Stonington

Latitude: 44 degrees 09.15'N (a new addition to each blog -- our latitude in Latitudes!)

What color is rain? When the cockpit is the only place to dry wet clothes, bath towels, life vests, etc, it can be very colorful :-)

The rains finally ended during the night on Friday, so we left our spectacular Castine/Holbrook Island harbor and motored to Stonington. The usual lighthouses popped up along the way and, of course, we can't resist them.






Stonington has a rich history of both fishermen and granite miners. This is the beginning of "down east" for us. We arrived at low tide - look at the pilings and steep walk ways below.



The town is full of fishing and lobstering boats. We are the only "pleasure craft" here today. There is a huge lobster dock, reserved for only the lobstermen and their work.

We walked Main Street and up hill to some of the streets beyond.

The other business is granite, pink granite. It's been quarried here since the 1800's. JFK's memorial, the big 20 ft bowl at Rockefeller Center (the one with the big statue in it...), the Library of Congress, and multiple buildings in NYC are all examples of where this granite has been used. The granite isn't just on Crotch Island, it's on all of the surrounding islands of Merchants Row. It makes a beautiful addition to the green firs of the islands.



To the east of Stonington are a cluster of islands forming "Merchants Row". Crotch Island is one of them, and this is where the pink granite is again being mined. There are huge blocks of granite at the dock there, waiting for pick up.





Just one of the many islands at Stonington. Some are very small, some relatively large, some only rocks that appear at low tide (boaters, beware!!!).



Today, Sunday, the fog has settled in for a while, so, so have we.



Look carefully at the picture below. Can you see the fogbow (yes, I made up that word) at our stern? Sort of like a rainbow without the colors, something I've never seen before. Apparently it's the light through the moisture in the air because of the fog. We could see it on both sides of the boat. WHEN the fog lifts, the plan is to go to Frenchboro, a tiny island of 79 people, but with spectacular scenery.