The Coast of Summer: Sailing New England Waters from Shelter Island to Cape Cod

by Anthony Bailey and Larry Bailey

Book Overview

An account of half a lifetime spent on the waters of New England. Sailing from Eastern Long Island to the tip of Cape Cod, Anthony Bailey guides his boat, Lochinvar, through rough and smooth waters, poking into deep harbours and shallow ponds, as he explores the life of this scenic coast.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061180041
• ISBN13: 9780061180040
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Crusing Guide

I first read this book from a copy obtained from the local public library. I was so impressed I bought one. It is a beautiful description of one man's sailing adventures of the New England Coast in the summer of 1992. I bought it primarilly as a cruising guide to the all the places I intend to explore with my own sailboat.

A Dream of Coastal Cruising

Long Island Sound and the south coast of New England--City Island in New York City to Martha's Vinyard and Nantucket and then the north shore of Cape Cod is one of the finest sailboat cruising grounds in the world. This area is replete with coves, quaint villages, rivers, islands, and a vast number of harbors and anchorages all different and interesting. Anthony Bailey writes an informative and charming description of a summer cruising the eastern sections, from Shelter Island to Provincetown. For anyone who is interested in or contemplating taking up coastal cruising Bailey's book is a dream of the way coastal cruising could and can be. Bailey cruises sometimes singlehanded, but mostly with his wife Margot. They are serious and dedicated sailors, cruisers, and enjoyers of people and the outdoors. I have cruised many of these same areas and thoroughly enjoyed revisiting them vicariously with Bailey. Bailey is a fine writer, with a modest and friendly voice. This material could easily have been unexciting and tedious in less skilled authorial hands. Bailey brings it lovingly to life. The Coast of Summer is part informal cruising guide, part "log of our journey," and part dreamy reminiscing. Unlike some cruising guides, Bailey's is very much focused on people. Some sailors have a girl in every port--Bailey has a friend in every port, and we learn much about them. Bailey is British but partly grew up on Cape Cod and lived for years in Stonington, Connecticut while he worked for the New Yorker magazine. He seems to know an endless number of the rich and famous (and eccentric) who summer along the New England coast and he and Margot are happy to be entertained by one or another of them in most every destination on his cruise. Although The Coast of Summer is one of my favorite and most enjoyed sailing books (and I've read many), I must nevertheless enter some qualms. For one thing, this book tends to breed resentment, at least in my puny soul. Bailey spends three quarters of the year living in London, and then July, August, and part of September cruising New England in his sailboat. Hmmm. What a nice life! I've also already mentioned his many aristocratic and intellectual friends--probably from his New Yorker days. And if you or I wrote a manuscript about our summer cruise, no matter how charming and informative, I bet we could not get it published. But Bailey can! Why? One surmises it's his New Yorker connections again. OK. Enough of these cranky thoughts. I still have other more serious qualms. Bailey enters disclaimers about treating his tale as a cruising guide and I'm inclined to agree. For one thing the book is dated. Much has changed since he wrote it (but some things never change). I also question some of his boating methods. He and Margot cruise without a bimini. I consider a bimini essential protection from the Sun. Do not cruise anywhere south of the Arctic without a bimini. His auxiliary engine is gaso

The Coast of Summer

This delightful account of a summer of sailing along the Southern New England coast is a must-read for any cruising sailor or sailor wannabe. It is the story of the normal events of coastal cruising, from anchoring to meeting old friends ashore, from monitoring the weather to cooking on board, told in a prose which flows as easily as the tides. The personal memories and reflections, and the historical notes on the many harbors along the route, are as thoroughly engrossing as the 80-foot waves, pirates, and seamonsters of most adventure books. Perhaps it is the reality of planning such a cruise for yourself that makes the book even more captivating than the more unlikely tales of life-threatening ordeals in violent seas. This book informs, entertains, and gratifies almost as well as the sea, itself.

Best book on the area

I am now reading this book for the 4th time. You easly place yourself rght in the cockpit with them. Going day to day, harbor to harbor. A must read !!!!!

Absolutely essential to get a sailor through the winter

Anthony Bailey has somehow bottled up the smell and feel of July and August on the waters between Cape Cod and the tip of Long Island, an archipelago not only of little islands, but welcoming harbors, sandy beaches and private coves - not to mention fascinating histories. The Coast of Summer is like the first sip of a cool drink after a day's sail, the anchor set and the boat made secure for the night. Every cruising sailor stores these moments away forever.Read it in the winter when snow on city streets has turned black as the early night, or, even better, read it in the cabin of your own boat on a rainy day with your feet up on the settee, your back against a cushion and everything dry and comfortable below, your vessel yielding gently back and forth to the weather. Read it, for that matter, anywhere you want to - but read it.