Shelter Islander sets out on year-long maritime voyage

“Why not?” Peter Reich answered with a grin, when asked why he decided to embark on a year-long voyage in his boat, Teddy Bear. 

It seemed like a challenge he was eager to pursue at age 67 after retiring last year from his 40-year partnership with James Eklund in their construction company. He’d also put in 12 years serving as a councilman on the Island’s Town Board. His experience undergoing stem cell replacement therapy for cancer a few years ago, combined with the death of his close friend Andy Reeve recently, were powerful reminders that you should “do the things you want to do” while you can, he said. 

And so, at 7 a.m., Tuesday, May 27, he piloted Teddy Bear away from its dock on Menantic Creek, northeast around Orient Point and west toward New York City. He’ll travel alone for much of the months ahead, but for the first four days he had his wife, Loren — who is a federal employee working on Plum Island — to keep him company and enjoy seeing Manhattan from the water.

He began renovating the Teddy Bear, a jaunty 36-foot motorboat that looks like a toy tugboat, a year ago, overhauling the craft his father bought in 1985 and making sure it was seaworthy, as well as handsome.

A few days before his departure, Mr. Reich was aboard, sharing some of the meticulously planned details of his trip with the Reporter, when a scuba diver came walking across his lawn toward the dock. It was Sean Brewer, Mr. Reich explained, coming to dive under the boat and clean off the bottom. Another visitor, Town Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams, came aboard to check on plans and packing lists, since she’ll join him for one leg of the trip, as several of Mr. Reich’s friends and family are planning to do.

His wife, Loren, can’t take the whole time away from work, but they have a few visits planned, including Charleston, S.C. and a Christmastime stay in the Florida Keys.

In the days leading up to shove-off, there were already adjustments that needed to be made to the route, in response to a delay at the Erie Canal, where one section is closed between two locks. “It could be 4 or 5 or 7 weeks,” Mr. Reich said, “or it could be closed all summer.” So he’ll change course, taking the Chambly Canal and heading farther into Canada, then south to the Great Lakes. A highlight will be taking the Trent-Severn waterway to Georgian Bay; the highest Trent-Severn lock is 841 feet above sea level. By contrast, the highest elevation at the Panama Canal is 85 feet. 

Mr. Reich has experience working on the Lakes as a third assistant engineer after graduating from SUNY Maritime College. He sailed from the Galapagos Islands to Australia on a later voyage. He’s found great joy going to sea, and has also reckoned with the unexpected and the life-threatening. 

NEAR FATAL ADVENTURE AT SEA

In October 1980, he and Andy Reeve were sailing the Reich family 33-foot sailboat, Polar Bear, down to Bermuda and St. Thomas, where he had job offers. He’d previously run Halsey’s Marina in East Hampton and looked forward to working in the Caribbean.

Although the forecast called for a storm when they left, they were confident they could handle it. It began building, from 15- to 20- and 25-knot winds, but still they were behind the boat. Suddenly, it became much more than the sailboat could handle. “The anemometer read 67 knots,” he recalled, of the instrument to measure wind speed, “which is as high as it goes. Waves were above the top of our 43-foot mast.”

The sailboat flipped; the men climbed into their life raft. The emergency beacon didn’t work. Their spirits lifted when they saw a ship; but it kept going past them. They were devastated, but later learned that that ship was The Poet, which sank in the storm, with all aboard lost.

They continued to hope for rescue, and fired flares; one was finally seen by a Polish freighter 7 miles away. They were picked up and 15 days later, made it to a port in Finland about 100 miles from Helsinki. “The American vice consul came to pick us up,” Mr. Reich recalled, “and as the driver sped toward Helsinki in a snowstorm, we thought we’d survived a shipwreck only to die in a crash on those snowy roads.’”

The Finnish driver asked where they were from in the States, and they said they lived about 100 miles east of New York City. “Oh, I worked on the South Ferry in Shelter Island,” the driver said, to their amazement. It turned out to be John Kaasik, who has gone on to become a valued member of the Shelter Island community, directing the beloved school musicals for many years.

VOYAGING ONWARD

For the next few months, the Teddy Bear’s meticulously planned route will take Mr. Reich through the Great Lakes to Wisconsin, eventually getting views of several other states from inland waterways and making his way south, then along the west coast of Florida to enjoy that Christmas in the Keys. He has 150 stops picked out that he wants to see, including the Dismal Swamp, before continuing north through the Chesapeake C&D Canal and Cape May Canal taking him up the New Jersey Coast. 

Mr. Reich has promised to check in with the Reporter in the course of his travels, and Islanders can track his progress with the Marine Traffic app if they wish.

Sometime next summer, he will cross his wake and arrive back in the New York area to complete his journey back to an Island that will have changed very little, and will welcome home a sailor with a trove of stories about his adventures.