Flying the Fleg. Two fishing rods are better than one
I leave Port Washington on my own, Pearse being safely ensconced in the RVH back home. I leave the thunderstorms behind me and head East.In fact here is the route the next two or three blogs will take.
And then into peaceful Port Jefferson, not particularly welcoming to visiting yachts apparently, anchorage space getting used up by moorings and little transient dock space, dinghies not welcome., at least so goes the myths online. I anchor just inside a narrow mouth along with a few other boats. It's fine, though I do not go ashore. (2 miles from town!)
Leaving the next morning I spy the fisherman shown in the first photograph.
And on to New London, the number of places with familar names is gobsmacking, from here to the Canadian border in fact. New London is set on the Thames River! and is a submarine base, no photographing allowed!
I pass a brick ****house of a lighthouse
And once again a free, public anchorage right in the town, between two marinas, and a proper public dinghy dock. Great!
The town is pass remarkable, clean, some nice buildings, cafes and restaurants, "good" shops and I do find a small store just out of town, though for once I do not need to buy anything. New London has an Amtrak station and buses that go the nearbyu town of Mystic that has a massive seaport museum, I elect to go by bus.
I get off at Mistic Village but have been fooled - this is a modern construction of posh shops - looks like a disney village. It is just beside Mystic Aquariium which would be a good visit - all day for 42$. I refrain and walk a mile into the proper town of Mystic to where the seaport Museum is.
Ahh, that's more like it
I think initially, if that building is all there is I have come a long way for little, however I discover it is a massive multi-acre site of scores of buildings, lots of originals and lots of boats! I will show the smaller wooden boats in a separate blog but give you photographs of the bigger ones here.
Outside is a pedalo. actually a bit more business-like than the one I saw in Antigua - which was just a converted Atlantic rowing boat.
They have a viking expedition in the hall, rather weirdly.
No horns of course. Vikings didn't do horns...
The old sailors church, or rather the old church for young sailors
There's that fancy bow again
I came across an Am-Dram putting on a play! in costume. I suspect a lot of kids visit here, though there were only a few when I was there. There were scores of visitors though and coaches in the car parks.
You could take a boat out, or get taken out
They also had a really neat scale model of the old Mystic Seaport with a good audio track that also highlighted parts of the display.
All these buildings had a defined purpose from the old days.
I visit one of the nearby buildings that used to sell and repair instruments. I have two sextants on board Shadowmere and have used them at least twice - amazing that a lump of plastic that i bought for £21 when I was 19 can place me anywhere on the earth to within a couple of miles. I even used one in my back garden in Donaghadee using a bucket of water as a mirror to give me a dummy horizon and found out I was in Millisle! I have also used a £700 brass affair that was actually much harder to use (too heavy for me). Disclaimer - A similar (lesser) Plastic sextant now costs £80+
Drool, the shop also repairs chronometers (clocks) - here is a nice display
I hope he knows how to put it back together again.
Of course fishing was imprtant and fish a vital foodstock, these were smelly!
There were some more recent boats too;
They had a mast down when I was there - obviously all of these boats are and always will be work in progress
A boat with history
The Amstad took tours but was shut when I was there. I think it was a "Repro"boat of modern manuafacture.
And finally, in this blog, the Mayflower! being seriously rebuilt for the second time . Actually a copy of the original, now getting rebuilt. Work in progress and not easy to view, they hope to launch within a year or two. The design of this is their best guess as no-one knows much about the original. They should visit the Mary Rose in Portsmouth!
The Vasa in Stockolm is also more impressive - and better displayed, but this is a working vessel to be fair.
A nearby exhibit walked through the workshops (on a raised walkthrough) and had videos of interviews with the director of the Mystic Seaport Museum and the project manager
Interesting that they made a Dynema cored "traditional rope" (Dynema is a modern stretch free rope that is an alternative to wire rope, it is slippery as hell and hard to tie knots in, but lighter than steel...
And of course wood is important - they have good trees in America! (still)
Also impressive is that they bring the raw logs in, and season and cut them from scratch.
Finally, a walk through the actual town to get a train back to New London
A pleasant small town, the museum is the thing, the rest is mainly residential with a few shops. Once back to the boat I leave the next day for Block Island, then Newport, Martha's Vineyard and on-wards up to Boston, I didn't visit Nantucket as I am coming back down this coast in September.
