Stories

fire island

The boat was already full of water. What a nightmare. It was kind of like my nightmare the night before. I didn't sleep well.

There was 600 hundred pounds of crap to load in the boat, if you include my 250 plus and Uli's 80 pounds. The water was all the way up in the tall weeds; the dog had nowhere to sit. He likes sitting on the shore watching me in the water. I used the dog bowl to bail out the boat; since I wasn't sure about my fuel supply so didn't want to run it with the plug out to bail it.

Turns out there is no gas on Fire Island. The closest gas was where I had to get to. It is not really a 'boaters paradise' as the websites claim. The Great South Bay at this section of Long Island is a about 5 miles across. There are almost none of the small islands that are everywhere in the bay between between Long Beach and West Islip. Winds out of the north half of the compass have a lot of water to blow over. There hardly any moorings and virtually no docks with floats out into the bay. The water taxis that run between the towns have these blunt steel bows that press against the bulkheads, the props churning up the water behind to hold themselves in place long enough to pick up and discharge passengers. There are marinas in little islands of calm water almost completely enclosed by significant wharves or quays, expensive structures designed to keep the waves at bay or in the bay. At each narrow entrance I passed was the universal sign of the upper classes, 'Private Property, Keep Out'. There are no bars or restaurants that you can pull your boat up to, none of the life on the waterfront you see in Freeport LI or Vineyard Haven or Boothbay Harbor. I did go out one beautiful calm evening to pick up my sister and her family in the next town, but another trip with my son and his girl was less than wonderful, rough and windy. I think they were glad when I suggested they jump off for a nice walk back.

Today was another rough and windy one. Gale force winds out of the northwest The winds were in the process of moving around the compass as they do after a storm, on the way back to where they prevail, the southwest. I would never choose to go out on a day like this but the rental was over, everyone had gone home and Peri had to work the next day. So it was.

I had dumped all the boxes and suitcases by the shore, using the wagon to move them from the rental house.