Mystic Seaport, Connecticut

Spent two days sailing to Mystic Connecticut.  After leaving Newport we had a short day, essentially simply leaving the Narragansett Bay and rounding the corner, anchoring in Point Judith Harbour of Refuge.  This gave us a little head start to Mystic the next day.  The evening was lovely, and the next morning we left at first light, enjoying another sunny day with light winds on the water.

We arrived at Mystic early afternoon, and decided the poor old girl (Wyvern, that is!!) needed a bath and have the salt water washed off the outside, and the mould washed off the inside, so we made Saturday a 'work' day, also getting ourselves washed off and the laundry done, finishing the day off with a dip in the pool (very cold!!) and the hot tub (nice and warm!!).  For the first time in a long time, we opened all the windows in the boat, and although we had the electric heater going, we left them open for the evening, as we really felt we needed to air the boat out!

The next day we climbed in our dingy and motored down the river to Mystic Seaport.  The Seaport is essentially a museum, much like Upper Canada Village, where the buildings have been restored or rebuilt to replicate the old village of Mystic when it was an active ship-building and whaling village.  Motoring up the river, and coming around the bend, the masts of tall ships came in to view, and as we arrived at the village, the clapboard buildings housing the cooperage, the cordage building, the blacksmith's shop, the bank, etc. hove in to view.  After docking the dingy, we walked through the village, learning interesting facts about barrel making from the cooper, walked the length of the cordage building where they made rope for the ships, talked to the blacksmith about the history of harpoon-making, admired numerous figureheads from numerous ships, many made in Mystic, and finally stopped for a snack and the requisite shopping at the bakery and gift shop!  Finally on our way back to the boat at the end of the day, we spotted the 'Joseph Conrad', a whaling vessel we had passed on our way in, but didn't realize it's name!  George is a big fan of Joseph Conrad books, so we took some pictures, and also admired the figurehead, which was a likeness of Joseph Conrad!

Seminole figurehead made in Mystic, Scotsman reconstructed in Mystic

Fire department!!

the looong cordage building!

Joseph Conrad figurehead

The whaling vessel Joseph Conrad

By this time it was about 5:30pm, and we had worked up an appetite, and when in Mystic, you MUST go and enjoy 'a little slice of heaven' in Mystic Pizza!  The same Mystic Pizza from the movie of the same name!!  Needless to say it was a busy little place, but we managed, more by good luck than good management, to arrive just before the crowd, so quickly got a table where we admired all the 'movie' memorabilia; most from the movie Mystic Pizza, but also a generous smattering of generalized movie history (young photos of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, for example!)  The pizza itself, I am happy to report, was delicious!!  We ordered a large and ate the whole darn thing!!!!  No left-overs for the boat this time!!  All in all, a good finish to a good day!!

The next day, I did some grocery shopping for the next leg of our journey, while George readied the boat.  We were leaving that afternoon to start our trip through the Long Island Sound, and ultimately, to  City Island, the Bronx, New York City, and we were hoping to anchor on our overnights, so needed to make sure there was enough fuel on board, enough water on board, an empty holding tank, and a full fridge!!!

That night we anchored in a harbour just south of Niantic Bay, off Point O' Woods.  There was no wind and the temperature was lovely, so we had Peanut Cauliflower Curry and Apple Betty for dessert in the cockpit while we watched the sun go down.  Unfortunately, it was VERY 'rolly' with the sea swell coming in, so in the end, we didn't sleep very well.

As a result, the next morning, before the sun came up, we were up and raising the anchor!  En route, we reconsidered our anchorage plan for that night, as all our anchorages were planned with the predicted north winds, but we were now getting south, south-westers, which exposed our anchorages to the prevailing winds.  We decided that we should put in at a marina, as we wanted to sleep that night!  We ended up pulling in to Captain Cove's Seaport Marina, in Cedar Creek at Bridgeport CT.

relaxing with a 'dark and sexy' porter!!

a visitor

Hmmm..whose getting the random knitted object from Nana this Christmas???

What an interesting little spot!!  Unfortunately (possibly fortunately??!), everything was closed, but it looked to be, essentially, a mini Coney Island!!  At the end of our dock, we walked up to a large boardwalk, covered with all kinds of nautical-themed paraphernalia; including paintings of marine life, a set of 'stocks' that you could stick your head and hands in for a photo op, wacky mirrors that made everything look long and skinny or short and fat, a little play tug boat, a rocking horse, the requisite fast food restaurant with picnic tables all over the dock, sign posts pointing the direction and distance of all the major cities of the world.....and I am sure I have forgotten lots of stuff!!  Lets put it this way, Ash and Osbee and Jasper, in a couple of years, would have LOVED it!!!!  Then, moving off the main dock, there was a wooden quay that held a line of little miniature 'houses' and other buildings that held small shops specialising in various items like ice-cream, jewellery, etc.  Anyway, as I said, for good or for bad, it was closed when we were there, so it was a bit weird walking around, but also amusing!!  Unfortunately, it came as a surprise that it was all there, so I did not have my camera with me, so hope the verbal description will suffice!!  The other wonderful thing that happened here, is we opened all the windows again on the boat.....but that night, no heater!!!!  And not cold!!!!  Is it our imagination, or are we finally getting to the land where the butter, if not melting, is at least getting soft???!!!