Friends & Family aboard Rocinante

Northport, NY

One of our favorite anchorages is just off Centerport Beach in Northport Bay. We have a love hate relationship with this spot and it’s possibly for that very reason that it’s still considered “One of our favorite anchorages”

Many, many moons ago, we lived in Northport for a year. Having always lived in a city environment, It was our first exposure to the “suburbs” and we loved the quiet, slower pace of this great little waterfront town.

Naturally, as we expanded our early sailing experience from day sails, to weekends, to long weekends, to weeks, Northport became our first destination. We spent a few days anchored in this idyllic cove enjoying the quiet beauty along with easy access to the town docks and the great local businesses that serve the area.

And so, it was only natural that we would return on our trip north. While we take nothing for granted, we have sailed this area so often, that it really is second nature to us. The only concern is transiting Hell Gate on the East River and that’s a simple task of checking the time of slack tide and timing your arrival accordingly. We also chose to travel on the weekend to limit our exposure to the incredible amount of ferry traffic that ply these waters.

So we left bright and early from the Atlantic Highlnds and headed north on this foggy morning. While the visibility was somewhat poor, we had our radar, new the area and travel so slowly that we could easily maneuver around just about anything!

Approaching the Verrazano Narrows Bridge

First to appear out of the fog was the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. We’ve always loved heading south under this bridge, because it meant the ocean was near! But on this day we were headed north towards Manhattan & the East River. As we continued north, I started picking up various ships on our AIS – love this thing! I can easily identify the ships by name if I need to contct them and more importantly, it tells me their speed & direction! These where all sitting at anchor, somwe slid by them easy peasy and continued north.

Foggy approach to Manhattan

We caught a glimpse of Lady Liberty veiled in fog and not much later, Manhattan Island came into view.
You just can’t beat the views of manhattan from the water! We adjusted our course to head up the East River, past Hell Gate and out into the Long Island sound.

We made it to Northport without incident, dropped anchor in “Our Cove” and settled in to enjoy the evening – it was perfect!

For our cruising friends, this is an excellent anchorage! We rode out tropical storm Henri anchored here using our old CQR and didn’t move an inch! Great beach right behind you and an easy 15-30 monute dinghy ride to the Northport Town docks or even take the mothership there! Free docking during the day (8-5?) with power and water – first come first serve on a pretty nice size fixed dock (~8’ tides). Great little town with an ok laundromat (it’s seen better days, but it’s close & clean!) some tood restaurants, a not too long walk to a supermarket and bus service during the week to get you anywhere you want to go including the LIRR into Manhattan. BTW, if you prefer a mooring, then just head over towards the town docks and hail Seymour’s Boatyard – they handle the moorings in Northport harbor & include launch service.

Rocinante has company

Our nephew Andrew was going to be taking some time of from his job as a prosecuting attorney to come stay with us for a bunch of days and we were very much looking forward to sharing some time with him. He was taking the LIRR (Long Island Railroad) to the Northport station (about a 2 mile walk from the town dock) and I would take the dink over there to pick him up (about a 30 minute trip) and ferry him back to Rocinante.

As luck would have it, the weather was forecasted to be a bit funky on Monday, so we postponed his trip for a day to avoid what would have been a very Wet dink ride!

As expected, Tuesday turned out to be a great day! We went into town for breakfast and to do laundry first thing in the morning finishing up just as Andrew showed up – perfect! We headed back to Rocinante and gave him the grand tour which included showing him his cabin and as always, include instructions on how to use the head (marine toilet). What, you thought you just go and push the lever? Heck no! You have levers to throw and pumps to pump and a very specific sequence to follow!

Good times & pizza with our nephew Andrew Baginski

Anyway, he settled in and we hung out for a while enjoying the anchorage until it was time for lunch. We had not re-provisioned while in the Atlantic Highlands, so we decided to go into town for lunch and settled on La Porta Pizza for lunch – it’s a small place with only a few tables, but quite good and highly recommended! We walked the town for a bit and then headed back to Rocinante for the afternoon.

The following morning Andrew & I took the dink to the town dock and made our way to the local supermarket for some desperately needed provisions; It wasn’t too far, about a mile and a half walk and we were back on Rocinante in record time.

Over the next few days, we started a sail to Sunken Meadows that was cut short by the arrival of a thunderstorm just as we cleared Huntington Bay and had us running back to our anchorage; we took the dink across the bay to explore a local beach known as Sand City (sand for the building of various NYC bridges etc. had been mined from here); ate at a couple of restaurants (rockfish? spanish place?) and visited the local brewery (Sand City Brewery) for a couple of flights of beer! All in all we had a great time and we look forward to his next visit!

As luck would have it our old friend Joseph was also able to make some time to come out and visit us during our stay here. It was only for a few hours, but it was still great seeing him!

Till next time,

Carlos & Maria
SV Rocinante…_/)