Port Washington, NY
June 20, 2013
This is the first logical stop after a boat goes through the East River in NYC to get to the Long Island Sound. So the idea is to sail through the nation’s largest city making sure to do it on the right tide and current and miss all the traffic attempting to turn on into chum and make some port to count one’s blessings that we did not turn into an incident. Past Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, the Battery and Hells Gate and the nest thing is Riker’s Island which is the largest jail in the country. OK, so we were impressed to that point. Next comes the entrance to Long Island Sound past a light house on some rock sure to sink one is too close. So, everyone stops in some place called Port Washington. What’s all the hubbub? It can’t be much, right? Wrong.
Just 15 miles from the City is a most remarkable place. John Philip Sousa lived here and became the Beatles of the day. He was America’s bandsman and was a Marine (not necessarily a good thing in the mind of an Army officer) but none the less one great composer of the kind of music I like. The comes the fact that this place supplied a high grade of sand, yes sand, to build Manhattan. Then make it the place where world class racing sloops, the Star class, were built in the 30s. But perhaps the greatest thing that this place offered the world was in the aviation field. In the early 30s, this was where Pan American started service to many places. Aviation research was here to include a few notables such as Lindberg, Curtis, Earhart Douglas, Sikorsky, Republic. Grumman and even more of that caliber. This little sleepy place was way more than that. It remembers the four citizens who died in WWI and those who died since in service to our country. This is definitely one of the gems of our cruise thus far and a place that made a big ding in my hard drive.