Shelter Island – Days 7 & 8

My apologies for no blog yesterday, this is down to our good friends Karin and Rob leading us astray, with good food, good wine and Scrabble. Also I suppose it was a problems of my lack of will power.

 The weather was much better, so with Rob’s guidance we used the house’s kayak to paddle round the creek. It was a lovely experience, we were on the calm water looking into the lovely houses and out to sea over to Long Island. It gave a completely different perspective to the island.

In the afternoon we took a gentle hike around part of the 2000-acre nature reserve on the island. It was a fascinating mix of fresh and seawater habitats, with some lovely plants already exhibiting some autumnal colours. It was good to have local expertise to identify the plants.

The evening was a time for interesting conversation, particularly obtaining a different perspective on the US presidential race. The opinion here is that at the moment none of the Republican field is electable, and it maybe sometime before a viable candidate emerges. On the Democrat side Hilary Clinton is not considered a certainty, and that in any presidential election she would be a polarising figure. Despite our friends being Sanders supporters I perceive that there is no confidence that he will reach the final ballot paper.

Following this we played a deadly game of Scrabble, won by Karin - tonight is the time for payback.

It rained heavily during the night, but today was warm if a little cloudy. We ventured over the water to the North Fork at Greenport. The town was transformed from weekdays and was busy with day-trippers. We visited the small but interesting Long Island Railroad Museum. It reflected the history when Greenport was a major railroad port with extensive freight and passenger facilities. Now of course the railroad is a husk of its former self, but it is still possible to travel to New York on the train. We watched the lunchtime train depart and moved on towards the south.

First stop was the Greenport Harbor brewery where we sampled four excellent ales, varying from an IPA to a dark porter type beer. The atmosphere was great as we sat outside being entertained by a bluegrass band. Finally we dropped by a winery for some tasting and shopping.

I am now being seduced by the smells of Rob’s cooking, goat steak followed by veg from his garden, and then as I said it will be the revenge scrabble game. So a great couple of days and fantastic friendship.