Road trip--Sag Harbor

A house by the harbour, decorated with many painted, wooden floats.

Some of the houses in Sag Harbor, like this one, are huge and majestic. Other smaller cottages line the side-streets: more modest homes built by or for the fishermen, the sailors, the whalers, who lived here between their trips. Cosy, snug little houses, tidy and ship-shape.

This is the Whaling Museum, but it was closed when I visited. A sign said "by appointment", and I hadn't made one. The building is, or was, the Masonic Hall. It needs work, and a sign gives details of fund-raising for the repairs.

The last whales were caught by Long Islanders around a hundred years ago, but Sag Harbor remembers them, and the men who spent months and years hunting them, very well.