10 - From the big city to the small towns

Our 3 glorious days in Southport/Fairfield, CT - us in luxurious accommodations at Doug and Sandy’s house with amazing views from literally every room in the house

 

 and WSW moored at the Peqout Yacht Club

 

 

 - finally came to an end.  We were treated like royalty and chauffeured all around town.  Doug and Sandy invited some very experienced lady sailors over for dinner one night so we could pick their brains about sailing to the Azores and Portugal.  We also attended the annual book sale of the Pequot Library where we got to fill a bag of books for $5, we had  a dinner and movie date night with sushi and the latest Mission Impossible movie (we even got ice cream) and even got to participate in some of the renovations at the house!

We had a great sail out of Southport up to Duck Island Roads (a great protected area to anchor for the night).  We dropped the hook just in time to see the Wednesday night sailboat races from a nearby yacht club.

 

 

The next morning, we sailed back across Long Island Sound to Sag Harbor, NY.  Again, we were amazed by the number of lighthouses we passed.

We located a great protected anchorage.  Now, our boat is not a slacker (we are almost 50 feet overall) but here we found ourselves to be one of the smallest non-tender (dinghy) boats in the anchorage .  After brushing off our pride, we took our even smaller dinghy into town.  The town is adorable.  This town felt more inhabited with locals or at least annual tourists than tourist tourists.  We found a great grocery store where we picked up a few fresh veggies and had crab cake and fish and chips lunch at the Corner Bar which was amazing.
 

Next we sailed back across Long Island Sound (yes we were zig zagging but we wanted to time our arrival) to the town of Essex, CT.  Again, each one of these towns is cuter than the last.  Essex is full of very (150-200+ years) old houses.  We walked all through town amazed at the houses and how perfectly maintained they were.  MaryAnn loved that the town seemed to be full of dogs.  Doug and Sandy drove up to meet us for Sunday brunch at the infamous Griswald Inn.  The atmosphere and the food were both terrific.

 

 We then proceeded out of Long Island Sound into Narragansett Sound to the town of Stonington, CT.  Another adorable town but this one much more densely populated.  It’s amazing that each of these towns can all be so similar yet so different.  This town had very little greenery between the houses (as opposed to the other towns we’d seen) and also had a commercial fishing area.  We found a great restaurant overlooking the anchorage area which didn’t have any air conditioning.  I can see that this wouldn’t normally be an issue but this day had a heat index warning and it was way too hot to eat inside (just right outside for us, though)!  We originally were just going to have a happy hour drink, but after looking over the menu, decided to also have dinner.  Good decision.  It was great!

The next day, we motored about an hour (our shortest passage yet) to Watch Hill, RI.  Again, a fabulous town. 

They have an area where you can dinghy into shore and cross over a sand dune to the beach!  We walked the beach at least 5 or 6 times in the 2 days we were there. 

The actual town is very cute too.  They are, as the name would suggest, on top of a hill overlooking the Atlantic.  They still operate a carousel that is said to date back to 1883.  Unfortunately, it is limited to only children under the age of 12 and under 5 ft tall, so MaryAnn didn’t get to ride.   Back on the boat, we took advantage of the calm day at anchorage for MaryAnn to make a small boat repair.

 After all our work, we took the advice we'd gotten from everyone, including our friend Jamie Bassett, and decided that we had to get ice cream at the store by the carousel.  Absolutely totally worth the calories (and we walked up and down the hill around town while we ate, so surely we burned off most of them).

Again, after 2 days, we decided to try a new spot (honestly there is no way anybody can visit all of the really cool places here in one summer much less one month) and headed over to Block Island, RI and the town of New Shoreham. We anchored in what they call the Great Salt Pond or New Harbor.  Holy cow were there a lot of boats!  There are mooring balls and anchorage areas.  Both were packed with several boats rafted up 5-6 boats deep.  We literally squeezed in between a couple of boats and after putting out 150 feet of anchor rode (we were in about 25 feet of water and that was one of the more shallow anchorage spots we saw open), we were way closer than we normally like to our neighbors but we seemed to be fine.  At first, the area seemed to be nothing more than a couple of marinas and a beach that was very crowded.  Then, we found the town!  We loved it.  Great restaurants, adorable shops and a well stocked grocery store.  The next day, we rented bikes and rode the huge mountains (I'm sure they were only hills but we were out of shape and had biked mostly in FL for the past 18 years) all around the island.  It's absolutely gorgeous!  There are cliffs (with a stairway down to a beach),

 2 lighthouses (one each end of the island)

and really pretty houses and old hotels!  Much of the island was destroyed during the hurricane of 1938 so that explains why all of the houses were newer than we'd be used to seeing in this part of the county.  We found a roadside produce stand with a "donation" box so we had to get some home grown veggies.  We stopped for a beer at the Spring House Hotel (we'd met some fellow boaters who said we had to go and we agreed after we saw how pretty it was).

One more thing we thought was cool was the boat that runs all through the harbor yelling "Andiamo."  In the morning, he sells coffee and all sorts of pastries, etc. and in the evening he sells seafood.  We hailed him on the radio after we saw his sign advertising fresh fish.  He didn't have any fish at the moment  (just oysters and shrimp cocktail from the restaurant) but someone overheard us and said they had some freshly caught black sea bass and trigger fish that we could "have".  We jumped in the dingy and met up some amazing people and the 10 year old boys who actually caught the fish.  For $10, we got a large zip lock bag  filled with enough for fish & grits, fish tacos and ceviche (we used one of the tomatoes we got from the roadside stand)!!!!!  Delicious!!   Again, another fabulous place that was so very different from the last. 

We are now in Mystic, CT (just got here) doing laundry and getting the boat cleaned up!  We'll update you on this adorable time soon!

Until next post!