Still at Oyster Bay

Good Morning, to all our faithful readers. We are still in Oyster Bay sitting on the hook. We just finished an excellent breakfast of scrambled eggs with peppers, onions, tomatoes and cheese accompanied by toast, bacon and orange juice, after a long day of sightseeing and a long night of partying yesterday. Today we are just laying low on the boat as it is rainy and windy.

Since we are stuck at Oyster Bay for a couple of days waiting for the weather to calm down, we took advantage of the opportunity to sight see. Oyster Bay was the home of Teddy Roosevelt and his family before he became president. He continued to use this house as his summer white house during his presidency and moved back after being president. Both he and his wife passed away in the house years later.

When we decided to go ashore, we noticed another couple from the boat anchored next to us going ashore as well. So we asked them where there was good place to park the dinghy. We followed them into the Oyster Bay Marina – very long dinghy ride. After chatting with them for a little while we parted company. Steve and I walked all around town and then headed to Sagamore Hill where Roosevelt’s House is located. Unbeknownst to us that this was going to be a very long walk! It took us at least an hour and ½ so it must have been about 4 miles away – mostly up hill. But we were not complaining because it was great to be off the boat getting some exercise. The scenery was beautiful as well quite the affluent community with luxurious houses along the water. The long dinghy ride ashore could have been very short had we just dinghy ashore behind our boat, as this is how where we walked to. We could see the boat just minutes away from us on our long walk. However, there really isn't a public dinghy dock to tie up to, but we probably could have docked on a private one without much notice. Then we wouldn't have seen the town either - so no big deal.

We took a tour for a measly $5.00 (the only way you can enter the house). The tour was excellent and lasted at least two hours. The house was amazing decorated with many gaming trophies. (Not that I’m in favor of hunting animals for a sport.) Back in those days too, there was no cap on gifts the president received, so Roosevelt kept most of the gifts received from other foreign diplomats were displayed. The house was in tact exactly as it was when he lived there with his family. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside the house, but you can view pictures of the outside on snapfish.com.

On our way back to the boat at approximately 3:30, the wind had picked up and the water was pretty rough. The rain held off though. As we got near our boat, the couple (Leighia and Cameron – 2 kids Maya and Fynn) on the boat (Tranquility) anchored behind us, flagged us over to invite us to a pot luck dinner at 5:00 with some other cruisers anchored in the area (including the couple Trudy and Dennis on Rapscallion II that we followed ashore earlier and Alex and Joe with their 2 kids Courtney and Joey on Malekai).

We had a great dinner and lots of fun and didn’t return to John Ray until almost 10:00. By this time it started raining so we wanted to get back to the boat (2 minute dinghy ride) and check everything out. The winds were blowing pretty good all night, but this anchorage is very well protected and it wasn’t really rough. Our night at Milford was 100x worse and there wasn’t any wind.

So all is well. We plan to stay put until Kyle is no longer a factor. Depending on the conditions we will leave Saturday or Sunday and head for Sandy Hook, NJ. In the meantime, there is another get-together tonight on Rapscallion with our new friends J.