We spent the morning cruising up river to Fall River, Mass. where the USS Massachusetts, a WW2 battleship, is stuffed and mounted along with a destroyer, submarine, landing craft and, of all things, a cold-war era eastern bloc Guided Missile Gunboat.... We continued around the top of Aquidneck Island and Dow the sound to Newport.

Newport was surreal. We hailed the Ida Lewis Yacht Club and got a mooring right off the clubhouse and directly in front of the New York Yacht Club digs. The mooring cost $65 a night but included launch service. We settled in, hiked into town for groceries. We walked by the offices of J-boats, Sparkman and Steve's, International Yacht Restoration School.... The town exists for sailing, there must be well over 1000 boats moored in the inner harbour. We came, we gawked, bought groceries, used the showers and free pump out and left.....

Next day we motored across an annoyingly choppy Block Island Sound. There was a fair amount of traffic but the chop as mainly due to a southwesterly wind against tidal current, we put into Stonington Connecticut and got a mooring at Dodson's Boatyard. Nice people, ok facility, $47 mooring, including launch. There are no grocery stores anywhere nearby but the had a laundromat (2 washers, 1 operative dryer) which we were in desperate need of as we had taken a wave over the foredeck that popped open the hatch and soaked our bedding. The mooring field is quite open and experienced quite a lot of rolling, this isn't a great stopover.

Slept in the next morning and then sailed (that's right, SAILED) to Mystic, motored up the river in time for the 12:40pm lift bridge and the. Headed to our reserved mooring at Mystic Seaport Museum, the holy Mecca for wooden boat lovers.

We were tied up in a slip right by the restoration shipyard where they are completing a total rebuild of the Charles W. Morgan, a ship-rigged whaler. When we went to register $4.50/ft, includes admission for those aboard) we found out that foreign-flagged vessels get their first night free! We immediately signed up for a second night.

Heather called the place "Dave Disneyland" and she wasn't far wrong. We spent almost two days seeing everything on the sight. In addition to about a dozen restored larger craft there are dozens of small craft in use. Buildings with shipbuilding or nautical provenance have been brought to the site and a whole pioneer-village-of-the-sea constructed with knowledgable interpreters everywhere. Being Mystic, we also had to have pizza, forgoing the touristy Mystic Pizza, we went to a highly recommended place called Pizzetta, also had some quite decent local brew.

Wednesday morning the forecast indicate potential for thunderstorms, but we set off downriver and caught the 9:40 bridge opening. We stopped at Brewer's Boatyard just below the railway bridge and filled the fuel tank and pumped out, the sky was turning very black and then the Coast Guard issued a warning, so we opted to stay put for a few hours (for which Brewers charged us $20).

The front went through and the rain stopped so we headed out and motored to New London. The city of New London has sunk a lot of money into rejuvenating their waterfront. There is a half-mile promenade with piers for folks to fish or sit on. There's a marina, which appeared unused and there are about 40 gorgeous moorings with a dinghy float and a marina building with heads, showers and a laundry, but it was a ghost town..... No one ever did show up, we enjoyed the mooring, I went ashore to do some shopping and a couple of times with the dog.... The town has obviously seen some hard times but the downtown shows signs of new life. The moorings were great and, apart from the wash from ferries, calm. We did decide to move from a mooring close in to one further out as the local inhabitants of the shore after dark were a little menacing and we thought it best to make it a long swim... Oh, and the Amtrak mainline runs right along the waterfront, there are two crossings that every train whistles for and an alarm on the swing bridge nearby that goes off every time the open or close the bridge..... It was not a restful night.

Got away on Friday by 8:15, there was no way we were sleeping with all the trains going by.... Sailed for most of the morning making 8-9 knots with the tide and arrived off New Haven about 2:30. Finally sorted out a mooring with possibly the most disorganized yacht club yet (Pequonock YC in New Haven) we descended on the bar and restaurant to celebrate Heather's birthday.