Log Book: October 11th

Conditions: Party cloudy, NE 20mph wind

Location: City Island, New York

On the morning of the 11th we left New Haven, continuing our sail west down the Long Island Sound. With only our mainsail up we ran 8 knots downwind toward New York, landing at City Island. As we took the launch in the driver told us about the "attractions" of City Island. Painting it as a New Enland-esk town, he said it was a popular getaway for city dwellers. Upon reaching the main avenue we saw that this was not the case. It was a town out of a science fiction novel in which New York City and marine shops clashed together and perhaps where New Englanders came to die, though not likely. However we met some interesting people. In one such marine shop a man told us the story of the last German U-boat of WWII that was sunk near Block Island. He served on the Coast Guard ship that first spotted the submarine and said that he didn't know who was more frightened "the Germans or us." Wikipedia says that the U-boat is a popular diving site now, bodies of the German navy included. I don't know how reliable that is but I think the government should return the bodies, it's not an amusement park, it's a grave. Speaking of graves we learned some local history as well. The small ferry docked at City Island was not used as transport to the city but to ferry the dead citizens of New York to the small deserted island in the harbor called Hart Island. On Hart Island more than 800,000    people had been buried, or so the community claims, all one on top of the other in small graves. Hart Island's history is fraught with Holloween tales, at various career points housing a creepy still standing hospital, war internment camp, prison, and most notably ghosts that haunt the harbor. Citizens with a pulse aren't allowed on the island except through a special tour. The workers who dig the graves are in fact from their own island as well, Rikers, no doubt their employers hope that if the diggers return to a life of crime they will know how to cover it up better. The whole place is just waiting for a good movie director to cross its path. Upon our return to the boat that evening we found the weather had not changed, the wind in fact picking up. We would have to stay the another day at City Island, hoping as New Englanders we had not stayed to die and be buried by the Riker's inmates.