Summer 2013 | Page 67

INTRO Mystic & Noank J of Swimming Rock, and green #3 sits near Planet Rock. If Noank and Spicer’s Marina are your destination, break off here and head around the western shore of Mouse Island. Pick up the series of private aids to navigation and you’ll be by John Galluzzo unable to miss Spicer’s in West Noank. Look for their 680-foot breakwater, uly 21 is the day. After an extensive overhaul, Mystic knowing that behind it lies dockage for Seaport Museum’s wooden whaling ship Charles W. more than 440 boats, and the answers Morgan will hit the water again, re-launching in time to to any maintenance problem you may have, from rigging and splicing to make her 38th voyage, a trek along the New England bottom painting. coast. The event will surely be a spectacle rarely to be For Mystic, stay with the main channel and look for a red-and-green seen again. nun stamped “MH” for Mystic Harbor. To find the Mystic Places region of southern Connecticut, The channel will turn slightly to port find Fisher’s Island and the sound that bears its name east at this buoy, passing a red #6 to starboard. To port you’ll of Long Island’s Orient Point and north of Gardiners Bay. see the old Morgan Point Lighthouse, which looks like a Be mindful that the sound is a rugged place studded with stately old home wearing a lantern room for a cap. Hug boulders, shoals and lobster trap buoys, so sticking to the the Morgan Point coastline and the town of Noank. As it channel here is an utter necessity. heads northward, the channel swings east to avoid Sixpenny The sound heads in a east-northeast direction toward the Island, then generally runs northward again. The landmass mainland. Once you’ve cleared the western end of Fishers to starboard is Mason Island. Once you’ve hit buoys #30 Island and the Dumplings, a pair of sandy islets marked and #31, you’ll be alongside Willow Point and will be able North and South, seek a black-and-red marker over Intrepid to see Murphy Point to the northeast. Rock. North of the rock is Groton Long Point, and directly Beyond it all lies the Mystic Aquarium, Mystic northeast of the buoy is a green #1 buoy, marking the Pizza, and perhaps a glimpse at a Noank smack--another entrance to Mystic Harbor. indication that you could be nowhere else than the Mystic The channel turns to the north. Red #2 will keep you clear Places of Connecticut. www.captainsguidemagazines.com CAPTAIN’S SEASIDE GUIDE 2013 65