Shelter Island and Old Memories!

The past 11 days have been so busy visiting with friends along our way that now I am behind with the blog so this is one of three new posts to tell our story.

We had fun in Huntington, Long Island with Al's friend Dale and his girlfriend Nancy.  We drove around for a bit and passed Al's old house where he lived until he was in college.  

The free mooring was great in an almost empty mooring field in Lloyd Harbor which is near the location of a party where Al and I got reacquainted and started our relationship journey back in 1976 that eventually lead to our 37 years of marriage.  I enjoyed taking my walks around the very posh neighborhoods on Lloyd Neck.  Al provided my transport to land for those walks.  We ended our Huntinton visit with a delicious authentic New York Italian dinner which  Dale treated us to! Then Friday 6/30, we headed out early to travel 70+ miles to cruise along the north shore of Long Island to reach Shelter Island which sits between the two forks where Long Island splits at the eastern end.  

Here we sit facing the Shelter Island Yacht Club which has many fond memories for me and is a very classy place to be.  My best friend growing up is Megan Hansel (now Hergrueter) whose family spent summers on Shelter and her dad was the Yacht Club Commodor and an avid sailor.  So after meeting Megan in 5th grade, I had the pleasure of spending a week every summer with her and more time during our college years.  One of the last times we were on the Island was her wedding to Charlie who is a high school friend of Al's.   They are the reason for Al and I meeting.    

Megan managed to arrange for us to use her sister's personal mooring so once more we were swinging in a perfect location in Dering Harbor with a free launch that took us to and from the Club.  How cool is that?! 

We had some great gatherings for meals with Meg and Charlie's children and several cousins that are the prodigy of her siblings who I knew well.  So we stayed an extra day and took their family out on a day cruise on Sunday 7/2 to have lunch on anchor near Long Beach Point and Megan took the helm to learn to use Mr. Auto for steering.  

It was energizing to be around young adults and compare our exploits when we were 20 something to their present lives.  Not much has changed on the social side of life!  Charlie stands on deck covered with sun protection because he knows first hand the result of too much sun since he is a plastics surgeon who sees too much skin cancer on his patients!  

Al enjoyed training whoever wanted to take the helm for a little "Captian time". 

These old folks have a lot of history together so our time on Shelter was better than wonderful!! 

The Hergrueter clan with their cousins sitting outside of Meg and Charlie's darling house near Dering  Harbor.  

We were treated to a lovely sunset over the harbor on our last night before heading out early on Monday 7/3 to take advantage of lighter wind and waves that were predicted to increase as the day progressed.  Weather is always our dictator! Next stop, Block Island for the 4th of July!