A Shore Thing

If you agree with the Water Rat in “The Wind in the Willows” that there is nothing, simply nothing, like messing around in boats, Newport Beach is the place to be.

Here opportunities to get out on the water, as well as in it, abound. It is the perfect place to leave exhaust and exhaustion behind, to be enveloped in the dolce far niente atmosphere of endless summer.

You might begin idling along the waterfront at Mariner’s Mile, the stretch of Coast Highway (Pacific Coast Highway becomes Coast Highway south of Huntington Beach) between Newport Boulevard and Jamboree Road. A variety of waterfront spots makes it well worth the trip.

Bistro 201 (333 W. Coast Highway) serves a Sunday champagne brunch for $22.95, featuring some of the best French toast around. Or check out its sister restaurant, Aysia 101 (2901 W. Coast Highway), where brunch includes an omelet station and a sushi bar.

If you’re looking for local color, try locals’ favorite Billy’s at the Beach (2751 W. Coast Highway). The decor is Hawaiian and so is the fish--ahi, ono and mahi-mahi are flown in fresh daily. The mai tais made with Diamond Head rum are world-famous, according to Billy’s menu. And yes, there really is a Billy, genial owner and host William Craig. “Owning a restaurant is like having a party for your friends and making them pay,” he jokes. Billy’s is open from 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekends. “We don’t throw anyone out,” says Craig.

If you’re hungry yet hankering to get afloat, sign up for a two-hour cruise at Hornblower Cruises (2431 W. Coast Highway) for the Sunday brunch cruise with “free-flowing champagne.” The trip on a 525-passenger modern luxury yacht will set you back $39.95 per person; island stopovers with the professor and Mary Ann not included.

Wanna play skipper? Then set your course for Duffy Electric Boat Rentals (2001 W. Coast Highway, open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.), where for $60 an hour you and up to 11 others can climb aboard an electric boat and tool around Newport Harbor. Duffy Rentals even provides a map of local points of interest. Walk-ins are welcome, but reservations are suggested for one of Duffy’s crafts. There really is a Duffy too--owner Marshall Duffield, who pioneered the concept of the electric boat.

But what is an electric boat, exactly? Well, it’s long and flat-bottomed, with a removable canvas canopy and clear plastic side panels to protect you from sun and spray. It comes equipped with cushions, life vests (mandatory for ages 6 and younger), CD player, folding table, mini-fridge, ice bucket and plastic cups. On-board refreshments are up to you.

Electric boats have a speed up to 5 knots. For non-mariners, that’s roughly the same pace as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. As someone who can barely operate an electric can opener, I’ll vouch for the fact that anyone can operate these boats. Clean, quiet and nonpolluting, they’re totally PC. Except for one thing: no on-board restrooms!

Need be you can moor at the Riverboat Restaurant and Nautical Museum (151 E. Coast Highway), a full-scale replica of an old-fashioned riverboat. Visit its free bite-size museum (open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) to admire the charming models of Newport’s Ferris wheel and car ferry, complete with dolls as passengers. Outboard aficionados will enjoy the display of vintage motors, as bright and shiny as jewels. The current exhibit, “Island Pathways: Wayfarers of the Pacific,” in which tiny models of outrigger canoes are displayed beneath tinkling chandeliers in the Grand Salon, continues through June 18.

If the meter on your electric boat weren’t running, you could linger on the restaurant’s top deck bar until sunset, enjoying the view and the Cajun cuisine provided by owners Clayton and Sandra Shurley.

Shopping, Sunsets and the Littlest Ferry

If you can manage to stay on dry land long enough to do some shopping, Kathryn Aileen’s Boutique on the Balboa Peninsula boardwalk (309 Palm St.) has some see-worthy items, like sturdy canvas beach bags with seashell, fish, parrot or flowerpot motifs in a riot of colors; $38 for the shopping bag or backpack style, $48 for the duffel. Matching pareus are $19.50. Barbie fans will appreciate the marabou-trimmed phones in pink, peach, purple, green, blue, black and fuchsia, $68, and a matching pen, $5.99. Leopard fanciers will be tempted by the leopard-print phone with black marabou trim, $68; and matching lamp, $55; purse, $19.50; and chair in the shape of a high-heeled shoe, $700.

Take your purchases down the boardwalk to the Newport Landing restaurant (503 E. Edgewater Ave.) and grab a table on the upstairs deck for a drink and a fine view of the world’s smallest car ferry as it makes the short haul back and forth to Balboa Island.

At peak times the wait for the ferry can be longer than the trip itself. But it’s definitely worth the voyage. Marine Avenue, Balboa Island’s main drag, is Newport Beach distilled to a few short blocks.

Case in point: Hershey’s Market (200 Marine Ave.), an island fixture since 1929, still offers Cokes in bottles for 99 cents plus tax. Nostalgia freaks also can indulge themselves to the hilt at Our Gang’s General Store (217 1/2 Marine Ave.), where Bazooka bubble gum, Clark’s Teaberry gum and Pink Owl bubble gum cigars vie to rot your teeth. Shake your fillings loose with a kazoo, only $2.95.

Alex’s Fashion Center, 214 Marine Ave., offers boat shoes and some attractive Hawaiian shirts for $19.95, while J.P. Maxwell’s, 204 Marine Ave., specializes in more upscale island wear. The Golden Shell (218 1/2 Marine Ave.)--the store with the giant clamshell in the window--offers suitably oceanic souvenirs at reasonable prices. Sand dollars, appropriately enough, cost a dollar. Owners Ken and Marge Lindall have assembled an attractive collection of marine-themed costume jewelry--silver boats, dolphins, scallop shells, sea horses and so on--that won’t stretch your wallet too far.

I like Etc Etc Etc (312 Marine Ave.) for its selection of young stylish clothing and accessories, like the practical cotton sweaters, $38 to $48. Or the robes, $38 to $65, strewn with cherries. Cherries also decorate a white boiled wool top by Angel Kiss, $48. Pick up a child-safe bag woven from auto seat belts, $58 to $88, in Ferrari red, Hummer green, Delorean silver, Pinto orange, Mary Kay pink, Buick brown, Cadillac blue or limo black.

Be Forewarned: Shops Close Early on Island

Island Home (313 Marine Ave.) has an interesting assortment of upscale furnishings, while Shirley’s Heart (325 Marine Ave.) stocks everything you need to personalize your summer rental, from rag rugs to quilts, including an appealing set of French storage jars adorned with those ubiquitous cherries.

One treasure not to be missed before leaving Balboa Island is Basilic (217 Marine Ave.), a petite gem of a restaurant specializing in gourmet Franco-Swiss cuisine. Raclette night, the first Tuesday of each month, is well worth marking on your calendar.

Be forewarned that on Balboa Island, everything closes early. So get your store-hopping in before dinner or resign yourself to window shopping.

At the end of Marine Avenue, a bridge leads back to the mainland. Backtracking along West Coast Highway past Mariner’s Mile to Newport Boulevard, head south and you’ll reach the Lido Peninsula. Lido Marina Village is a compact waterfront restaurant and shopping area facing Mariner’s Mile across the bay.

This is one place to come if your boat lust gets the better of you. Pacific Avalon Yacht Charters (3404 Via Oporto) charters private yachts. Or, if you’re ready to take that plunge, D’Anna Yacht Center (3400 Via Oporto, No. 101) will be happy to sell you a new or used yacht, from 27 feet to 150 feet long. And you can celebrate your new lifestyle at a variety of restaurants all along the water.

There’s elegant le Bistro (3446 Via Oporto), with its extensive menu including crepes, interesting wine list and beers of many nations. The more casual Bay Front Cafe (3412 Via Oporto) serves up sandwiches, cappuccino and ice cream treats as well as Mediterranean-accented snacks (jajuk is chopped cucumbers with yogurt, garlic and mint, but I never did find out what a sucuk omelet is) from 9 a.m. until people leave.

Meat-and-potatoes types can satisfy their cravings at George’s Prime Steakhouse. It almost goes without saying that there really is a George, chef George Ristich, formerly of the Bel-Air Country Club, so “the chef that cooked for stars can cook for you.”

Mama Mia (3408 Via Oporto) is the kind of place that has Ol’ Blue Eyes on the wall as well as on the stereo. But Mama’s cooking might taste even better aboard a craft from Gondola Romance (3400 Via Oporto, No. 202). Lunch, appetizer and dinner cruises are available for prices ranging from $80 to $195 for two.

If you prefer, arranging gondola transport to or from any bay-side restaurant is a cinch. A favorite destination is the Villa Nova (3131 W. Coast Highway), designed to resemble an Italian villa where the talented Mr. Ripley might have stayed.

If you decide that a gondola is the perfect place to propose, the conveniently situated World Antique & Estate Jewelry (3431 Via Oporto) can sell you a ring. And those hyper-romantics who run Gondola Romance will arrange for your message in a bottle to be retrieved by your gondolier. On request, they’ll provide roses, balloons, cakes and mood music on CD or tape. Their gondoliers are the non-singing variety.

“If she accepts, when they come back we ring the bell and say she goes out girlfriend and comes back fiancee,” says Ella Mahoney, owner Jim Mahoney’s Russian daughter-in-law, with a charming accent. “And every cruise includes a photo.” Countless photos of successfully engaged or married couples decorate the office walls. And then there’s the photo of the office cat, captioned “Still single.”

Newport Beach does seem to bring out the romantic in everyone, and no one could be more in favor of this idea than the effervescent Vili Boyadjiev, the owner of Newport Boat & Breakfast (3400 Via Oporto, No. 103). She claims to have invented “the whole idea of snooze ‘n’ cruise” and has some spiffy vessels at her disposal. The 1934 Herreschoff-designed Bounty, the very definition of the word yar, is available for hourly cruises, day cruises, night cruises, “whatever your heart desires.”

In the past seven years, Boyadjiev has assisted with 36 marriage proposals, 93 honeymoon nights and 200 anniversary celebrations. “I try to keep romance alive,” she says. Sounds like she’s doing a fine job.

So many boats, so little time. But you mustn’t leave Newport Beach without visiting the Bluewater Grill (630 Lido Park Drive, near the causeway to Lido Island), a friendly, low-key hideaway with an oyster bar, an outdoor patio for sunny days and an indoor fireplace for when the fog rolls in.

Proprietor James Ulcickas and his partners have taken over an old landmark--formerly Delaney’s and before that the Sea Shanty--and turned it into the perfect neighborhood seafood restaurant. For me, sitting outside on the Bluewater Grill’s patio on a sunny afternoon, enjoying fresh grilled fish and a chilled glass of wine beside the blue water is what summer is all about.