Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

040-52.680 N
073-30.840 W

Ahoy from Oyster Bay on Long Island!

When you see a name like Oyster Bay, you just assume that it's a name wrapped up in past history and most likely doesn't have much to do with today. This is especially true when the skyline of NY City looms large, just 15 miles away. Well, I'm happy to report that isn't the case at all as when we pulled into the harbor, there were many boats out working the shellfish beds. Quite honestly, I've never seen people work the shellfish bed by hand from small boats before. I've always seen them harvested by people standing in the water with rakes or on trawlers with drags.

In this section of Long Island, the preferred method seems to be to use a very long handled device with a T handle at the top and I what I assume to be a rake at the bottom. Considering that they're fishing in 20-30' of water with an 8' tide, these handles are LONG! They stand in their boats and rhythmically pull on the handles to move the rake through the bottom. Most of the boats have a square tarp held up into the wind behind the fisherman to (I'm guessing here) help push them back through the mud. It sure looks like a lot of work!

It's quite the dichotomy watching them harvest oysters in run down boats and then looking around at the mega-mansions lining the shorelines. What's nice is that most of the mansions seem to gracefully fit into the countryside, but there are a few who just don't understand the symbiosis and instead want to flaunt their money and possessions. I suppose that some would say that it's the difference between new money and old money and they're probably right.

The town of Oyster Bay is NY City quaint. It has nice shops on streets lined with hanging baskets, but be sure to look both ways (twice) and hurry when you cross the street. Also, be sure to command your place in line or you'll probably have someone, obviously much more important than you, slide in line in front of you...All in all, there's not a lot to do or see here other than enjoying the beauty of the bay.

Today we're headed to Manhasset Bay/Port Washington to wait out some rain and to be positioned to head through Hell Gate at slack tide, but more on that later.

-- Geoff & Sue

---

For the cruiser: There's plenty of room to anchor here in 7+ feet of mud. We're anchored just outside of the mooring field between Cove Neck and the city of Oyster Bay. There's also supposed to be good anchoring in West Harbor. Note that we couldn't find any dinghy docks and ended up tying up to the 20-minute-only dock where the shellfish are offloaded. Since we're here off season, that wasn't an issue. It seems that everyone uses the launch service, but I have no idea how much that costs.

Log ID: 1357