Boating, Fishing, and Travel Information for Oyster Bay, NY

Two small-craft facilities are close eastward of the entrance to the boat basin. Berths and moorings, electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, water, ice, a pump-out facilities, a launching ramp, lifts to 15-tons, storage, and full repairs are available. A speed limit of 5 m.p.h. is enforced in the harbor.

Oyster Bay, on the south side of Long Island Sound about 5 miles westward of Eatons Neck Light, lies between Lloyd Neck and Rocky Point and is the approach to Cold Spring Harbor and Oyster Bay Harbor. The harbor is marked by Cold Spring Harbor Light (40°54’51″N., 73°29’35″W.), 37 feet above the water, and shown from a skeleton tower on a caisson with a red and white diamond-shaped dayboard. The entrance and harbor are characterized by extensive shoals, boulder reefs, and broken ground making off from the shores. Vessels should proceed with caution if obliged to approach or cross shoal areas. The bay south of Cold Spring Harbor Light is a secure harbor, available for vessels of less than 18-foot draft.

Oyster Bay Harbor, a long, crooked arm in the western side of Oyster Bay, has a channel with a depth over 30 feet leading into the area westward of Moses Point. Good anchorage is available southward of Moses Point. West of this point, the channel is narrow and suitable only for vessels drawing less than 10 feet. Vessels of less than 7-foot draft can anchor in the bight between Cove Neck and the wharf at Oyster Bay, and also in West Harbor, the large bight on the northwest side of Centre Island.

A channel, marked by private seasonal buoys, leads southwestward from deep water in Oyster Bay Harbor to an oyster wharf in about 40°52’37″N., 73°31’32″W., thence west to a boat basin. The oyster wharf has reported depths of about 10 feet along the face and southeast side. Parallel to and about 200 feet off the northwest side of the wharf is a row of sunken barges. An oil receiving wharf is about 125 yards southward of the oyster wharf.

Brickyard Point, about 0.5 mile westward of Moses Point, should be given a berth of at least 0.2 mile off its westerly side to avoid several dangerous rocks to the northwestward of the point. None of these rocks is marked. Extensive privately owned oyster beds, marked by stakes, are in this area.

Mill Neck Creek, at the northwest end of Oyster Bay Harbor, is crossed by a highway bridge having a bascule span with a clearance of 9 feet. The area westward of the bridge has depths of 2 to 13 feet.