The trip over on Thursday was somewhat rough as the last of the stormy weather cleared out but nothing that our ocean liner couldn't handle. Did I say how much we love hydraulic steering?
Mitchell's only had a few boats there on Friday morning but one of them was big - really big.
You can see just the top of it on the left side of the photo. It's been there all summer and as we arrived, a helicopter was just leaving the after deck.
Of course we had to go look at it. Pretty impressive. We were told it is 165 feet long.
Actually, we liked the way our boat looked even better.
Before long another big boat arrived. By Saturday morning, there were three of them lined up against the pier.
In a few hours, we had lots of new neighbors and by Saturday afternoon, the marina was turning boats away. There wasn't a slip to be had.
We shot some video of Mitchell's as it began to fill up. In this very short sequence, we see a really experienced crew arrive to dock in their single I/O boat and they really knew what they were doing. We watched people dock all day but this crew got the prize for slick docking. The dock hands never touched the boat, just took the lines. Nice.
The end of the video shows a 34 ft. single diesel trawler leaving a very tight slip. While you can't see it, there's a big boat directly in front of him. He used his bow thruster to make that left turn. The couple who own the boat are from Norwichtown and came over to introduce themselves earlier that morning. We hope we see them again somewhere.
We rapidly slipped into vacation mode and once the cockpit was set up, we just sat back and relaxed.
Claudio's was crowded as usual and we spotted a very rare boat tied up alongside the bar.
That's a 28-ft double cockpit Gar Wood from the late 1920s or early 1930s. I know if it were ours, we wouldn't have left it were a Claudio's customer could so easily crash into it. However, it survived.
Cocktail hours come and go but are somehow extra good as "golden hour" approaches.
By Monday morning, the marina was again almost empty. Notice in the picture below, the 1980 Silverton 34C. It was identical to our boat but had many more toys.
We were packed up and ready to go and at about 9:30 AM, started our trip back home. This time the Sound was as flat and we really enjoyed the ride. Frances steered the boat from Little Gull Island all the way back into New London harbor.
There was no one around on A-dock when we arrived so we docked the boat ourselves. With Frances giving directions, she slid into the slip like perfectly. Sorry there was no one around to see it.
The water at Mitchells looks like glass. We also came home late on Monday evening and had a smooth ride as well. We ran late getting out of Mystic and requested a special bridge opening at 7PM. By the time we turned west into the sound, the sun had already set but the sky was still light enough so we could see the lobster pots. Once we entered the Thames the sky was dark, however there was ample lights at EB, sub base, etc to show us the way. After we passed the coal plant on the west shore, it was pitch black so we motored along very slowly. Bobby and John were at the dock to welcome us in when we landed; all in all a beautiful ride.
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