Sunday 16 September: Leaving Sag, hard aground on Shelter Island, a walk in Greenport and finally anchored in Orient Bay.
The Hampton’s ticked, we are ready to move on. By 9.30 we upanchor and start motoring along the shore, to have the best possible view of the beaches and amazing properties along the waterline. Some hidden in the woods, some right on the water’s edge. Most of them are spectacular, with perfect lawns and jetties.
One hour into our journey, we approach West Neck Point on Shelter Island. A long strip of sand, which makes a secluded bay behind it. We decide to go have a look into the bay and maybe fly the drone over it. There is a very narrow and shallow entrance at the end of the sand bar. And maybe we are a bit over enthused to visit this place. Motoring in a bit too fast, we ran into a shoal and found ourselves very firmly aground. Oops! Well, it’s not the first time this happens to us, so no panic. Full throttle in reverse and bow thrust left-right to wiggle ourselves out. But the keel bulb it’s not coming off this time. Try again. Nope, the maneuver still doesn’t work. Oh dear.
So there we are, stuck right in the middle of this narrow channel. A few boats are passing by, asking if we need help, but we decline. As luck would have it, it’s dead low tide now, so we just have to wait for it to start to flood at 11am. If the tide had instead been dropping, we would have been in deep do-do!
Glen takes the hand-held depth sounder around our position and finds where the deeper water is. He also dives down, and in the murky water can see the keel sitting in shingle and the rudder about 20cm off the bottom. A police boat comes to see what we are doing there, stopped in the channel. We explain and he then requests to see our foreign vessel cruising permit, while asking us a few questions about where we are cruising. Great timing, just what we needed at this moment, an interrogation! Actually he becomes quite courteous once Oana took over the talking, in a much more polite manner than Glen!
Spot on 11am, and we are freed from our entrapment. Perfect timing as we finish our coffee. And we bravely motor again through the tricky entrance into West Neck Harbor. Successfully this time! This is the first time our Navionics charts have been inaccurate. We guess these sand shoals must be constantly shifting. When you find a marker buoy not as you see it on the chart, it’s always a dilemma: is it the buoy that is not in the correct place? or is it the chart not up to date?
Once inside, the anchorage is very calm, only few boats anchored here, we are certainly glad we stoped by. It is so beautiful that we also want an aerial view of this strip of sand and the peaceful harbor. Which is amazing from the drone footage. After our short but very pleasant stop here, we up-anchor and motor out, more slowly this time! Towards Greenport.
We would have enjoyed admiring the perfectly landscapes lawns on the water’s edge a lot better, if it wasn’t for all the motor boats speeding passed us and shaking us with their wash. Looks like a highway for speed boats around Shelter Island which is situated in the middle of Long Island Forks.
When we are coming into Greenport, we realize we can’t anchor by the town, as the ferries are popping in and out frequently. We call the harbormaster on the VHF and he confirms we may anchor by the breakwater wall. Immediately after this VHF call, we hear somebody calling Cloudy Bay on the radio. It is Endeavor, an HR36 which we have spotted yesterday in Sag Harbor and now they are anchored in the bay opposite to where we are. They have been following our travels on You Tube! Soon after, they show up to say hi and we have a nice chat for a while. Dennis and Kathy, very nice couple, hopefully we’ll meet them again.
Mid afternoon we are ready to go ashore and visit the town. We find a dinghy jetty and we realize it is private, but a very nice man, Bob, says it’s fine to leave our dinghy there.
The town has the usual quaintness, with cute houses and boutiques. And for once it feels very much like a normal living town. It is very busy, lots of people walking around or dining. The harbor area is very nicely done, and we walk for a while to take it all in. After an ice cream we decide it’s wise to return to Cloudy Bay and move into a safer anchorage for the night. Safer as in not exposed to the wash of passing boats (hence no lapping on our stern) and no danger of accidentally dragging anchor into the breakwater wall.
We motor 3nm to the NE, to Orient Bay, at the tip of the North Fork, and anchor right before sunset. Certainly peaceful here. Not a ripple in the water, and we hear crickets from ashore. A nice strip of beach in front of us, and just one other yacht anchored about 1/2 mile away. Surprisingly it’s also a Hallberg Rassy! We haven’t sighted one since leaving the Caribbean and now, in the space of 3 hours, we have seen 2!
In the tranquility of our surroundings we enjoy a nice sunset… a perfect calm end to another eventful day.