Shelter Island, NY

After having left Zendo for a whole week at the Niantic anchorage, we pulled anchor and headed out on Wednesday, July 4.  Our destination was Shelter Island on the eastern end of New York’s Long Island.  Our MTOA friends, Tom and Kathy Kallman had invited us to join them at the mooring field there for the 4th of July. It was a foggy day but we had a smooth, almost four hour cruise across Long Island Sound. Archie was his usual chill self.

We rendezvoused with Tom and Kathy at the mouth of the Shelter Island harbor and followed each other in.  They are aboard a beautiful Nordic Tug 44.

The entrance to the harbor in Shelter Island has an attractive lighthouse and is lined with magnificent homes.

Jonny hoisted a gift from our friend Richard Chew.  It is a traditional Union Jack flag to be hung only on Sundays and holidays and while the vessel is at rest. We thought that Independence Day was an especially appropriate day to fly it.

After we settled in to our moorings, Tom and Kathy came by in their dinghy and we invited them aboard to see Zendo.  We watched a youth sailing class in an adorable fleet of Optis racing against each other as they maneuvered their prescribed track. 

Then we all decided to go into town to provision for our onboard dinner. We went to Tom’s favorite Marie Eiffel market and stocked up for the evening’s meal.  While Tom and Kathy headed back to Liberty, we took Archie for a walk through the Shelter Island Heights neighborhood. 

Shelter Island is a beautiful village with lovely homes and many wide swaths of lawn for Archie to frolic in.  

We let him off the leash at one point and he started to chase what at first we thought was a peacock.  All his barking caused the homeowner to come out thinking that Archie was his dog! We had a nice chat with him and his wife who were very tolerant of Archie running all over their expansive yard that looked out over the harbor.  It turned out that the big bird was a wild turkey, not a peacock!

Upon returning to Zendo, I made a rhubarb crisp from the rhubarb from David and Mary Ann’s garden. Tom and Kathy had invited us aboard Liberty for dinner and we headed over there at 6.  Kathy made a delicious shrimp scampi and a lovely salad with burrata cheese and we had the rhubarb crisp for dessert.  We spent a very enjoyable evening sharing stories and just generally enjoying each other’s company.  Tom is the vice president of MTOA and since Jonny is president, they find endless things to talk about.   

We took our leave later that evening knowing that we’ll see them again in the next week or so. Tom and Kathy are chairing the upcoming MTOA Rendezvous in Essex, CT and we will be there.  The next morning we planned to head back across the Sound early because the weather over the next couple of days didn’t look great. Otherwise, we might have stayed longer to contact our friends Ernie and Sophie who live close by.  All in all, our quick trip to Shelter Island was a great time!

Niantic, CT

We had a short two hour cruise from Old Saybrook to Niantic on Wednesday, June 26. We arrived by 9:45 following a trip along the Connecticut coast. We settled into a calm anchorage in the middle of Niantic Bay.  Jonny had worked with the local port captain, Bill Volmar, to find a place where we could safely anchor and leave our dinghy for the week while we went to New York state.  Bill’s friends, Everett and Helen, have a lovely waterfront home with a dock big enough to accommodate our dinghy.

We chatted with Everett and Helen for awhile while we waited for Bill and his wife Joan to pick us up. We took them to lunch at Dock’s, a waterfront restaurant where I had my first delicious fried clams of the season.

The next morning Bill took Jonny to pick up our rental car. Jonny, Archie and I then drove to New London where we visited his cousin Jimmy at Mallove’s Jewelers and I was lucky to get an appointment for a haircut next door.  Jonny went to Defender’s for boat supplies and we ate lobster rolls and other goodies at Captain Scott’s.  These are some of our favorite things to do in New London. 

That evening we packed for our trip to Ithaca for Sophie Bracken’s wedding to be followed by a couple of days in the Thousand Islands.  On our way there we stopped in Waterbury, CT to visit my parents’ graves which I hadn’t been to in several years. So many of my family members are buried in this cemetery but it is so large I was unable to find the graves of other members even with help of the staff there!

We arrived in Ithaca in the late afternoon and had to stay at a nearby hotel because we miscalculated the dates of our Air BnB. But everything turned out fine. We got to the Air BnB the next day which was even better than expected. On Friday, the wedding festivities included a casual get together at a cider mill on a hill overlooking the city. Ithaca is in a beautiful setting with many waterfalls right inside the city limits. Over the  next couple of days we were able to visit several of them. 

The weather on Saturday was rainy off and on but we were able to go for a hike by one of the falls.

Late that afternoon we attended another wedding event, this time at a covered pavilion in a nearby park.  The event was delayed due to the rain but fortunately the weather improved and everyone enjoyed the afternoon playing outdoor games, eating, drinking and chatting. The younger set (not us) followed it up with a bar crawl.

On Sunday morning we had breakfast with our friends Kathy and Paul Lubbers. The wedding took place that afternoon at the historic Argos Inn. Prior to the wedding, Jonny was honored to be asked to perform a short pre-ceremony where Sophie and Jason signed their Ketubah, a Jewish tradition which is something like a marriage contract.

That was followed by a cocktail reception and then the wedding ceremony and reception. Sophie and her husband Jason met while attending Cornell in Ithaca so this was a destination wedding for almost all of us! The wedding was lovely with about 60 relatives and close friends.  Sophie looked beautiful and this newly graduated veterinarian walked down the aisle with her dog, Roo!  What followed was lots of fun with delicious food, lots of dancing and visiting with old and new friends.

On Monday, we drove two and a half hours to visit our friends David and Mary Ann at their home in Cape Vincent, NY. They live in a comfortable old farmhouse right across the street from the St. Lawrence River.  We know David and Mary Ann from the Arsht Center. They spend several months a year in Miami and we are fellow volunteers at the Arsht. We had visited once before on Zendo during one of our trips to Canada (which you can see from their front yard)!

David is a terrific cook and he made us dinner the first night after we explored tiny Cape Vincent by car and walked along the shoreline for a bit.   The village is in an incredible setting at the point where the St. Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario. 

The next morning I joined Mary Ann to do a little work on the local community garden. The garden is large and prolific and provides vegetables for the local food bank.

She and David are very active in many aspects of their community and Mary is especially active in Cape Vincent’s beautification committee. Afterwards, while David took Jonny out on his boat and Mary Ann took me on their jet ski. I hadn’t been on one for twenty years and was a little nervous about the possibility of falling into icy cold water. But personal water crafts have come a long way since then.  This one was very comfortable and steady and even though we went pretty darn fast, there was never any concern about tipping. I was amazed that Mary Ann, who is a few years older than me, was so comfortable and even somewhat daring in her enthusiasm for this exciting and fun means of travel! 

After we all returned from our boating adventures,  David gave us a wonderful tour of the area including a long hike and picnic at Wellesley Island, a beautiful state park on one of the Thousand Islands. 

David also drove us through Thousand Island Park, a village with gaily painted houses, many adorned with gingerbread trim. 

That evening we had a very delicious dinner at their favorite restaurant, The Clipper, in nearby Clayton. NY.  Later on Jonny went over our upcoming itinerary with David. We all retired early as it had been a very full and fun-filled day. 

The next morning David made us delicious blueberry pancakes and we took our leave heading back to Niantic to resume our cruise. We look forward to seeing David and Mary when they return to Miami this winter. 

Old Saybrook, CT

We needed a couple of items from the market on Tuesday, June 25 so Jonny took Archie for a walk to the local market while I had my Spanish lesson. It turned out the market was also Spanish!  Shortly after he returned, we left the dock at New Haven’s Pequonnock Yacht Club and headed out at 10 a.m. bound for another new stop for us in Old Saybrook.  We had a great cruising day with clear skies and following seas which can make it a bit rolly but tolerable.  We passed two lighthouses as we approached the entrance to Old Saybrook. 

We arrived in Old Saybrook Harbor by 3 p.m. and grabbed a mooring in this lovely big harbor.  Most of  the mooring balls are private but when people are away from their moorings they tie yellow ribbons on them so transients like us can use them. We were one of very few trawlers among an array of sailboats. The one in the second photo was very similar to the Atlantic City catboat that we used to own.

Old Saybrook is a quaint New England town and one of its most famous residents was Katherine Hepburn whose family had a summer home on the waterfront for years.  There is even a small local theatre and museum with her name which we were too late to visit. We dinghied into shore where we walked about a half mile to get to the center of town. The main street was lined with shops and restaurants.  There are many lovely homes and beautiful gardens in this historic town.

We would have stopped for a drink or a bite to eat but nothing called our name so we headed back to Zendo.  The leftover pizza from Pepe’s served as our appetizer and we had salmon and a mushroom medley for dinner. 

The next day we were going to an anchorage in Niantic, CT where we planned to leave Zendo for six days. We’ll be renting a car to drive to Ithaca, NY for Sophie Bracken’s wedding. We’ve been friends with the Brackens since Stephanie and Sophie were in day care together! After the weekend’s festivities we plan to drive further into upstate New York to visit our Arsht friends Mary Ann and David Reid at their home in Cape Vincent right across from the St. Lawrence River.  Quite the road trip!

New Haven, CT

When we woke up on Saturday, June 22 we were socked in by fog and could hardly see the shore from our anchorage in Copps Harbor.

We waited for it to lift a bit before taking Archie in to shore. The place where we tied up the day before was completely submerged by water because the tide was in. So we found another place at the end of a spit of land where Archie had a great time wading and chasing a stray tennis ball we found. Jonny kept finding deflated balloons from a nearby party and was collecting them to protect the birds and fish.

After a pleasant walk we returned to Zendo and pulled up anchor by 10:50 heading for the Pequonnock Yacht Club in New Haven.

It was a smooth crossing along the Connecticut coast and we arrived for our first time at the Peqonnock Yacht Club by 2:50. We maneuvered with a bit of difficulty into our assigned slip but discovered that it was too small - we stuck out by a couple of feet! So we were reassigned to another slip and when we arrived there we were greeted by local boat owners who told us that the owner of that slip was returning later in the day! So we were assigned to a third slip and fortunately the third time was the charm and we settled in quite comfortably.  This is a very nice yacht club with mostly sailboats and quite a fancy restaurant - formerly the Chart House.

That evening we were going to have dinner with my cousin Sally who lives nearby but there were a number of strong thunderstorms that didn’t abate so we decided to have lunch the next day instead. We hunkered down in our safe berth and looked forward to our time in New Haven where we would be seeing cousins from both sides and a fellow volunteer  from the Arsht Performing Arts Center in Miami. 

Sally arrived on Sunday morning and we headed over to Pepe’s Apizza for their famous clam pizza. Unfortunately we got there when the line was basically around the block. We couldn’t wait that long to eat so we went to another Italian restaurant that Sally knew where we had pizza and salad for lunch.  It was good to catch up with Sally who I only see once a year when we make these trips.

Later that afternoon, Jonny’s cousin Michael came to pick us up and bring us to his home in nearby Hamden. We had a nice visit with Michael and his wife Debby in their fabulous vegetable garden next to their chicken coops. 

Later on we headed over to the New Haven Green for a wonderful free outdoor concert with a unique group performing Inuit and Soul music! The performers were from Alaska and their music was creative, soulful and a lot of fun to watch as they performed with native instruments and dances.  

The next day we met our friend Alfredo who we know from the Arsht Center for lunch. This time we were successful at getting into Pepe’s and had two delicious pizzas.  Of  course, I had to have my favorite white clam pie with bacon which Pepe’s is known for. And we had their all meat pie which was surprisingly delicious. Alfredo gave us a ride back to Zendo and he came aboard to see how we live six months of the year. 

That evening Jonny and I went up to the yacht club for a cocktail before dinner. We had a fabulous view of New Haven Harbor and it was a fitting way to spend our last night at this marina. We are happy to have another option as a place to stay on this part of the Connecticut coast.

Norwalk, CT

On Friday, June 21 we took Archie for a leisurely walk in the park in Port Washington, NY since we were in no big hurry to leave. We saw a family of swans along the shore and Archie played frisbee and found a fellow doodle to wrestle with for quite a while.

It was a beautiful day and we wanted to catch the tide as we made our way across Long Island Sound heading for an anchorage in Norwalk, CT.  We didn’t leave Port Washington until 11:35. It was a very calm and peaceful crossing on what turned out  to be a very hot day.  

We arrived at our anchorage in Copps Harbor by 3 pm.  Who knew there would be such a tranquil and isolated spot in busy SW Connecticut - but Jonny found it!

We took Archie in the dinghy to a narrow spit of land with a rocky shore and tied it up with an anchor because the tides are quite dramatic there. We walked and walked along the shoreline of Chimon Island which was next to a state park named for Stuart McKinney, a well-known Connecticut legislator.  The shore was strewn with dead horseshoe crabs and lots of seashells.  Jonny and Archie were very happy campers and were interested to walk around the whole island. However, the sky was starting to darken and there were rumbles of thunder in the distance so we headed back to Zendo to batten down the hatches.

It started to rain shortly after we returned and we were glad to be cozy and dry inside.  We have been trying to nail down places to stay in the New Haven and New London areas for the next week.  We’re planning to visit friends and family in New Haven and we’re leaving Zendo in New London to drive to a friend’s wedding in Ithaca the following weekend. 

We had lamb chops and corn on the cob for dinner and spent a relaxing evening at this pleasant anchorage, However when we were getting ready to go to bed, the wind shifted in an unexpected direction and we started rocking and rolling. It wasn’t too bad though and we were actually nicely lulled to sleep.