Port Jefferson isn’t just a small seaside town with quaint little shops and seafood restaurants. Just inside Port Jefferson Harbor, you can find a wild, socially-distanced beach party at Pirate’s Cove (a/k/a Mount Misery Cove).
My pirate crew was raring to go, so on a hot sunny day over the 4th of July weekend, we set out for an afternoon of pillaging and plundering.
Luckily, we arrived early enough to snag a prime anchorage spot with a ringside view of the scene unfolding around us. The place was chock full of paddle boarders, kayaks, and people floating in inner tubes with cup holders (I’m definitely getting one of those next summer). The water was calm enough to swim in with young kids, and it is only a short distance to shore if you want to hike on the bluff or wade in the shallows. You can either paddle to shore in a kayak or inner tube, or even swim there, depending where you’re anchored.
On the other side of the cove, there’s a pristine, quiet beach that had one person on it– only one person–on a holiday weekend with perfect beach weather.
The people watching was one of the best parts, from ogling fancy yachts, to buying ice cream from enterprising college kids selling it boat-to-boat from a dinghy, to these crazy daredevils:
(This makes me glad to have daughters. I understand that Stony Brook Medical Center is a good hospital, but even so . . .)
So perhaps I did a little less pillaging and plundering, and a little more floating and relaxing, but after all the craziness 2020 has wrought, I deserve a little R&R. I’ll save the pillaging and plundering for next time!