Greenport:
This Charming Seaport Village Is A Jewel

By Bob Banfelder

September showcases Greenport's Maritime Festival, an annual two-day weekend event preceded by a Friday evening Land and Sea cocktail party. The happening preserves an important nautical heritage. Greenport's East End Seaport Museum and Marine Foundation is an organization that hosts the Maritime Festival.

Among the many vessels featured at the festival this year was an historical Beebe-McLellan Life-Saving Surfboat, a lapstrake half-scale model of 400 original 25-foot, four-inch long, seven-foot beam boats that were built in the Beebe Boat Shop at the foot of Ludlum Place at Rackett's Basin in Greenport. These life-saving surfboats were constructed over a 39 year period; that is, between 1879 and 1918. Following stringent testing in the Atlantic Ocean, the United States Government contracted 20 surfboats for lifesaving purposes. A proven success, hundreds were employed along the eastern seaboard of both the United States and Canada. The East End Seaport Museum and Marine Foundation commissioned the construction of a replica so as to highlight but a single historical aspect of Greenport's multifaceted marine industry.

Featured, too, at the East End Seaport Museum and Marine Foundation, located at Third Street at the Ferry Dock, is an exhibit honoring famed shark hunter Captain Frank Mundus, purported to be the quintessential model for Peter Benchley's character, Captain Quint, in the 1975 box-office hit, Jaws. Mundus' affable daughter, Pat Mundus - a board member of the East End Seaport Museum and Marine Foundation, as well as executive director of the Shelter Island Historical Society - resides in Greenport and spoke about her late father's adventures, dispelling several myths about the man and the movie.

Shortly before his death on September 10, 2008, Donna (my significant other) and I had the honor of spending the last two summers with Mundus. He and I worked book signings together, dined out and enjoyed meals at our home along with other angling friends. Additionally, I piloted an interview with his wife, Jenny, from their home in Hawaii, as well as conducted the last extensive interview with the Monster Man himself. What I can absolutely attest to is the fact that, like Captain Quint in the film (portrayed by the actor Robert Shaw), Mundus was, indeed, a true character. At 83 years old, he had all his faculties and was the life of the party at dinners, book signings, informal talks and discussions. He loved the limelight and making people laugh. He was a kidder, a prankster, a no-nonsense soul; a man who many folks say put Montauk on the map. Mundus was recognized, along with Donnie Braddick, as having caught the world's largest great white shark on a rod and reel: 3,427 pounds. Mundus also harpooned and brought in a 4,500-pound great white.

The East End Seaport Museum and Marine Foundation, a nonprofit organization, was established to recognize, restore and preserve the maritime heritage of the East End of Long Island, be it boats, men or buildings. One such building, the Long Beach Bar Lighthouse, situated between Orient Harbor and Gardiner's Bay, stands as a symbolic beacon, beckoning sailors for centuries to the protected waters of Peconic Bay. The lighthouse, monikered Bug Light, was restored in 1990, the year the Foundation was instituted. The organization owns and operates the working lighthouse.

Greenport - originally referred to as Winter Harbor, then Stirling, Greenhill and finally renamed Greenport - is conveniently accessible by car, bus, train or ferry. A working seaport since the 18th century, incorporated in 1838, Greenport is part of Southold Township. This charming seaport village is a jewel, a gem of a small country town. A visit to Greenport, be it in the summer, fall, winter or spring, will enchant you. For its fall finale, the East End Seaport Museum and Marine Foundation is finishing up with a free maritime film festival on Saturday, December 19th. In this penultimate hour, come and enjoy a children's film series commencing at 11 a.m.; 7:00 p.m. will take us out to sea with a talk and short documentary chronicling the long friendship between Ernest Hemingway and his boat captain, Gregorio, in The Old Man and Hemingway.

Editor's note: Robert Banfelder is an award-winning novelist whose psychological thrillers include No Stranger Than I, The Teacher and The Author. Visit www.robertbanfelder.com.

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