Marthas Vineyard - Block Island - Sag Harbor - Orient Point - Port Jefferson

Hi it's Lucy again. We got a little behind on our blog! So this Blog post is going to cover a lot of places and different things we did.

Martha's Vineyard

We stayed in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard for Stanley's 5th birthday and Tropical Storm José. We got to the Vineyard on Saturday the 16th around 3:00. Then we spent Saturday and Sunday docked on Churches Pier and then on Monday we moved to the bulkhead and it started to rain and get windy. So we went and stayed at our family friends Mark and Patti Wallace's house. They were so nice to let us stay at their house. We love all their dogs and everyone in the family that was there was so nice to us. Thank you so much Patti and Mark!!! We stayed at their house for one night then went back to the boat and spent Tuesday night there. It was a rocky night and I had a hard time sleeping. The next day we went to another one of our family friends, Gwyneth and Michael Wallace's house and stayed in the apartment attached to their house. And yes both of the families whose houses we stayed at are related, Mark and Michael are brothers. We stayed at their house for three days. During those three days we watched two Disney movies with their daughter Natalie, went in their hot tub three times, all during the hurricane, made 6 lip glosses with Gweneth, and spent a lot of time at the library doing schoolwork.

Stan Birthday Pictures:

Stan loved Flying Horses.

Our rental Jeep got a flat tire at the tip of Cape Pogue and Santa came to help us!!!

Birthday surprise!!! We randomly ran into our friends the Curley's at Flying Horses.
The awesome banner Mom, Jessie and I made for Stan.

Other Martha's Vineyard Pics:

Jessie read the whole book in a span of three days.

Lip glosses we made with Gwyneth who has an all natural homemade cosmetics company, Blue Wave Body Co.
Jose just stayed and stayed and stayed.

Stan made a beautiful sandcastle in the crafts room of the Oak Bluffs library.

Picking out our colors for lip gloss.

Trying on our new personal lip gloss colors.

Natalie's lip gloss.

Stan with the lip gloss he made for Mom.
We were sad to leave our friends on the Vineyard, but the journey lay ahead of us as we headed to Block Island on Sunday the 24th. 




Block Island

We got to Block Island on Sunday the 24th around four pm. It was our parents wedding anniversary. So, Jessie and I dealt with Stanley and we let mom and dad have some nice alone time. I was a beautiful night and there was a wedding happening on one of the hills surrounding the harbor. At first it was okay but they blasted music until like 3am.

Mom and Dad on their 12th anniversary.

The next morning we started early for Sag Harbor and on the way, just outside the Block Island harbor, we found a mini gyre full of trash and plastics. I wish we had trawled there. We saw lots of plastic and managed to pick up two plastic bags and four balloons. 

We found all of this in about 10 mins!

Sag Harbor

Sag Harbor was so much fun!!! We met our mom's friend Julie who lives in Sag Harbor. She is so funny! Julie drove us around town in her car and showed us where everything was. She introduced us to her partner Nathan Joseph who is a famous artist.

Dad and Nathan became really fast friends.


His artwork is so cool!!!









We went out to dinner with Julie and Nathan and I was laughing the whole time! Both of them were so funny.

The next morning Julie took us to ride her horse Lover Boy. He was very sweet. When I was riding him he just wanted to follow Dad around everywhere.


Jessie was having a great time riding Lover Boy.

Stan did not want to get off the horse when his turn was over.

Stan was very concentrated. It was his first time on a horse!

I loved riding Lover Boy!

Lover Boy really liked the carrots we were feeding him.

I am so glad we went to see Julie!!!
Later that day, after riding Lover Boy, we left for Orient Point.

Orient Point State Park

We anchored off of Orient Point State Park on Tuesday the 26th. It became a National Natural Landmark in 1980 because it is so beautiful. There was an estuary and a few salt ponds throughout the point. Salt ponds are a natural feature that serves an important role in the ecosystem. Salt ponds filter out contaminates like sediment, nitrates, and phosphates. Salt ponds are also an important habitat for many animals, such as plovers and fiddler crabs. Estuaries are places like rivers where freshwater and salt water mix. It is a transition from the ponds and lakes inland to the sea. Estuaries are often called the nurseries of the sea because do many animals live there as babies and then lay their eggs there as adults. We took the dinghy down the rivers and saw a bunch of egrets, crabs and small fish. It was so pretty!

The estuary and salt ponds were so beautiful!!!


Then we went to the beach there. Instead of sand there was a lot of stones, mostly quartz that covered the beach. It was so beautiful.



The whole entire beach looked like this!!!


😂 Dad was having a lot of fun playing with the rocks. 😂


We went snorkeling off the rocky beach and saw some fish and cool seaweeds.


Stan was just starting to learn how to use his flippers. 
It was so cool snorkeling there with all the rocks.


Port Jefferson

We got to Port Jefferson on Wednesday the 27th. It was really foggy in Long Island Sound. It was crazy. The sun would come out a tiny bit and it would get really hot and we would all change into shorts and short sleeved shirts. Then the fog would thicken and it would get really cold.  We had our fog horn blowing every 2 minutes all day. Everyone took turns on watch looking for buoys and other boats in the fog. There was less than 1/2 mile visibility for the whole 10 hours. 
You could barely see anything.

Orient Point lighthouse.

Dad with his coffee in a JOCO cup. JOCO has an initiative to reduce the amount of plastic in our oceans.
"A collection dedicated to keeping our waterways, oceans and coasts plastic free"
JOCO Website

Stan watching a ferry speed by.
 Right as we got into the harbor the fog lifted. It was so magical.

The fog lifting over Port Jefferson harbor. 

When the fog lifted it got really hot. The whole family agreed that we needed ice cream. We went to a place called Kilwins to get ice-cream. As soon as we walked in we decided we never wanted to leave. The air conditioning was so nice and the whole place was filled with sweets. There were homemade candies, caramel apples, fudge, and ice cream. There was free samples of fudge and we all tried the salted caramel fudge. It was so good. For ice-cream I got lemon sorbet in a waffle cone. Mom and Dad both got cappuccino chocolate chip in a waffle cone, Stan got Superman in a cup, and Jessie got s'mores in a cup with caramel on top.

The ice cream display at Kilwins.

After ice cream we went to the beach, swam around, and watched kids in sailing classes practice capsizing.
After we swam we went to the marina to take showers. Then we went to Slurp Ramen for dinner. It was so so so good! I got the vegan ramen. The broth was so good! Afterwards mom asked the people who work there what the broth was made of. It was made of cabbage!!! I don't like cabbage and I loved the broth. I hope we can go back.

We were supposed to leave for the East River today but we decided not to because it is so windy from hurricane Maria which is just offshore. Earlier I saw a gust of 28.5 knots! So, for now we are going to stay here in Port Jefferson.





Comments

  1. Love it!! You are grea att not only detailing your trip, but capturing the excitement and passion. The school where I taught in Kenosha, WI is an Expeditionary Learning school, where authentic learning experiences and high quality products are key. You get an A+ on both counts. Thanks for sharing your journey with us!!!!

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  2. loved reading this, and happy that all that learning was mixed up with horses, (real and flying) lip glosses, birthdays, fog and all the exciting things you posted about --- good job picking up the plastic, AND very happy that you are seeing the connections between rivers, lakes and estuaries:)

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  3. Hello Swains:
    I enjoy your blogging immensely and look forward to sharing it with our grandchildren who are 6 and 8 and good sailors.

    The East River trip is a great one. When we did it first in 1960, the Throgs Neck Bridge was still being built. My dad went to school at the maritime college beneath the bridge. That was in the 1940s though. We were very nervous about Hell Gate because of the stories of the current. Nothing bad happened. Since then, I've been up and down the River many times and it never is as exciting as it was the first time. I don't remember the trip down the NJ Coast much but it was fly-over season and many migrating birds stopped and rested aboard Thetis as we motored in a flat calm. Birdwatching became a popular pastime for us kids.

    Keep the stories coming!

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  4. I have good news for you: There is a Kilwin's at Mote! <3 Amy

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  5. I like how you write, Lucy: clear, conversational, concise. You give us readers enough detail in your descriptions that we're goin' along with you on your journey. Best to you, & Jessie, Stan, Sarah, Steve.
    I enjoy the photos too ... they're a fine accompaniment to the stories. They enhance 'em.

    Uncle "T" (PS tried to leave a comment but it didn't take. Hope this one makes it.)

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