Crossing The Sound

     It was always there: Long Island. On clear days the low profile of sand and trees could be seen like a mirage at the horizons' edge; the main island stretching until it disappeared from sight, punctuated at the east end by little Plum Island, with the Gut between, At night the lights would hint of life, of some race of sentient beings going about daily routines of work and play. Perhaps, from time to time, they would pause to gaze across the water, at us, and wonder whose lights, whose trees, whose hills those were, over there, in the place called: Connecticut. 

     Of course, we had sailed up close to the shores of Long Island, close as we dared, and too many times to be counted. There were beaches, we knew; and low bluffs, and houses, and people with their children splashing in the cold waters of the Sound. We knew this much. Some of us had motored over there in unremarkable motorboats on unremarkable passages. There is even a ferry service, large steel vessels engaged in the practical commerce of moving people and their cars from here to there, there to here, to the entry points of this place and that. Some of us, most of us, even, had crossed the Sound by ferry, a slightly extraordinary passage on a conveniently reliable schedule.  

     We had never rowed across the Sound. 


     This was a topic of frequent discussion, and for numerous years. It is, after all, right: there! ten, perhaps nine, miles away. Not a feat of Atlantic proportions, no epic test of strength and endurance. Just a pick-your-weather, keep a good lookout, bring water, don't be foolish, kind of feat. A fresh Sou'westerly would blow us back to somewhere along the Connecticut coast. A strong Nor'westerly  might push us on our way to Portugal (everyone always says Portugal; the Canary Islands are more likely). A compass was added to our club gig Current for the crossing.


     The Current is a warhorse of a boat. Launched in 1990, she was tried and tested on the Connecticut River, a not entirely protected stretch of water, and was familiar to us by the summer of '92,  when the plan at last took form. Current is a tack and tape plywood boat, 22'6" by 4', V-bottomed and rock stable. Set up to row with four plus cox'n, using rather simple 11' oars, Current will barrel and bull her way through surprisingly rough conditions with surprisingly little fuss. Wind is always the concern when rowing, though.

     There were but three of us signed on for the great crossing, meaning we would row as a cox'd double, which we had done many times before; Geoff, John, and myself would make the crossing by default, as no others stepped forward to join us. We decided a practice run was in order, a test more of ourselves than of the boat. This we did on a Saturday afternoon, starting in Essex on the Connecticut River, rowing down river and out to the Sound, rounding Bell 8 some two miles off shore before returning up river. It was a warm summer day, and the heat proved to be the biggest obstacle; and I, sufferer of heat exhaustion from early childhood, was compelled to bail out at Old Saybrook, some two miles short of our intended finish point. This gave pause at least to myself; heat sickness at mid-Sound would be a high obstacle to overcome.


     We nearly postponed the crossing when the scheduled day arrived. We actually decided against attempting it that day,  the weather-window being exactly wrong for our purpose. There was a strong breeze from the South East, which would fight us going over, and a strong Nor'wester forecast for the afternoon to fight us on the way back. Portugal seemed a likely possibility. We decided to just go for a row, to further test ourselves and the Current in real world, open water conditions.


     We launched from a beach club in Old Lyme where John is a member. The Current was trailered over from Old Saybrook, then down the long unpaved and private road to the club, and finally down the beach to a sandy, open launch site. Long Island Sound was shoal-water choppy, the wind demanded respect; with the waves breaking onto the beach, launching, boarding, getting oars out and rudder on was a scramble and a fight. Getting turned broadside to the waves would leave us swamped before we even got underway, but our departure was smooth enough to see us safely on our way. 


     Out on open water the waves were confused, steep, and frequent; and large, knocking us around, making it difficult to maintain a rowing rhythm. Current dropped behind the waves, then rose to their crests, boat and land alternately appearing and disappearing to each other. We pressed on, venturing a little further out on the open waters, testing, finding our stroke in the disparate seas; short strokes with the oars, timed at the wave tops, catching solid water with a quick motion before the solid water fell away to leave oars swinging aimlessly at the open air. We were making progress, further from one shore, closer to the other, though this was no longer our intent.

     Off in the distance, west of our position, we spotted a small sail, on a course to overtake and intercept us. It was the Monomoy surfboat Burnt Island, sailing out of the mouth of the Connecticut River.

     There had been talk of our two boats joining up for this passage, including comments about our fragile craft being tossed and wrecked by the seas of Long Island Sound. The Burnt Island, Current. We steadily put water between us, until they tried a new tack towards more fruitful grounds.


    As we worked our way further from Connecticut's familiar shore, the wind began to ease, the waves became noticeably less formidable. There was no discussion, no decision, just a change in our focus of attention; a course, compensating for tide, a bit west of the Gut, someplace we might beach and go ashore. We were perhaps three of nine miles across, rowing with more clarity of purpose than before. The decision had been made.

     Geoff cox'd all the way across; the plan had been to switch off, but this seemed unwise once we were underway. I rowed at stroke, John had the forward position. Current was slightly out of trim, but not unmanageably so. We rowed with a steady rhythm, growing accustomed to the waves, keeping our pace while avoiding the caught oar ("catching a crab") that would be, not dangerous, but disruptive. Our efforts began to have their effect, in a way that only human-powered travelers can truly ever experience: muscle, strain, sweat, fatigue, but then; results. Miles peel away slowly under the oars, exasperation and satisfaction residing one by one on the stroke and catch of the venturous oarsman. Long Island began to loom closer, and we approached the mysterious coast with justified caution. Here the waves breaking on the beach called for a quick landing, leaping out (we are not of leaping stock, though), hauling up the boat, away from the swamping waves. There were rock outcroppings to avoid as well; we zeroed in on a reasonable stretch of beachfront.


     There is a moment when beaching in surf or breaking waves calls for an abandonment of caution and a decisiveness of action. We rowed in swiftly, shipped oars, stumbled out of the boat, only to discover that the beach was not the pristine sand of our imaginings but rather, well-polished stones, stones worn smooth and rounded by centuries of pounding surf, stones slightly bigger than walnuts, stones remarkably fluid in the crashing breakers. Our feet sank into these stones up to our ankles, and our shoes filled with the hard little stones, adding to the struggle of dragging the Current to safety beyond the waves. We sat to rest a spell, emptying our shoes of their unexpected cargo, and somewhere in the ensuing moments I claimed a polished white Long Island beach stone as a souvenir of the day.


     So now Connecticut was over there, at the edge of a new horizon. We scouted this new land, so different from our own (our beaches have sand! our rocks are much bigger, and covered in seaweed moss). Here the beach ended with an impassible row of scrub brush and trees. Some native beach peoples approached at one point, warily keeping their distance, their wariness masked by faux aloofness and the pointing out of beach features to their young children, who obligingly acted intrigued by what must have been the everyday sights of their everyday beach world. They seemed strangely disinterested in our boat, or in where we had come from. We attempted no contact, we were there just to observe. 

     When it was time to leave, we repeated the quick launch, board, and deploy routine, this time with reassuring ease, and pushed out onto the choppy waters of Long Island Sound for the long haul to home. Returning home always seems to take less time than venturing out, especially to unfamiliar places. With the incoming tide moving us westward, we compensated and crabbed our way hopefully towards Old Lyme. John cox'd for the first half of this crossing, and I for the final stretch. Along the way a large tug and barge with a massive backhoe-on-treads rig crossed our bow; when we finally crossed well astern of him we saw he had changed course to give us an extremely and unnecessarily wide berth (we were taking pains not to come anywhere near to him anyway). Later, a friend in a commercial towboat pulled alongside to inform us that the tugboat had radioed a warning about a rowboat on the Sound presenting "no electronic signature" (i.e., his radar did not see us). Paul, the towboat captain, subsequently presented us with three photographs of three tired looking rowers who, by their appearance, would certainly present no electronic signature.

     Our course needed correcting to the east, the landing was a bit rough but not disastrous. We hauled out, left the Current to rest a few days at the beach club, and departed with the knowledge that from this day forward all our talk of rowing across the Sound would center on the day we did just that.