The Fishers Island Yacht Club

We’ve anchored in West Harbor at Fishers Island several times going and coming from Block Island, but had never been ashore. We were determined to visit this time. We anchored outside the inner harbor, but had to wait till the winds shifted (a whole day of waiting), before it was comfortable enough to go ashore.

Bronze sculpture of a successful osprey

The island and its people are truly charming. The yacht club let us tie up right at the launch dock as it was so late in the season and they had very little traffic. We wandered into town (consisting of a post office, a hair salon, a shop, and ice cream store, a grocery store and a restaurant), and I was able to buy a couple of things for the boat at the local gift boutique for end-of-season prices. We had to hustle over to the grocery store (they close at 1 and don’t re-open till 3) as we needed lunch, supplies and ice. I was going to just leave the ice and groceries in the dinghy while we finished up walking through town, but Beth from the yacht club pulled out a cooler that we could use for cold storage till we were ready to leave.

The Fishers Island Museum was closed that day, but Beth had said to knock on the door as we passed by anyway. The director and an assistant happened to be there and were happy to let us poke around. The museum was extensive, covering the history (native and European), geology, flora and fauna of the island. I was particularly taken by a photograph of an osprey mid flight with a fish in her grasp. The director told us that there were 20+ nests on island (one with a web cam), and took us upstairs to see an entire gallery of work by the photographer I had been admiring.