Mystic

We left Essex and traveled down the Connecticut River for an easy trip up to Mystic, that is until we started to hear rumbling in the sky. We then heard on the radio the coast guard issuing a securite' warning for dangerous thunderstorms with winds in excess of 60 knots, of course the warning happened to be for the Fisher Sound area where we happened to be. I didn't dare to go into the harbor which is chock full of moored boats and not much open anchoring area. So we stayed out in Fisher Sound Where we got rain, lightning and squallish weather in what felt like 30 knot winds and then got the big one. I couldn't hold the bow into the wind so we turned with it and ran under bare poles at just under 7 knots! Wow! It blew by fairly quick, and left gray, rainy, foggy, wet skies. I could hear the sirens in Groton and could see the fire engines on Groton Long Pt. Someone later told us that winds had been clocked at 70 knots there.

We went into the harbor grabbed a private mooring for about an hour and just let the heavy rain pass through.

We continued on to inner Mystic Harbor where we tied up at the Mystic Seaport. Laurel's cousin Steve White has recently taken the helm at the Seaport and with his very charming wife Maggie, they welcomed us a little later that afternoon when they could get away.

I've always loved the seaport and it's representation of America's nautical roots. It somehow satisfies some inner need in me for nautical detail which is displayed, taught, sung about, acted, cataloged and worked on at the seaport.

George and Greta came up the following day and later Mathew and Nancy also joined us.

Steve and Maggie joined us all for lunch and we had a great time learning more about them, the museum, and Steve's goals for the Seaport. I was impressed by his reasoning and the clarity he seems to bring to problems and issues. Thanks Steve and Maggie for your hospitality, we remain grateful.

We spent our time at may of the scheduled exhibitions like the dead horse ceremony which the kids took part of above and looking about at the many boats, walking the village and chatting with staff and volunteers.

Here are the kids helping with old fashioned ice cream making.

This is Alistair as an old hand in the "Tale of a Whale" I even got a chance to participate.

The kids made boats at one of the exhibits and then did their best to sail/tow them around.

We all had drinks and dinner aboard. Tom a local shipwright came by for a visit and joined us for a glass of wine. Greta brought lobster salad from Maine, so we all very happilly dug into lobster rolls.

The following day we spent time seeing some of the exhibits we had missed, we saw re-enactments of whaling days and then made our way to the anchorage where we dropped our hook, spent the afternoon, did a bit of walking and tucked away.

Today we are at Watch Hill for the fourth and fireworks, tommorow we will most likely move on to Block Island or Cape Cod area. Happy Fourth!

C.