Captree State Park
— — the bay that smells of bait and diesel and salt.
Not only on a wall.
“Captree State Park holds the eastern shoulder of the Robert Moses Causeway, looking south across the Great South Bay toward Fire Island. The Captree Boat Basin is the largest public fishing fleet on Long Island. Open boats leave before sunrise, sportfishers slide out for fluke and stripers, and the pier holds a quieter crowd with bucket and rod. The smell is bait and diesel and salt, in that order.
Captree State Park, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Captree State Park sits on Captree Island, a low barrier island on the south shore of Long Island in Suffolk County, between Jones Beach Island to the west and Fire Island to the east. The 298-acre park is reached by the Robert Moses Causeway and was opened in 1954 as part of Robert Moses' South Shore parkway system. It looks south across the Great South Bay and serves as the launching point for one of the busiest recreational fishing fleets on the East Coast.
The Great South Bay runs shallow and protected behind Fire Island, opening to the Atlantic through Fire Island Inlet just east of the park. Captree Boat Basin is the largest public fishing dock on Long Island, home to open party boats and charter sportfishers that work the bay for fluke and porgy and the ocean side for striped bass and bluefish. The fishing pier on the basin's east side stays open year-round. Bay light here is flat and silvered, the sky usually doing more work than the water.
The park is open year-round, with a vehicle entry fee in the warm months. Open boats sail morning and afternoon out of the basin from spring through late fall, and the seafood restaurant at the basin keeps roughly the same hours. The bicycle and walking path that runs the length of the Robert Moses Causeway connects Captree to Jones Beach to the west and Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island to the south, by way of the Fire Island Inlet Bridge.