Guilford 41:16N 72:40W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Thu 23 Oct 2008 20:30
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After New Bedford and Newport, fishing and yachting
centres, we had a change last night, a tiny river in Connecticut with a few
landing stages.
We had decided an overnight sail would get us
down to New York by the end of the week with time to spare, so we
left Newport at 6 in the evening. With four crew, we started with
pairs taking 3 hour watches, but they soon became happy sailing at night
with only one person on deck. On a clear, starry night in calm
waters, sailing by yourself is no hardship. Tom tacked the boat down
between islands and Calum reported a dramatic sunrise, but no-one else saw
it.
As the wind had been ahead it would have been
dark by the time we reached our original destination of Stamford, so
we went into a little creek, tied up at a slip (in England called a
pontoon) and walked up to the small town of
Guilford. After shopping we visited the oldest stone house
in Connecticut, which Julian said was younger than his parent's
house.
We had touched the mud on the way in and were
advised to leave at 10am next morning to get out. As usual when you want
to go, people turn up in the harbourmaster's office, including one old yachtsman
who had been through the Magellan Straights in Patagonia.
 It was nearly 11 by the time we were leaving the
river and the keel dragged through the mud for a while as we turned each
way to find a deeper channel. We finally stopped. It was only
an hour to low water so it would be a two hour wait before we floated
again.
It was a sunny morning and you can see I had
already washed a shirt, so our downfall was not late rising but too
much talk. You can also see a line out from the masthead to an anchor,
which I hoped would prevent us heeling too much. In the soft mud we
just sank in vertically, so we rowed back out in the dinghy and retrieved the
anchor again.
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