Thimbles, Mystic and ...

Leaving New York and heading through “Hells Gate” to Long Island Sound

The holiday homes here are huge…

Making our way across Long Island Sound, we found an amazing place

called “The Thimbles”

Granite Rock Islands that appear out of the sea.

The houses that were built on these unlikely spots were mostly built over 100 years ago.

Nearing sunset we had Sandy Stoddard (a local)

and his trusty dog come to Our Rose in his Boston Whaler – 

glass of wine in hand, insisting we jump aboard and have a personal tour of this gorgeous place,

where his family had been involved for over 100 years.

 

From here we headed to “Mystic Seaport”

Mystic is the oldest wooden boat building place in America, which still builds boats.  
The working museum they have is incredible.

We were lucky enough to arrive whilst the annual Wooden Boat Show was on.

This photo is the big give away of where we headed next...

Newport, Rhode Island.

It was an extremely tight mooring/anchoring area.

There were boats sailing everywhere, from ex-Americas Cup yachts to little Opti’s, right into the docks in downtown.  An amazing sight, which reminded us very much of home – The City of Sails!

We went on a “Mansion” Tour

These properties had been the summer homes, used for usually less than 6 weeks a year, Summer homes of the Vanderbilts, Oelrichs, Wetmores etc

The picture below is the from the roof of The Elms above.  

The Coal was brought into the home via a 150 foot tunnel underneath the house, 

ensuring it could not be seen from above.

 The gardens, though not as they were kept in old, were still lovely…

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to photograph inside the mansions.  They were stunning to say the least.  Most still having the furnishing from their "Hay Day".

From here we headed to Onset Harbour, hunkering down and preparing Our Rose 
for the hurricane which was forecast to pass us.

We were extremely lucky, only ending up with 40+ knot winds