Author Archives: Eric Francis

Summer home of John Steinbeck (1902-1968) and his wife Elaine Anderson Steinbeck (1914-2003). The modest house is in Sag Harbor, NY, in the town of East Hampton. The large tree closest to the house, on the other side of the building, is about two feet in front of the front door. Photo by Eric Francis.

While I’m out on the eastern tip of Long Island, I had a chance to visit John Steinbeck’s summer home and I reckon favorite place to live, at least on the East Coast. It’s a modest home on about an acre of land in Sag Harbor, a few miles outside of East Hampton. He lived there, and on the upper east side of Manhattan, in the last years of his life. This was the house he left from on his 10,000 mile journey that became the book Travels with Charley.

Steinbeck spent many years in Monterey, CA, right on the coast. His best friend was a marine biologist who would take him out on sampling expeditions to give him a break from writing, and several of his novels and nonfiction books have water themes.

When he moved to the East Coast it’s not surprising he ended up out here. His house is tucked away on a little peninsula surrounded by some coves and near Sag Harbor Bay, on the south fork near the end of Long Island. The place is a bit isolated from any activity but is near the neighbors. It has big windows to let in the Sun from a few different directions. It’s the perfect place if you have a lot of water in your chart (Sun Pisces, Moon Scorpio for water) and Leo rising (for sunshine).

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Look at sea critters long enough and they start to look like they're prancing around the set of SpongeBob. That's exactly what happened with Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of the animated series -- he started as a marine biologist and became a cartoonist. These two crabs inhabit a purely-for-fun 55-gallon local specimen tank at the East Hampton shellfish hatchery (see prior post). A rock crab (on the left) is 'defending' his abode from some other kind of crab. Check out that claw. The dispute was resolved amicably. Photo by Eric.

Tomorrow — we will visit the former home of John Steinbeck, and take a look at his chart.

Grow room by the Sea -- Algae stock grows in Erlenmeyer flasks at the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery in Mondauk, NY. The algae provides microscopic food for infant oysters, clams and scallops (while they're in the larval stage). In the next stage, the algae cultures are moved to much larger vats where the algae blooms under natural light. Photo by Eric Francis.

When I was studying marine biology at John Dewey High School, I heard of this place called the New York Ocean Science Laboratory (NYOSL), out in Montauk — at the far end of Long Island’s south fork. That always seemed perfect — to have an ocean science lab out here on the far-flung edge of the North American continent, more than 100 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. All kinds of complex aquatic systems exist around here — besides the ocean itself, there are inland lakes and ponds, streams, bays, harbors, wetlands and islands.

I’ve looked for the lab many times on the ‘Net and I’ve never been able to find it — and I learned why today. The New York State Legislature cut its funding in 1979, before the Internet existed. So, it never had a website or a web presence of any kind, and there are few references to its existence. Even asking the locals, most only seemed to have heard of it.

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Montauk facing south, toward Santo Domingo, winter 2012. Photo by Eric.

Nothing is planned, by the sea and the sand
— Quadrophenia

I often forget one of the things that I love the most being near the ocean, which is the ability to see to the horizon. I’m staying out in Montauk for a while — this place at the very tip of Long Island, and looking out at the edge of the world. I’m also listening to waves.

I figured out the other day that what we see as waves reaching the shore is the expression of energy that has traveled far across the planet to get here. Waves, at the shore, seem like something that is unique to the shore, but they’ve come a long way.

The way the eastern coastline of North America is laid out, New England extends 100 miles or more than the rest of the East Coast, and I’m at the southern edge of that. If you were to travel in the direction of the photo, you would reach Santo Domingo (properly, the island of Hispaniola) in about 1,200 miles. Looking to the southeast, the next stop is Morocco, diagonally across the Atlantic. So we are on the wild coast here.

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