Mattituck - At anchor

Ahoy there its me Matt in the Hatt and today I'm going to write the blog in Sarah's place who is on shore leave because of bad stomach cramps ut don't worry she will return soon. Today started off a little slow as I woke and emerged from the aft cabin. We had breakfast of cereal, grapefruit, and the last of the glazed donuts. I unplugged the electric line and filled up the water tanks while breakfast settled in. Soon after the Fleetwing was on the move again slowly motoring out of Branford. After we left I pulled out the mainsail all on my own and then out into the sound we went. With the mainsail out we began our ride over to Mattituck. We all hoped to sail but never had the chance to with the low kt winds. I adjourned to the main cabin and proceeded to rot my mind with the hard downloaded game I acquired at Milford. I again emerged from the main cabin into the cockpit and watched as grandpa carefully set anchor in this tiny harbor. Afterwards we dinked over to shore and strolled into town while Nana walked the dog. Grandpa and I proceeded down the streets of Milford to get ice for the boat. On the way back Grandpa stopped to photograph a nice little street called Love Lane. We returned to the boat with a perfect landing from my dinking skills and we prepared for dinner. Grandpa made some wonderful hamburgers but before we ate those we savored some delicious seafood salad Grandpa picked up at the store. After dinner we had ice cream. Nana and Grandpa took Hoolie ashore for his afternoon poo while I washed the dishes with Dio blasting in the Main Cabin. I then waged war on my computer game and finally got off so I could write this. Well that was my day here on the Long Island Sound, I could stay and write an entire essay (editor: Ha, too late, you already did!) but soon the crew and captain of the Fleetwing will be watching Magnum Force.

View of the Mattituck anchorage from the dinghy dock - we're back at the far right

As you can see, Matt took over the blogging assignment from Sarah while she's getting ready to rejoin Fleetwing when we make landfall Tuesday in Connecticut. We left Branford at low tide and had only a little over 5 ft in the AA dock fairway as we left, a little thin even for us and our 4' 9" draft. What wind there was (only 5 to 6 kts) was within 2 degrees of our heading to Mattituck! It is really uncanny how the wind is always on the nose!

Interesting main street - Love Lane

We timed our arrival for a rising tide entering Mattituck inlet and saw mostly 6 to 7 ft MLW (corrected to low tide) but I did see a bump at 5 ft MLW about midway through the inlet. Once past the breakwater, the channel deepened to 8 to 9 ft MLW the rest of the way to the anchorage. There are four floats marking the corners of the rectangular anchorage area so it's easy to be sure you're inside. Tonight there are only 5 boats here but I'm told on weekends it can be as many as 12. There's plenty of room for 5 but 12 would be a challenge.

There's a dinghy dock at the end of the harbor for use of the boats in the anchorage and it's a convenient place for Hoolie relief and a walk into town. Matt and I went to the Handy Pantry for ice and minor supplies. The town has a main street called "Love Lane" with a cheese shop, chocolate store, Deli, Post Office, Several restaurants, bookstore, hardware store, pastries, etc. A very nice place to visit and for treating yourself to some goodies.

Back of the boat - nice view

We got good news on Sarah tonight, her pediatrician gave her a clean bill of health and she'll be rejoining us at South Cove on the Connecticut River on Tuesday. It'll be great to have everyone on board again! Ann took a nice sunset picture.