When you’re boating in the Northeast, one of the nicest destinations to steer toward is Conanicut in Narragansett Bay. The whole island is the town of Jamestown, which is how locals refer to it. Boaters love its simplicity and access. Sheltered coves like Dutch Harbor offer calm moorings and picture-perfect sunsets, while the open water just beyond Beavertail Lighthouse thrills skippers with fast-changing conditions. And there’s always somewhere to go—lunch on the hook in Mackerel Cove, a quick run to Newport, or a longer cruise up the Sakonnet River.
Marine photographer and Soundings contributor Onne van der Wal has been a resident of Jamestown for 28 years. He celebrates his home in a new coffee-table book, Jamestown. With decades of experience living and photographing on Narragansett Bay, he brings readers behind the scenes and into the heart of the island.
His favorite part of creating this book: “I could roll out of bed 20 minutes before sunrise and be on location 10 minutes later. And I could go back to the same place multiple times to get the right conditions for the shot in all four seasons. But mostly, I loved my time alone, especially early morning photo sessions shooting my favorite island.”
If you spend any time looking at boating magazines, you’ve seen his work. For more than 35 years, the Dutch-born, South African-raised photographer’s images have graced the pages of just about every sailing and boating magazine in the world. Her made his name as a photographer in the early 1980s when he sailed in the 1982 Whitbread Round the World Race aboard Flyer. As that boat crushed the competition, his pictures wowed the sailing community. In 1987, after five years of roaming the world as a professional sailor, he came ashore in Rhode Island. He hung out a shingle as a nautical photographer, got married and opened a gallery in Newport with his wife, Tenley.
With this book, he wanted to capture and share the beauty of Jamestown. “A book of this style and magnitude has never been done on the island, and I felt it was time,” he said. “Documenting my back yard has been an amazing experience and made me appreciate the island and the people even more.” For more information, go to vanderwal.com.
December 2025
