I met Bruce at the MacArthur Airport in Islip on Thursday, September 10 in the afternoon. What a welcome sight it was to see him come striding out of the arrivals gate! This airport is likely the easiest to negotiate in the world and within 5 minutes we were in the jeep two parking spaces away from the very best parking spot. Bruce opened the thermos of hot Peet's coffee and we headed east. We'd planned to spend a fair amount of time on the water fishing but wind and waves prevented us until Sunday. In the meantime we did some surf casting on the Long Island Sound and down at the inlet coming up empty but enjoying ourselves. Friday we picked Amy up at the Mattituck LIRR station and went to Legends for dinner and had wonderful fresh seafood, etc., as Bruce's treat.
When Bruce stays with us we always have a meal of mussles and this year was no different. Saturday the three of us downed 4 doz. mussles steamed in white wine, shallots, garlic and butter. The mussels add their own juice to the mix which we mopped up with some crusty baguette. Oh, I shouldn't leave out the 2 doz. steamers washed down with cold Stella Artois or the lobster meal later on.
Sunday we finally got a good weather day, packed a cooler with sandwiches and trimmings and headed to Southold to launch the boat just down Jockey Creek from where Amy and siblings learned to find clams in the creek bottoms with their toes as young children, up to when Amy turned 10 years old when they moved to Florida. The sun popped in and out from behind billowey clounds as we chummed the bay near Jessup Neck coming up with a fish each, three different species but no keepers... that's the way it usually goes. Bruce was doing the driving. He took us over to Shelter Island to a sheltered bay where we beached, put up the Bimini top and had lunch. As the season was already at a close it seemed that everyone who could get on the water did, so there was a lot of traffic whizzing by in the deep water channels making lots of steep wake which Bruce negotiated admirably, nearly as fast as Amy would have! They have a kindred love of speed (note photo below).
I hope this gives you a little idea of his visit. I took very few pictures as it was just the three of us having fun. Did I mention that in the evenings we played a fair amount of poker with the chips first piling up on one side and then going over to the other, back and forth. We had a ball!
Channel Highway
Speeding on the Brine
Shelter Island
I
2 comments:
Awesome, absolutely awesome. That's what I call "the Ideal Weekend". Good pictures, too, especially the one showing Amy holding on for dear life. Next time, ask Amy to take a picture of a poker game.
Look at those smiles! Seeing Bruce at the Whaler's helm makes me recall what pleasure I feel at that same position. There's hardly a way to describe it. Thanks for sharing the post. Now I need to go and unroll the old map of the Peconic Bay you (Mark)gave me to take a closer look at the area you navigated. -Paul
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