Boats

Mon-

For three seasons of the year, the harbor is one big marina.  A democratic marina, to be sure, where small paddled boats share the waters with a few ocean going yachts (tied up, to be sure, on the docks.)  Mostly small motorboats large and small, everybody wanting have an attachment to the water.

It always amazes me that such expensive luxuries mostly just sit around unused.  The clammers, at least, go out most days for livelihood, but our neighbors and everyone else seems to just let the money pits bob up and down, just so they can get out for a few hours offshore each year.  Anyway, they provide a certain unique picturesque quality, like that of the Mediterranean.
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The James Joseph II goes sporadically out of Halesite for an “adventurous” day of fishing in the sound two miles or so away off Lloyd Neck.  I’ve often seem them anchored out there as I walk along the shore of Caumsett park.  Sometimes, in certain seasons (for flatfish) the captain seems to get lazy and they go about a quarter mile from the dock and anchor in the middle of the boat channel _ if I were one of the paying customers I’d probably feel ripped off.

Still, they seem to get adequate crowds, and the seagulls love them, flying around thickly when they return.  Often there are fish bones and heads washing up on the beaches _ but probably from the pleasure boats, not these guys.  In the right mood, I enjoy watching the parade add to the ambience of the day.

   

Wed-

Sometimes seems there won’t be enough water for all the wood and fiberglass.  Marinas everywhere here at the end of the harbor, and a few dotted along the shores, all with power vessels of all types and sizes.  Yes, even all the apparent sailboats have power, Virginia.

You’d think with these multitudes of ships the channel would be a busy place, but it never ceases to amaze me that most of the boats you see here _ and all the rest you don’t _ seem to only get used a few hours a year.  Considering the considerable expense of docking and upkeep, there is probably some lesson in that.

Thu-

Now this guy has his own ideas.  Who needs to pay a marina, or even take up much valuable garage space?   The only really weird thing in all this is he does seem to be using a hand pump.  I can’t tell you _ often I find it is more fun to leave things mysterious, even to myself.

Fri-

 

Kayaks are out mostly for the town-run summer camp at Coindre Hall.  But Kayaks are so last year _ there was a time when the water was filled, now they are very few and far between.  The current fad is stand up paddle boats.  A decade ago it was small sailboats, followed by a surge of canoes.  I guess being out on the water just isn’t enough anymore.  Kayak once around the harbor and _ well, another checklist complete.  Let’s go buy a sailboat _ or whatever comes next.

Sat-

The boat and dock are remnants of a once thriving lobster industry.  Not long ago, in the winter, the floating docks would be piled high with metal box traps.  Now they serve various purposes _ in this case providing a bit of orange to a photography _ until they inevitably rot and decay into unusability, when they will either be towed to the boat ramp on Mill Dam for disposal, or break up and drift away in pieces during some big storm.

Sun-

 

Can you count a working barge as a boat?  Sure.  It may take a tugboat to get where it’s going, but if it happens to run you over in a fog you don’t much care what it’s called technically.  These are kind of the tramp steamers of our limited shores, putting in from marina to marina and dock to dock picking up odd jobs like driving pilings or pulling out wreckage.

Vistas

Mon-

Looking up the harbor from the park at the boat docks at Mill Dam.  This would all once have been tidal marsh, with its associated fish and shellfish and gnats and mosquitoes.  Now there is usually a breeze _ pleasant in the summer, annoying in the fall and spring, brutal in the winter _ sweeping in from the North.

The various storms and tides have undermined the cement bulwark leaving a gaping hole which threatens to cave in at any time.  The town, short of money as towns often are, “solved” the problem by putting up snow fence and sign falsely advertising “under construction.”  A little white lie, I suppose, as we all use when necessary.

Tue-

Even with rain looming, it remains summer and time for a few activities on the water.  Kayakers generally don’t care if they get a little wet.  Too bleak for anyone to test the waters in the swimming area beyond, here on Brown’s beach.

The proliferation of kayaks and other small self-propelled or wind-driven craft is a wonderful thing, much better than everyone needing an outboard motor or big yacht.  Not only is it better for the environment, it seems far more picturesque for onlookers, and requires more natural involvement for those participating.

Wed-

 

An almost tropical, wild view.  One imagines hyenas in the distance and monkey chatter in the trees.  But it is only outboard motors, the squawks of crows, and the other various odd noises of one of the most densely populated metropolitan areas on earth.  Still, the dripping willow can fool anyone.

Some say pictures lie. Others claim they are worth a thousand words.  Probably, both viewpoints (and many others) are true.  Nothing encountered in life is isolated, and within the many layers and meanings evoked by any one particular moment need be without confusion, complexity, and contradiction.

Thu-

The typical calendar shot taken by thousands of photographers who visit Huntington in search of something beautiful and picturesque but not too complicated nor hard to find is this view from near the top of the hill at Coindre Hall.  It’s a Gold Coast mansion now run as a county park,  with the lawn used by dogs, the refreshing woodlands a reminder to suburban hikers, the sadly run down boathouse (shown) and the ruined dock along the extensive and impressive stone bulkhead.

 

Non-family photographs of places are often like this _ something grand that everyone loves.  Others are some little nook with light and color effects that the artist feels we should experience.  Yet each is one tiny fragment of infinite beauty, which can only be experienced by actually being there and being open to seeing.  Even more astounding, each minute,  hour, day, year is different, no two identical.  That is what I can finally appreciate.

Fri-

Beach roses set off the drizzly mist and make the water seem wider than it does on a clear day.  If you are so inclined, weather can set your mood and your perceptions, so that a grey day matches an inward calm, or a minor depression.  If you are not, the weather means nothing at all.  And what mood you get from any given view at any given time _ who knows?

We are constantly proud that we can predict things, but I cannot predict how I will feel when I encounter this little patch of water each day.  Nor if I will even notice it.  Science has great limits, and one of the worst is that it cannot truly deal with the chaotic and infinitely unreliable reactions of any person to their environment.

 Sat-

 

 

Inlet on the more-or-less freshwater pond behind the old Mill Dam.  There are a lot of birds, migratory and otherwise, here during various times of year.  The town owns all this as a park, but fortunately has not yet seen fit (nor had the budget) to “improve” it much.

Of course, these cheap cameras exaggerate.  Everything looks both larger and smaller, and the lens curves things a bit.  In a way, I prefer these devices where there are obvious flaws, simply because it reminds us that there are flaws in every device, that we sometimes do not pay attention to.  A perfect lens captures a better picture, but no better captures the experiential reality.

 Sun-

 

Four O’Clock springing from the asphalt that tries in vain to keep the rising harbor tide from eating away at the road.  This area has to be fixed up and filled in here and there every year or two after severe storms.  It doesn’t help that according to reports the mean sea level has risen over an inch in the last two years.

I’ve always enjoyed the interactions and struggles between man and wild nature more than either by themselves.  I am less interested in either wilderness or enclosed malls and tight urban blocks than I am in the garbage that gets into the wilderness, and the weeds that colonize marginal land.  It’s the constant dynamic that fascinates me, intellectually and visually.