50. Magical Mystic
31 July 2012
We decided to give the Thames (pronounced over here to rhyme with "games") River and New London a miss as the area is mainly industrial, and we continued on to the Mystic River, at the western end of Long Island Sound. A member of the Ocean Cruising Club who was away cruising had offered us the use of his mooring, which was located off the pretty village of Noank, a short way up river. We were greeted by fellow OCC members Sandy and Sydney, who invited us to use the facilities of the Ram Island Yacht Club and also invited us to drinks one evening in their home - sitting out on their porch in truly American style. Sandy used to be a sailmaker and raced International Fourteens in the 1960s, and subsequently cruised round the world with his wife Sydney in a steel boat which he designed and built himself. He knew Chichester Harbour, our home waters, as he had competed in a championship held at Itchenor Sailing Club. Unusually for places we'd visited so far in the US, Noank has a well-stocked grocery store in the centre of the village operated by residents as a co-operative. It also has a "packet shop" (liquor store) whose owner insisted on driving us and our purchases back to the club. The friendliness of the locals and the modest scale of both the old timber homes and the yachts in the anchorage combined to make Noank seem a very appealing place to live.
The Mystic River had been a centre of shipbuilding since the 1600s, and in 1929 the Seaport Museum was established on the site of one of the old yards in order to preserve something of that heritage. In 1941 it acquired the Charles W. Morgan, the country's last wooden whaling ship, which had been built exactly 100 years before. The museum has accumulated nearly 500 other craft ranging from a 123ft, 19th century fishing schooner to birch bark canoes. Historic buildings such as a rope-walk, sail-loft, rigging shop, blacksmiths, cooperage, instrument makers, druggists & chemists, grocery store and bank have been moved in from all over New England to create a typical coastal village. Demonstrations such as how a whale-boat operated are given daily, and many of the workshops are in active use in the restoration of the exhibits. The Charles W. Morgan is currently undergoing a major rebuild to get her in sailing condition again. There are also a marine art gallery, planetarium, 18th century houses furnished in their original style, and a building devoted to multi-media presentations of maritime life in America. It's all put together and managed extremely well and needs a good two days to visit. As an added bonus, the museum generously offers a free night's mooring to foreign flagged vessels, so we motored the couple of miles up river, through the swinging rail bridge and lifting highway bridge, to take up this offer in company with Eye Candy. Effectively our yachts became international exhibits, but they did give us a sign to hang on the guardrails saying “Private Yacht – Please do not board”.
Egret was by now in desperate need of scrubbing off as well as a check on the anodes below the waterline, so we arranged a lift-out at Fort Rachel Marina, just upstream of the railway bridge. The weather outlook was unsettled, the place friendly and amenities good, so we decided to stay on the hard for several days to catch up with maintenance, including polishing the top-sides. It had been blisteringly hot across the US for many weeks now, and each evening there would be a severe thunderstorm warning. As each one approached we retreated to the boatyard's lounge with our lap-top and books to take shelter. We even managed to watch some of the Olympics opening ceremony on television. Watching the old steel bridge open and close provided some diversion while we worked; and on one day a convoy of historic small craft motored past from the museum up river. One of the sub-contractors at the yard, completely out of the blue, leant us his car so that we could do a big shop at the out-of-town supermarket - typical of the generosity of many Americans we have met along the way. Egret was looking very smart as she was lowered back into the water at the end of our nine days on the Mystic River, ready for the long trek north.