Greenport Saturday Morning

For more My World photos from around the globe click here.

Coming back from an early trip to a state park east of East Marion to pick up drift wood to use as tomato plant supports, we stopped at Greenport for a spot of breakfast at the Coronet Diner then went out on one of Claudio's docks to take a look at the Peconic Bay.  I took these photos from spots no more then 15 feet apart.  Claudio's is the oldest single family owned and run restaurant in the U.S. at 140 years (1870) and has a group of restaurants in their complex suited for any mood or pocketbook and all on the water.   We like being able to tie-up and eat but haven't done so yet this year.  Business is very good now much as it was back in the days of prohibition when, as legend has it, the "runners" used to bring their boats under the building to unload their liquor in the dead of night or "oh-dark-hundred" as my father-in-law would say.


I'd have liked to step back a little further from the harbor-master's cabin to get more of it in the shot but I was hanging part way off the dock to get this one!   S.T. Preston's is the oldest U.S. ship's chandlery, so the story goes... one can see very early photos of it when it still served whaling ships in Greenport Harbor and it was already old by then.  The North Shelter Island Ferry plies the water between the island and Greenport every day of the year.  A separate company runs the South Ferry between Shelter Island and Sag Harbor on the south fork.  The last shot was shot at a great distance.  It shows a "party boat" the Peconic Star coming in from night fishing on the Sound and two shrimp/fish trawlers.

Not to be confused with the main restaurant, this is the raw bar, ice cream and t-shirt emporium part of the Claudio's establishment where live bands play late into the night on weekends...  I'm so glad we don't live near there.

The Harbor-master's Cabin, note the loud speaker for directing boat traffic in and out.

 S.T. Preston, just like it says :)

 

 

Sunrise, Sunset

(click here for more Sky Watch photos from around the globe)

Taken on different days these shots of sunrises are from the East Creek and the sandy edge of the Peconic Bay.  Both sunsets are looking WNW over the Long Island Sound from the end of Depot Lane.

(click on photos to enlarge)

                                                                                   

For more My World photos from around the globe click here.

Omen

The Greenport Boat Yard

I thought the Greenport Boat Yard would soon be a thing of the past.  I'd seen the same boats racked up into the air off their keels for years now...   rust everywhere.  The salt water and salty air hastens the demise of anything it touches requiring constant vigilance of all things metal.  The corrugated sheet metal buildings have a uniform patina.  The old steel I-Beams that formed the chassis of the original boat cradle turned the shore stones rust colored over the years.


I wasn't prepared to see new heavy-duty track emerging from the sea where the old railroad tracks had been along with a bigger new ship's cradle.  It looks as though they can pull much larger boats, 60 or more feet long, out of the sea and into dry dock for repairs to the hulls, keels, rudders and drive shafts.

(click on photos to enlarge)

Each link in the draw chain is a bit more than a foot long.

In this picture one can see the right side of the cradle with numbers inscribed in feet.  Any length of timber can be placed in the sockets as required for different hull shapes and sizes.  Near the center of the photo is a wire sculpture of an osprey, sometimes called a fish hawk.  This sculpture stands atop a steel beam that had once been part of the World Trade Center building 1.

The Mattituck

Salvage and repair yards everywhere have an unmistakable air.  I remember seeing farm implement salvage yards on my last trip to the mid-west.  I'm reminded of them when I look at this one for boats.

For more sights from around the globe visit My World Tuesday.

Dawn Comes to Wickham's Creek

It was early and the birds hadn't yet risen to their song.   The long low rays of the sun began to appear over the ridge of Nassau Point to the east and painted golden edges on all before it.  A bit of breeze worked against an ebbing tide as a few leaves drifted by.  Let the day begin.  The stage is set... Act I.

.....

And from a drive last week that took us through Aquebogue, a photo of a mobile home.

A Fine Saturday - March 20, 2010 - Spring

 -- and then one dawn the sky is clear and blue forever...  the sun is not just light but warmth.  The snow drops hang their white blossoms as if a little ashamed of their precious beauty.


As our hemisphere comes out of it's hibernation in the timelessness of it all, what is the number of this some billionth Spring that is today?   I wouldn't have wanted to miss this one.   Happy Spring, Judy, and all my friends out there.

.....

                                                              

Evening comes to the Mattituck Inlet

A low sun sets whelk shards aglow

For more My World photos from around the globe click here.