Familiar ground

We are under way westbound in Long Island Sound, in nearly flat calm conditions. We're re-tracing our steps from June, and even though we've already "crossed our wake," I'm declaring our next stop, Port Jefferson, the starting point of our Down East Loop, and I will make my loop summary report after we arrive sometime this afternoon.

Vector westbound in the Sound, with Connecticut in the background, as seen from our friends' house in Southold about 3/4 mile distant. We did not even know he was in town until just before we left.

We had a decent cruise Wednesday, with seas getting progressively calmer as we moved into the lee of Montauk Point. With heavy winds forecast from the south, we felt we could not get into enough protection in Montauk Harbor, and with the good conditions in the lee, we proceeded another three miles around the corner to the south end of Fort Pond Bay and dropped the hook (map).

We scooped these balloons from the Sound, inbound to Montauk.

There's a restaurant here with a dock, popular in the summer, but it was already closed for the season, along with the beachside restaurant a short distance away. The restaurant at the inn just a half mile away is only open on the weekends at this time of year. We have friends down at this end of the island, but with no easy way to get ashore or place to secure the dinghy, we did not even reach out.

Instead we spent a quiet afternoon and evening on board, and I tore into a long-delayed project that had just been waiting for a few quiet days at anchor. To wit, installing a set of windshield washers over the pilothouse windows, which heretofore we've been spraying with a garden hose when we are underway in seas that send salt spray over the windows. Which, along the coast of Nova Scotia and Main, and even in Buzzards Bay, has been quite often.

These fuzzy dice, a Mardi Gras "throw" from the Krewe of the Rolling Elvi from five years ago in New Orleans, have been hanging above the pilothouse window ever since. The string holding them together disintegrated and they were a casualty of the windshield project.

The winds hit as forecast in the wee hours, but we were quite comfortable in this spot. That said, we needed provisions, and so Thursday morning we weighed anchor on a favorable tide to continue west to Sag Harbor, which is just as protected from the south. We could easily have made Sag on Wednesday afternoon, but we would have had to push against a couple of knots for the last dozen miles. We dropped the hook in a familiar spot (map) just before lunch time, in a nearly empty harbor.

We ate a fast lunch and then quickly splashed the tender to get ashore for provisions before forecast rain moved in with a vengeance. We briefly considered lunch ashore until we realized the extra time would have us returning to Vector in driving rain. Fortunately, Schiavoni's Market, small and pricey but well-stocked, is just a couple of blocks from the town landing. The dinghy dock has already been removed for the season, so we just tied up in one of the slips.

We've never seen the harbor so empty, and they've already started removing docks.

Even though it trapped us on the boat for the rest of the day, the rain was quite welcome for the purpose of rinsing off our copious coating of salt spray. I was able to plug the holes I had drilled above the pilothouse windows before the downpour, as I was still in the middle of that project. I grilled a steak and we had a nice dinner aboard.

Approaching Plum Gut and the Orient Point lighthouse. A phalanx of boats are fishing the roiling waters of the gut.

We opted to just stay put in Sag yesterday to celebrate Louise's birthday. That gave me time to wrap up the windshield washer project, which ended up taking most of three full days. We had a very nice dinner at the historic American Hotel, which was doing a land-office business on a Friday night. The harbor closes for the season at the end of the month, but the town stays busy right into December.

This morning we scooped up more balloons. This makes the fourth or fifth bouquet we've fished out of Long Island Sound.

This morning we weighed anchor to have a favorable tide the whole cruise. That had us shooting out Plum Gut with over a knot behind us, right into a clot of fishermen bobbing around in small boats. I had to slalom around them all after first making passing arrangements with an inbound car ferry. The plotter is saying we'll be anchored in Port Jefferson in plenty of time to tender ashore for dinner.