They said it couldn’t be done — well, maybe just Jeff Plitt said it — but Cerberus made it across the Sound over the weekend from where it was getting a new engine in Connecticut. After nearly two years on the hard, the patient folks at Midway Marina lowered my 1979 Cape Dory sloop into the river, better late in the current boating season than never.
After dropping one of the kids off at college on Friday, I overnighted at the dock, then left midmorning to catch the 11 a.m. opening of the swing bridge connecting Haddam to East Haddam.
With the wind against us, Cerberus motored downriver. Being the weekend, dozens of powerboats of all sizes and sorts raced by; there were few other sailing craft out and about other than a catboat at Essex and a big steel ketch at Old Saybrook, aboard which a spaniel barked in a friendly way as we passed in the main channel.
The breeze slacked off until Cerberus was about a nautical mile past the Saybrook Breakwater, then it came up from the southwest enough for a relatively fast tack across to Plum Gut.
We hit the Gut about two hours later than I had intended. Getting through the sluice between Orient Point and Plum Island other than at slack tide is quite a thing. Waves from all directions at once were hit crosswise by the wind. There was no time to recover from a breaker on the bow before another loomed from abeam.
Once past the Gut, the wind kicked up more, and we made a quick run on the starboard tack across upper Gardiner’s Bay to the Ruins. Toward dark, I dropped the anchor at Bostwick’s somewhat in the lee of the bluffs. After a dinner of scrambled eggs and non-alcoholic beer, I got into my sleeping bag as a loon not far away called good night. Up once about midnight, I noticed how pleasingly dark the sky was above Gardiner’s Island and how bright it was above the Connecticut shoreline. I think we underappreciate how the blank spaces on the map on eastern Long Island make a difference in this regard.
Sunday morning there was no wind to speak of. After an hour of slow passage, I hove to at Crow Shoal for a half-hour nap, then motored to Coecles Harbor on Shelter Island, then on to Three Mile Harbor by sail. By about 5:30 that evening, I made up the sails and rowed over to Squaw Road, where my buddy Mike picked me up for an early dinner in town.
If I think about the months it took while Cerberus was on land as I worked to get the engine installed in dollar terms, there is little justification. But for the joy of sailing — alone, across Long Island Sound — it was all worth it. I expect to get about a month in before the boat has to be berthed for the winter. I look forward to an early spring commissioning and a long 2026 season, but with old boats and a low budget, you really never know.