be such a long dinghy ride. It took us four tries at three different locations to finally get the anchor to set!  

We dinghied into town and had lunch at the same Canterbury Oyster Bar and Grill we went to with Stephanie because we liked it and it had the most interesting menu and cozy atmosphere.  Afterwards, we Ubered to Sagamore Hill where we explored the well-tended grounds before beginning our tour. Walking along a lovely wooded path that took us to that a marshy beach area, we had stunning views of the water and surrounding landscape.

Afterwards, we headed up to the main house for our tour.  It was quite interesting. Teddy Roosevelt (who hated being called Teddy and preferred TR) was particularly accomplished and amazingly energetic.  His home was filled with vestiges of his hunting passion.  Stuffed and mounted heads and bear rugs were plentiful and in most every room except the bedrooms where Edith drew a line!  TR was an author of over 45 speeches, articles and books. There were many bookshelves filled with thousands of books.  He was known to read an average of a book a day, even while president and sometimes reading several at a time. 

TR was famously dedicated to his large family and this Summer White House, as well as the one in Washington, was filled with the laughter and the shenanigans of his six rambunctious children. He, reportedly, was the leader of the pack in many cases. 

Both he and his wife died at Sagamore Hill though she lived many years longer than he.  He had built the house as a young man and no other family ever lived there.  When Edith died she turned it over to the government to be preserved as a national treasure.  The home has almost all its original furnishings. It is not overly formal and one can easily imagine it serving as a warm family home as well as an appropriate setting for the many heads of state and notable Americans who visited.

We weren’t able to get an Uber back to Oyster Bay but we were able to hitch a ride with a couple who was on the tour with us.  They were in town from Texas having brought their daughter to her freshman year at college in a nearby university. After stopping at the grocery store where we bought some nice cod for dinner, we headed back to Zendo. Lynn wasn’t feeling 100% so we didn’t cook the cod. Instead, after a nap we settled in and prepared for our next stop to City Island by watching the movie, City Island!

Norwalk, CT

The first thing Jonny did on our last day in the Thimble Islands was to go for a very long paddle. It was Wednesday, August 28 and our plan for the day was to head for an anchorage in Norwalk, CT.  He was to meet a friend of his cousin who is buying a boat by herself and needed some moral support in working with the boat inspector.  Being the good guy that Jonny is, that was the purpose of this next stop.  After breakfast we departed our beautiful anchorage heading west for a five hour cruise.  

The weather started off sunny but deteriorated as the day progressed.  Fortunately, we had a NE wind which gave us a following sea of 1-2 feet. Not as uncomfortable as other conditions might have been.  As we neared our destination, it started to pour with visibility less than a quarter mile!  Donning our rain gear, and with the radar on, we threaded our way through the islands off of Norwalk.  We made it safely to our anchorage under the watchful eye of our captain.  The rain stopped shortly after we anchored (wouldn’t you know it)!

After relaxing and watching the news, Lynn started to make dinner.  The chicken was half baked when the convection oven stopped working, so she finished it in the oven.  After dinner, Jonny, true to his industrious self, managed to remove the microwave/convection oven from its tight space and fix it that very evening! He is truly Lynn’s hero!  However, he also discovered a water leak in a closet which might be coming from a saloon window.  That will be a bigger problem to solve!

The following morning we were awakened by the coaches of the many rowing crews that practiced in the river where we were anchored.

Jonny spent the entire day with Carol Ann (the buyer), the boat inspector, the seller and the agent.  It took a full ten hours for the inspection of that 1989 48 foot Silverton. All the while, Lynn stayed on board Zendo, giving it a much needed cleaning.  Fortunately, we had brought Zendo over to the marina for the day which allowed us to have air conditioning.  During the afternoon she kept Carol’s son, Jackson, company while they did the sea trails on what turned out to be a very hot day.  There were several issues with the boat so it’s not known at this time whether she will move forward with the purchase. 

That evening we returned to our anchorage and had a quick and easy dinner. It had been a long day, especially for Jonny!

Thimble Islands, Branford, CT

It was fortuitous that we decided to leave Easthampton for the Thimble Islands on Saturday, August 24 instead of Sunday because the waters were very calm unlike the following day when the wind really picked up.  It took us about four hours to make the crossing and we didn’t arrive in the Thimbles until 6:45 in fading light.  What a beautiful setting!  We were surrounded by small rocky island outcroppings, some with only one home, a few with multiple dwellings and some with none.

We were just a short dinghy ride from the little ferry dock in the hamlet of Stony Creek which is part of the town of Branford.  

That evening we settled into our peaceful mooring where we would remain the the next few days and ate leftover chicken and corn that Ernie and Sophie had generously packed for us along with a lovely zucchini!  The sunsets each night were beyond stunning!

On Sunday, after a leisurely morning, we took the dinghy into the ferry dock.   The Stony Creek section of the town of Branford  is a quintessential New England coastal village. The aforementioned ferry is a tiny vessel that takes people back and forth to the islands.  

Lynn’s cousin, Sally, who lives in nearby Woodbridge picked us up in a “vintage” 1988 Mercedes!  We went to lunch at the Chowder Pot where Lynn and Jonny feasted on two more of their New England favorite foods, Rhode Island clam chowder and baked scrod. We had a very nice visit with Sally who dropped us off after a few hours.

We had a quiet night aboard Zendo (after another gorgeous sunset) watching an old John Wayne western on one of the very few channels we could get on TV.

We had rented a car from Enterprise for Monday so they came to pick us up and we got an early start driving up to Waterbury to visit Lynn’s Aunt Lillian who is 99 and her husband Bob who is 101!!  It was a real treat getting to see them again. Uncle Bob was sharp as a tack, even carving the roast chicken that their daughter Janice brought to make chicken salad for lunch.  Aunt Lil was doing OK but she seemed a little less herself than on previous visits.  It’s always a special treat to be with them. They have been married for over 75 years and though they have had their share of difficulties and heartache over the years, they have always been, to Lynn, a model of an especially happy and strong marriage.  We always make time for a visit with them when we are in Connecticut.

Afterwards we stopped at the cemetery where Lynn’s parents are buried to pay our respects.

From there we drove down to Milford to meet one of Lynn’s childhood friends, Bill Rappoport.  Billy was working but he took time out to meet us for a coffee at a nearby diner, where the waitress clearly loves him having served him apparently for years!  It was great catching up with him. We see Billy and his wife, Lisa periodically when we are in Connecticut and we even saw them a few years back when we were all in the Bahamas at the same time. Billy is one of the few of Lynn’s core group of friends from high school who hasn’t retired yet.  

Since we had a car for the day, we took advantage of it to stop at a local grocery store to reprovision and then decided to go into New Haven to treat ourselves to one of their world famous pizzas.  Big decision, between the two rivals for the top spot - Sally’s or Pepe’s, but it became easy when we discovered that Sally’s was closed on Mondays.  That gave us a chance to try (amazingly for the first time for both of us) Pepe’s white clam pizza, rated the #1 pizza in America.  Boy, was it ever delicious!  With the addition of bacon on top it was like eating clams casino on a luscious crackly crust.  We ordered a bottle of Chiani to go with it -  more on  that later.

When we arrived back at Zendo with our bags of groceries, we realized we didn’t have the half full bottle of wine that we had taken with us from Pepe’s. Oh well! It was too late to dinghy back. Maybe if we were very lucky it will still be on the dockside bench where Jonny forgot it when he goes back the next morning to return the car. 

On Tuesday morning Jonny dinghied back to the dock to return the rental car and lucky for us the brown bag with bottle of wine was still there!  After he returned we took Zendo over to the Branford Yacht Club to fill our tanks with water.  This is the yacht club that the owner of our mooring ball now belongs to. Jonny spent some time helping him with some boat repairs while Lynn made a zucchini casserole from the beautiful local squash and tomatoes we had from Ernie and a local farm stand.  We eventually returned Zendo to our mooring ball.

Later that afternoon, another set of old friends came to visit.  Peter and Paula Zimmer live in Longmeadow MA, but they were in nearby Clinton visiting Paula’s mom.  Lynn has known Peter since grammar school and all four of us were at UConn together. We hadn’t seen them in too many years.  So they came over with their sweet rescue dog, Jake, and we had a really great visit catching up on each other’s families and lives. They brought local corn on the cob and beautiful heirloom tomatoes from their garden so along with the zucchini casserole, we had a good dinner sitting on the aft deck watching the sunset. It’s such an incredible treat to spend time with old friends with whom we can reconnect as if it was yesterday!

This was to be our last night in the lovely Thimble Islands and we would be very happy to return to this tranquil spot in the future!