July 27 -- Best Day of Sailing So Far in 2020 - Mattituck to Noyack Bay - 37 NM

I had told Lene that we had to leave by 7:45 to make it to Plum Gut before the tide began to flood, adverse to us. My brilliant mate, in the morning, said, "If we leave earlier, will we have more water under our keel on the way out of the Creek?" So we left at seven. It was cooler on a fine clear morning and when we got out of the Creek into LI Sound there was wind: deep on our starboard quarter. Under genny alone, pushed by wind, waves and up to two knots of tide, we were making seven knots. But then the coast of Long Island curved to the right and it was time to gybe and we put up the main and replaced the genny with the small jib because a possible gybe in Plum Gut with the big sail up could be a problem with its ferrocious currents. And we kept with the small jib the rest of the day. When we got to Plum Gut, late in the tide cycle, and it was not ferrocious We had set out for Three Mile Harbor to meet a girlfriend who was summering there with her grandkids but it became clear that she feared social contact so we relieved her of her promise to take us grocery shopping, which we did not need to do anyway. And that relieved us of the obligation to visit Three Mile harbor, with its back door dinghy ride to East Hampton, which we had been to before. This was about a mile and a half south of the Gut, headed toward 3M Harbor and we decided on Noyack Bay, where we had never been before. We found ourselves close hauled on starboard and leading another sloop in one of those unofficial races. We did not catch her name but she was gaining slowly on us by pointing lower, until she had to tack away from Cedar point with its abandoned lighthouse. We continued in through the channels with their tricky tides on the south side of Shelter Island, past Sag Harbor to port, Smith Cove to starboard and the Shelter Island to South Fork Ferry.

Enroute we passed "Odessa" which hauled her anchor, picked up speed and crossed in front of us, heading into Sag Harbor. Noyack Bay is rather large, about two miles square, protected except from its open north side.

With winds predicted from the SW, we anchored in the SW corner, on 50 feet of snubbed chain in ten feet of water at 2 pm. We were about 1/4 mile from Jessup Neck and 1/4 mile from the entrance to Mill Creek. Only two neighbors, each several hundred yars away. We dinked in to town, walked to the local supermarket and back with groceries, filled two of our one gallon fresh water bottles and the dinghy's gas tank. We had coffee "out" our first food off the boat, and sitting on the sidewalk on the shady side of the supermarket. Back at ILENE, it having become too hot again, we took a swim before hauling up the dink and showering off in the cockpit. A strong windstorm at night with winds up to 30 knots. one of the lines coming down from aloft was too close to the mast and slatted against it in the wind: whap, whap, whap! So i got a piece of small stuff and tied it to a shroud, further from the mast.Not the quietest night but cool enough.