41:17N 70:04W

 

Long Island Sound and Long Island were wonderful places to explore by yacht.  We spent some days anchored off Sag Harbour on the north of Long Island and explored by bus.  Long Island is the home of “the Hamptons” – Southhampton, Bridgehampton etc – with dozens of multi million dollars mansions dotted throughout.  A $20 million pricetag for a fairly ordinary looking property is common place.  It’s where the rich and famous have their holiday homes and in the gorgeous towns of Sag Harbour and Greenport we certainly rubbed shoulders with them.  Everyone (except us) was designer clad, perma tanned, beautifully nipped, tucked and coiffed and driving luxury cars.  Our bikes attracted the odd second glance!

 

Block Island provided a welcome relief from such high end living.  It is remote, windswept and full of trampers and cyclists.  It was great to explore the island by bike and walk the beautiful Atlantic Beaches.  Then it was on to Newport – home of the America’s Cup and a hub of yachting.  Anchoring off the New York Yacht Club was a treat but sadly, we didn’t get to wander the beautifully manicured lawns, sip cocktails under the black and white awnings or smoke cigars in the hallowed halls.  We did lower our flag every evening when they fired their cannon though!

 

Newport was a great place to cycle and we took in the amazing clifftop mansions during one ride.   Newport was “the” summer destination for the wealthy during the so called Gilded Age and competition was rife between bankers, industrialist, heirs and heiresses to see whose house was the biggest, whose party the most grand.  Cornelius Vanderbilt’s 70 room Breakers was spectacularly over the top but eye opening.  We really enjoyed Rosecliff where the original Great Gadsby was filmed.

 

From Newport we moved on to lovely Martha’s Vineyard and then Nantucket which was one of our favourite spots.  The cycling was fantastic – all on purpose built tracks that criss crossed the entire island.  We biked to stunning white Atlantic beaches and past beautiful homes which are all built of identical materials(cedar) thanks to strict building codes.  Gardens were glorious in their full summer splendour with hydrangeas, roses and immaculately clipped hedges gracing almost every home.

 

Nantucket was our turnaround point and we headed back stopping at lovely Cutty Hunk for a night before heading back down Long Island Sound.  Mystic Seaport was another highlight of this area.  A working nautical museum it offers free berthage for visiting foreign yachties and we took advantage of that to explore the museum and the Mystic River area.  Then it was time to seriously start heading south to Havre de Grace in the Chesapeake where we were hauling Bandit.