(the following excerpt is from The Peconic Puffin, Volume 7, Number 4 originally published August 1998):
"Adventure on the High Seas
Steve buys a Kayak, but will Jordan get the paddle for “oh sh*t”?"
PUFFIN ON THE WATER
Sailing News Plus!
It may have started when Michael bought MisterAl, all 260 liters of him, a board bigger than Steve’s Pandejo. Steve, the man who has everything, a windsurfer who admits to riches beyond our wildest dreams, may have looked at the new old longboard, and heard Sally’s words ringing in his ear: “Size Matters! Size Matters!” We suspect that Steve meditated on Michael’s long thick waterwagon, and finally raised his head saying “Liters? I’LL SHOW YOU LITERS!” and went and bought a Pongo. Ladies and Gentlemen, Puffins of every stripe, we have a kayak in the house!
After scooping up said kayak at the Main Beach swapmeet (it looks like Lars is getting out of windsurfing, by the way...the showing was pitiful) Steve soon launched his new craft and began paddling southwestward. Michael, declaring that a centerboard and 260 liters was as good as a paddle, launched on MisterAl and a 7.5 in the 6 knot zephyr. The adventure was on.
It quickly became apparent that the kayak paddled well made upwind water at about the same pace as the tacking longboard, and our Puffins spent quality time moving through the western reaches of the Wee Peconic Waters. While originally no specific goal had been set, Steve selected the landfall to be the tip of Cow’s Neck. Approaching the point, our adventurers discovered a venturi effect accelerating the wind, and a fair bit of chop between the Neck and Robins Island, which Michael sailed out into before landing alongside Steve.
Cows Neck revealed itself as a strange and interesting landing...silvered and smoothed driftwood piled high against 25 foot cliffs. The cliffs were dotted by dozens of holes, thought to be birds nests. What could be on top? Steve spotted a rope fence just in view, and a climb was clearly necessary.
Michael scrambled to the top, employing a big stick to help gain the summit. As his head went over the ridge and Steve asked “what do you see,?” Michael raised an eyebrow and announced “a skeet shooting launcher”. This was a place where people brought guns. But there was nothing else in sight, so when Steve came up the two crossed the rope and began walking down a trail, which was increasingly and puzzlingly manicured, but for what purpose? It certainly didn’t seem like a golf club.
Michael mentioned a fear of being attacked by dogs. Steve pointed out that Michael was still carrying his climbing club. Finally the path opened into a groomed and designed green area with shrubs, benches, swinging vines. Still not a golf course, Steve opined that the area felt like the playground of the extremely rich and secretive. And they had yet to see anybody. Finally we spotted the back of a sign. Information was at hand! Steve walked over and read the sign. He did not smile as he read aloud “Shooters and Spectators are responsible for their own safety.” Not good. Apparently this was a place where some people shot guns, and other people watched them shoot, and they were concerned for the safety of one another. Unwritten on the sign was any warning about strangers arriving by sea, scaling the escarpment and popping up in the woods unannounced. It seemed clear that we could be either accidentally shot, or shot intentionally as trespassers on the private land of well-to-do gun nuts. Steve said “that’s about as bad a sign as we could have found.” Time to go. Steve wanted to try a different path back. Michael wanted to take the known path back, quickly. Steve then decided he wanted to swing on the vine. Michael suggested that since sneaking onto a shooting range unannounced had potential health risks associated with it, that perhaps they should get the hell out of there. Steve gave in to his cautious friend’s wishes, even though nobody had been seen or even heard. Michael felt a bit the wimp.
But after walking back down the path (with Michael positioning his stick behind his head to deflect bullets) climbing down the escarpment and launching their craft, shots began to be heard. Many shots. For the next twenty minutes as our Puffins cruised away with hides intact, guns were easily heard going off as the shooters apparently returned from tea to fire away. Now content in the knowledge that they’d done something sufficiently stupid to tide them over for a year at least, it was time to respectably paddle and sail along the western shore in search of less lethal discoveries.
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