Driving around Long Island, part 3

For our second car rental day, we had three main goals: get our propane tanks filled, see the south part of the island (we had driven around the north half the day before), and snorkel Dean’s Blue Hole. We decided to try to get propane filled first, but the local Esso station only did that on Wednesdays, so they said we’d need to drive to Cabbage Point, which was pretty far south on the island. So we decided to go there first, but we overshot it by accident and found ourselves all the way south, at Gordon’s Beach.

We spent a while here, just walking the shoreline and enjoying the sun.

Gordon’s was another place we could definitely come back to see again…but we had more things to do! We drove north again to find Cabbage Point and the propane fill spot, and we managed to locate it, but no one seemed to be around. We saw a guy in his garden at the house next door and asked him, and it turned out he was the guy! He came over to the lot where the tanks were and filled us right up. Another goal complete! We headed a little further north to check out Clarence Town, where we found a bakery and a place to get some lunch.

Our bellies full, we headed off to Dean’s Blue Hole. It’s essentially a vertical cave, and is 663 feet deep, the second deepest blue hole in the world! It’s also the site of the Vertical Blue world free diving competition hosted each spring. We weren’t planning to do any diving, just snorkeling, but still, it was quite a sight to see. We marveled at how the drop off in depth took place just a few steps from the shore. You can see it in the change in the water color.

We swam across the hole, snorkeled around the edges, and enjoyed swimming in the shallow water surrounding it as well. Definitely a memorable stop.

We swam a bunch at Dean’s, and eventually loaded back up to head back to the harbor. We all stopped off for some groceries at the Hillside Market, and then headed back to our own boats, pretty happy with our collective exploration of the island.

After a quick rest and change of clothes, we met up with 3 Lil Birds for sundowners and dinner at a beach bar called Tiny’s Hurricane Hole. What a great couple of days!