New London was a lesson in the reconstitution of our lives, breaking us down to life’s constituent parts once again. Walking, seeing, feeling, tasting, hearing and smelling everything as completely divergent from everything else in the universe, moving toward entropy, willingly.
But then a plan hatched on an epic walk to rediscover southern New England on foot. A real plan…a plan of action, a plan of pro-active profound life change.
…We’re going back to India to finish our co-written manuscript!
This incredibly exciting and momentous decision was taken quickly, but we won’t leave for almost a month. Sure, there are plans to be made, but we also need to meet the Prakash family in NYC!
But first we had to get some fresh water on our hull.
We’d been anchored in the same place for a little over a month, without picking up and going sailing even once since Dean went back to Moses Lake. The 3 Mile bio-hitchhikers were a little more tenacious than the sail to the Thames could clear away so we still had some growth to contend with. The absolute best way to slough off salt-water growth is a good clean, fresh-water swimming hole, just like the one in Hamburg Cove, up the Connecticut River in Lyme, CT.
We reached the Connecticut River entrance channel in a quiet moment, right after a stream of boats exited. We waited until after the weekend, so the boater playgrounds were emptying.
And though the currents swept us swiftly along, we enjoyed the tree-lined river.
Now, if you know us at all you know that we like to go nice and slow. To really let the local fishies do the job of scrubbing our hull for us, we first need to dedicate at least 24 hours of fresh water to shocking, freaking out and mostly killing off the saltwater bio-mass that has adhered to the hull.
Easy-peasy, we can most definitely do nothing for 24 hours!
Okay, that’s not exactly true!
A friend of ours sailed into Essex the night before and invited us to dine at the Griswold Inn. Founded in 1776, Griswold’s is a rather famous local tavern/fancy eatery that has an incredible shanty band that plays there every week. After sailing all day and a 3.5 mile dinghy ride, Dena and I were pretty beat so back to the boat we went before the second set began.
Swimming, watching fish uproars, sunsets and sunrises…we had plenty of things to keep us busy for a few days. As the press of weekenders threatened, though, we shifted the short distance from Hamburg Cove down to Essex.
Talk about sunsets!
This was a better position for doing long walks and checking out the steam train that runs through here. More swimming, this time in a swift river current, and a cool-down of the weather brought us this morning shot…
And we’re ready to shift again. This time between leaving and meeting Lasitha, Moumi, and Prakash in NYC is looking good in the mellow department. The wind will turn east in a couple days and we’ll be able to take the better currents and winds on a hop, skip, and jump west along Long Island Sound.
There is, quite literally, no reason to fight our way to a place we can idle towards in comfort…entertained and in love with each and every one of life’s constituent parts.
