With family and friends on board and so many things to do on shore, I have not had spare time to sit down and write. We are motorsailing east from Block Island today, so there is no need to be up on deck. Even though it is a bit rolly down below, it is not enough to make me seasick, so I am going to try to get up to date.
On Thursday, June 23, Rob, Susan, Peter and I went into town for breakfast at 10 a.m. because the pastries at the Muddy Waters Cafe had looked so enticing when we had lunch there the day before. I had actually went out earlier than the others to see the murals around town, and Peter joined me for a stroll along historic Starr Street. When we met at the restaurant, we all showed restraint and ordered healthful breakfast sandwiches instead of decadent desserts. After breakfast, we split up. Rob and Susan chose to walk around town some more, Peter returned to the boat and I got a Lyft ride to the Lyman Allyn Art Museum. The museum was established by Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father. The neoclassical building houses paintings, particularly representative of the coast of Connecticut, as well as a collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose family members lived or summered on the eastern Connecticut shores.
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| Wyland Whaling Wall |
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| Mural showing divers adding life to a coral reef |
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| Seahorse race mural |
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| Artist/diver decorating coral reef |
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| Mural on the side of the Hygienic Museum |
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| Home on Starr Street |
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| Homes on Starr Street |
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| Homes on Starr Street |
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| Lyman Allyn Museum |
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| Ship models at the museum |
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| Tiffany dragonfly lamp |
At 2:30 in the afternoon, we cast off from the city dock in New London, bound for Mystic, Connecticut. For two hours, we enjoyed great close-hauled sailing on Long Island Sound, tacking back and forth in light winds to the mouth of the Mystic River. At 5 p.m., we docked in Mystic Shipyard West, where we stayed for the next few days.
The four of us walked into town, where the main street was buzzing with tourists. We had a light dinner at the Treehouse Restaurant. While Peter and Rob nursed their beers, we decided to enjoy dessert at a nearby bakery where we had seen tempting sweets on display. Unfortunately, Peter and Rob had to make a stop at the restroom, and we arrived at the door of the shop at 9:01. It had just closed at 9! It took me a day to get over the disappointment.
The next morning was busy. I had to clean and do laundry because Peter's other brother Mike and his wife Louise were arriving around 10 a.m., having taken an early train from New York City. Also, our friend from our Grand Canyon adventure, Ali, and his wife and youngest daughter were arriving mid-morning to join us for a day sail. After everyone had arrived, we socialized a little and then split up. The Brown family had chosen to get together in Mystic in order to attend Mystic Seaport Museum's 30th annual Wooden Boat Show, being held Friday through Sunday. Rob, Susan, Mike and Louise left in the late morning to attend the first day of exhibitions and events. At noon, Ali, his wife Jess and his daughter Tess and Peter and I cast off the dock and headed down the Mystic River for open water. Tess was thrilled to be on board and took the helm immediately. After we maneuvered through the channel, we set off across Fishers Island Sound to East Harbor on the island to anchor for lunch and a swim (for those who chose to brave the bracing water temperature--Ali and Tess). We spent an hour and a half at this lovely place, with Ali making lunch for all of us. On shore is the exclusive Fishers Island Club, a private enclave that is home to a premier golf course. It was a real pleasure to spend time with Ali again and to meet his wife and daughter. We returned to Mystic and they departed at 6 p.m.
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| Ali, Jess and Tess |
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| Peter instructing Tess at the helm |
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| Ali at the wheel |
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Jess checking the set of the sails
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| Peter, Ali and Sherri |
The four Browns returned from the boat show around the same time. We had dinner on board, enjoyed the sunset and a card game before bed.
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| Sunset in Mystic |
The next day (Saturday, June 25), using the dinghy, Rob, Susan, Peter and I went to the Mystic Seaport Museum, arriving around 9:30 a.m. to enjoy a full day there. (Mike and Louise arrived later on foot.) Peter and I had docked at and visited the museum for three days in the autumn of 2018, and it was definitely a place we looked forward to enjoying again. The large 19-acre campus not only has exhibition halls and historic vessels (including the Charles W. Morgan, which sailed from 1841 to 1921, and is the oldest surviving [non-wrecked] merchant vesset and the last of the American whaling fleet that numbered more than 2700 vessels) but also a recreated 19th century coastal village composed of buildings that either were on site in Mystic or were moved from other New England towns. Included are a rope works building, a sail loft, boat sheds, a cooperage, a blacksmith, a pharmacy, a doctor's surgery, a general store, a church, a schoolhouse, a mast hoop maker's shop, a tavern, a print shop, a shipping agent's office, a shop for nautical instruments, a chandlery, a shipcarver's shop, houses, and other buildings. The village is my favorite part of the museum. The Wooden Boat Show included old and classic boats as well as new and innovative models including sailboats, motorcraft, canoes and kayaks. Because we all had different interests, we wandered alone or in pairs, meeting for lunch midday. At 3 p.m., the six of us went to the Planetarium for a show based on the skies that sailors on the Charles W. Morgan would have seen on its world travels.
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| Mystic Seaport with the replica of the Amistad in the foreground |
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| The ropewalk building |
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| The aft deck of the Charles W. Morgan |
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| The blacksmith's shop |
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| The mast hoop shop |
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| The cooper's shop |
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| Bedroom in the Buckingham-Hall House |
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| Schoolhouse |
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| Chapel |
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| Doctor's surgery |
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| Buckingham-Hall House |
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| Wooden Boat Show exhibits |
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| Wooden Boat Show exhibits |
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| Wooden Boat Show exhibits |
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| Wooden Boat Show exhibit |
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| Model of Viking ship under construction |
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| Parlor of Thomas Greenman House |
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| Bay window, Thomas Greenman House |
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| Dining room of Thomas Greenman House |
When the museum closed at 5 p.m., we dinghied downstream, under the bascule bridge to the town's dinghy dock. We stopped in a shop so that Louise and Mike could buy a gift then walked to Mystic Pizza, famous not only for its food but for being the namesake and setting for the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza. After dinner, we crossed the bascule bridge again, stopped for ice cream and then dinghied back to Mantra.
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| Rob, Peter, Sherri, Louise, Susan and Mike at Mystic Pizza |
The next day (Sunday, June 26), we returned to Mystic Seaport. I spent a lot of time in the exhibition halls learning about whaling, figurehead carving and significance, sailors' art (including woolies, stitched pieces made of colored yarn) and yachting trophies; all these topics were elucidated by numerous artifacts. After lunch, Peter and I took a wooden row boat out on the river. We could have opted for two sets of oars, but I enjoyed sitting in the stern, imagining I was a lady in a 19th century Impressionist painting.
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| Large woolie created by a sailor on a whaling ship |
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| Peter rowing a wooden boat on the Mystic River |
The three couples all returned separately to Mantra. We took advantage of the shipyard's pool in the late afternoon heat and then enjoyed our last evening all together on board.
On Monday morning (June 27), Rob and Susan prepared to leave by car to visit other places in New England and New York before going back to New York City to spend a few days at the end of their vacation. After they picked up a car, Rob drove Peter and Mike to get provisions while I did loads of laundry and cleaned the boat. It was a very rainy day, but we felt fortunate that the weather over the weeked for the boat show had been sunny and warm.
Despite a small craft warning and rain, we cast off the dock in Mystic at 5:30 p.m. and motored over to East Harbor on Fishers Island to anchor for the night. I stayed mostly dry at the wheel, but Peter and Mike were fairly drenched while casting off, coiling lines and pulling in fenders. With poor visibility but no traffic, we made it to the anchorage in less than an hour and huddled down below for the rest of the day. We played a game of Phase 10, which seemed to go on interminably.
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| Sunset during rain, East Harbor, Fishers Island |
Tuesday (June 27), we awoke to blue skies and excellent visibility. After breakfast, we pulled up anchor at 10:30 a.m. and had a pleasant sail on a beam reach with about 10 knots of wind, arriving and dropping anchor in the Great Salt Pond of Block Island, Rhode Island, at 2:30 p.m.
I prepared fettuccine al fredo with sauted veggies while Mike and Peter launched the dinghy. Afterwards, we motored over to the town dock and walked to the eastern shore, where we took off our shoes to stroll along the lovely beach by the clear Atlantic water, waves breaking gently on the sand and rocks. We ambled past the shops and restaurants on a few blocks of Water Street and then walked above the coast on Spring Road to see Spring Pond. We stopped at the Spring House Hotel to enjoy a drink on the verandah and the trio playing soft, jazzy music on the expansive lawn in front. Afterwards, we walked back into town and stopped at Rebecca's seafood takeout restaurant for dinner. I had a veggie wrap while the others enjoyed what they claimed was one of the best fish and chips meals they had ever eaten.
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| Entrance into Great Salt Pond, Block Island |
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| Typical house on Block Island |
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| Mike, Louise, Sherri and Peter on the beach, Block Island |
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| New Shoreham, Block Island |
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| Louise, Peter and Mike on the beach at New Shoreham |
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| Spring Pond |
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| Spring House Hotel |
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Mike, Peter and Louise enjoying drinks on the verandah of the Spring House Hotel
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| Day lilies outside the hotel |
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| Musicians on the lawn of the hotel |
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| Another lovely house on Block Island in the late afternoon light |
Today, we pulled up anchor at 8 a.m. Apparently, many other boats had set this same time for departure from Great Salt Pond, because there was a parade of vessels exiting through the narrow inlet to the sound. With only a few knots of wind, we are motorsailing steadily toward our next stop, Naushon Island on the north side of Vineyard Sound.
