8 June 22:10, half-moon.

I'm unspeakably excited to write, frantically inspired by my new writing spot: up on the bridge, in the passenger loveseat (white vinyl), in the shadow of my 1977 Carver's unabashedly unrenovated dash, which looms backward at a streamlined, sporty angle, as if we were soaring through waves at sea, not rocking gently in a calm, suburban marina. On the other hand, I'm torn, because I'd much rather look at the moon and study the strangeness of light reflected in water, or listen to the wet open sound that brings the timbre of the harbor even to this cozy channel.

A ferry chugs through, nonchalant. I will feel its wake in about 90 seconds.

Earlier in the evening, my neighbor Denis and I drove his small zodiac back through the marinas surrounding, a sort of celebratory sunset-and-beer cruise. Most every sunset or moonrise here does feel like call for celebration. He has equipped a rather small—and, for New York Harbor, ineffectual—inflatable dinghy with an outboard motor that runs on a car battery. It's stealth, nearly silent, and small enough to transport on the subway, apparently. Denis completes it with a pair of tiny aluminum oars bought from the Bronx (on Craigslist, of course). It rides comfortably low to the water; the motor makes absolutely no sound.

We toured the marina across the channel first, the large state-run city with an R.V. park. Some of the boats are truly spectacular. A couple appear to be live-in yachts, comically massive. Others have the granola vibe of hippies living just outside the fringe, many on trawlers. I saw folding bicycles, hammocks, less-than-appealing storage clutter; a boat named MARGARET, by gold paint and blue neon, blaring Lionel Richie; graceful sailboats, ridiculous puns, and a small tug of workmen cruising along in hard hats; a giant fuel barge with immense stove-pipe appendages; a lone swan; abandoned docks and a sealed-up sewage outflow.

Most New Yorkers will never see these small marinas. This world has the privilege of being always exciting. There are a few hundred live-aboards. We meet and re-meet, a Zodiac driven by a fashionable mom with boy and girl aboard. The boy, with a foot slung overboard, dangling in the water, says it's so small! of our stealth-bomber. They wave and smile the second time we pass.