City Island, The Bronx, New York City

After making another early start out of Bridgeport, we put on enough miles that we made it to Barron's Boatyard, on City Island a day early!  We had heard that this was a good, family run boatyard and had decided that it was probably a good place to clean the moss off the bottom of the boat, and have the ocean bottom coat applied, before too many barnacles made the Wyvern their home!

As soon as we arrived, the staff had us pull up to the boat lift, and before we could hardly catch our breath, the boat was out of the water and being power washed!!  As there was not much we could do, we wandered in to town and had a look at our new surroundings.  Over the next couple of days, Barron's Boatyard sanded down the old 'freshwater' bottom coat, and then applied the new 'oceanwater' bottom coat.  Meanwhile, George waxed the topsides, and she is looking pretty darn spiffy right now!

Before.......

After!!!

City Island is at the north east end of Manhattan Island, and is, officially, the east end of the Bronx.  It is about a mile and a half long and about half a mile wide, with a population between 4500 and 5000 people.  The main road, City Island Avenue runs down the middle of the island and has all the businesses on it, with the side roads almost all ending in a dead end at the water, either east or west of it, so that all the houses are situated on streets that are only about 1 or 2 blocks long.  The west end of the island has a distant view of the skyline of New York, and the eastern end, where we are, looks out on to Hart Island.  Hart Island has an interesting, if sad history.  It used to be where they had a debtor's prison.  These buildings are now abandoned, and the island, still under the auspice of the Dep't of Corrections, has been used for years as a place to bury the paupers and street people that die in New York and don't have any family to 'claim' them.  There are about 600,000 babies buried there and 2.5 million adults.  There are still about 1200 people buried there each month.

Because City Island is so small, one can easily walk it from end to end, as I did on our second day here.  Historically, the town used to have a large oyster fishery, but the commercial fishery is finished here now.  It is also well-known for, and proud of, its wooden boat building heritage.  City Island built 8 America's Cup racing boats; 5 of which won the title!  Lastly the island is well know for it's sailmakers, of which there are still two, on our count!  Presently, the little town is known for its restaurants, and while there are some mega seafood-themed places, we have discovered some real gems right near the boatyard which we have taken advantage of already and plan some more meals before we leave!!  One of our favourites is the City Island Diner, which serves hot coffee and food all day, but we have been enjoying it's great breakfasts and never-ending coffee!!  Another, the Black Whale, is listed as a favourite with a number of the locals and also brags about it's famous desserts, so we wandered up after supper Thursday night and had chocolate fondue (yahoo!!) and tea and coffee on the patio.  Sunday we have invited my cousin, Patricia who lives in Manhattan, for the Sunday brunch there, which also looks fantastic!!  Finally, there is a little french Bistro that has jazz on Sunday nights, so we will see how the budget holds out!!......not to mention our waistlines!!

City Island Diner

local IGA

local liquor store

New York skyline

hardware store (note 911 memorial painting)

sunrise over Hart Island

Once again, we have stumbled on to a place that seems to have made it to the silver screen in one form or another!  There is actually a movie called City Island, but I have not seen it, so can't comment on it.  It has also been used for a number of Law and Order shows, as well as it has the house used in the Cary Grant film, Arsenic and Old Lace!  We have really been enjoying our stop here.  The people are very friendly, there is enough Bronx accents around so that we can't forget where we are, and it has a nice, New York feel to it, with none of the 'craziness' that the Big Apple exudes!!

Arsenic and Old Lace house

 Speaking of which, we are going to give the city a miss, as it is actually quite far to get there, and neither of us really wants to tackle it right now!!  I am hoping that I will be able to get some good photos of the city as we sail by on our way.......SOUTH!!!  We have finally reached the point where we have to make our decision re: Hudson River and home, or Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW) and The Bahamas, and after much consideration and creative number-crunching on the financial front, we have decided we have come a long way....about 2000 miles as the Wyvern sails, and we really should carry on, as the boat is in good condition and we are still talking!!!  So, all those careless invitations to visit us once we get to warmer, gentler climes, are going to come to fruition!!!

I will be honest and say we will miss the family greatly, and had hoped to join them for Thanksgiving, but we hope to see some (if not all???!!!) while we are in the Bahamas.  Anyway, we are about to start a whole new leg of the adventure!.....stay tuned!