An easier trip starts at Put-in-Bay, the party-hardy village on South Bass, and glides along the calm coves of Middle and North Bass Islands.
I found a little rocky plateau above calm Cuckold Cove, where I could read my paper.
Maui: Best for beaches, hiking, food Sun and surf - Justifiably famed for its glorious strands, Maui's got a beach for every mood - wind-whipped kiteboarding meccas, calm snorkelling coves, hidden gems and some of the biggest surfable waves on the planet.
Thus, views of the water are ample and varied: wind-ruffled harbors filled with sailboats, but also calmer grass-fringed coves.
So instead of spending a lovely, calm Christmas Eve in the protected cove listening to Bing Crosby singing amid the twinkling lights, they spent it in the dark, at a 45-degree angle atop a sandbar, in a rainstorm.
The water at this small, secluded cove is crystal clear and calm.
Actually, it's kind of weird as it's manmade but the water's calm and it's a beautiful, tiny cove.
As Winslow Homer proved here in 1899, there is still an immortal calm in the watercolor disarray of a cove, a spit of beach, a peeling red-and-white wooden boat leaning on pale sand and fallen fronds, while an ever-changing force of intensifying blue moves horizonward.
If it's in a sheltered cove, the water should be calm and there shouldn't be too much wind.
To experience the old Montauk, visit before Memorial Day, when the secluded coves and sweeping dunes are calm, and the cool breezes off the Atlantic make the place feel more like Maine than Long Island.
