New concept in navigation provides the perfect complement to your charts and traditional cruising guides This unique cruising guide features aerial photos matchedwith chart segments to guide you through channelsand harbor approaches. Prepared with input from local experts up and down the coast, hazards, safe channels, and key navigation aids are clearly labeled on photos and charts. James L. Bildner is a life-long sailor and avid recreational pilot who shoots the photos for his books from his own helicopter. He owns a chain of upscale gourmet food stores in the greater Boston area and cruises the New England coast in his 52-foot Hinckley, Windward . A member of the Cruising Club of America, Jim has pulled together a network of local contributors to vet and detail the piloting instructions in this book. Jim is also the founder of the Literary Ventures Fund, a nonprofit with offices in Boston and New York, which invests marketing/promotion funds with commercial publishers to help exceptional works of fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry find the audience they deserve. James L. Bildner is a life-long sailor and avid recreational pilot who shoots the photos for his books from his own helicopter. He owns a chain of upscale gourmet food stores in the greater Boston area and cruises the New England coast in his 52-foot Hinckley, Windward . A member of the Cruising Club of America, Jim has pulled together a network of local contributors to vet and detail the piloting instructions in this book. Jim is also the founder of the Literary Ventures Fund, a nonprofit with offices in Boston and New York, which invests marketing/promotion funds with commercial publishers to help exceptional works of fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry find the audience they deserve. AVISUAL CRUISING GUIDE TO THE SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND COAST New London, CT, to Portsmouth, NH By JAMES L. BILDNER The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Copyright © 2010 James L. Bildner All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-07-148919-5 Contents Chapter One REGION I Eastern Long Island and Fishers Island Sound —NEW LONDON, CT, TO POINT JUDITH, RI, INCLUDING BLOCK ISLAND— New London The Mystic Region Stonington and Little Narragansett Bay Fishers Island Block Island Point Judith New London is less than 30 nautical miles west of Point Judith, but any passage between the two is complicated by the lack of an anchorage along the 14-mile coast between Fishers Island Sound and Point Judith, and by the strong tidal currents and treacherous shoals and rocks that separate Long Island Sound from Block Island Sound. Some 110 miles long and 21 miles wide at its widest, Long Island Sound communicates with the Atlantic Ocean through the East River and New York Harbor at its western end and through Plum (Island) Gut, The Race, and Fishers Island Sound at its eastern end. Through these constricted openings must pour enough seawater to fill the sound on every rising tide and empty it on every falling tide. The results are dramatic. The flood through Plum Gut—the southwestern-most of the sound's eastern openings—averages 3.5 knots, while the ebb averages 4 knots, strong enough to set up standing waves when opposed by the wind. Between Little Gull Island (off Plum Island) and Race Point on Fishers Island to the northeast is the notorious 4-mile-wide main opening, The Race, with currents that range from 2.5 to 6 knots on ebb and flood and are characterized by strong rips, boiling eddies, and—when the current sets through a strongly opposing wind or sea—steep seas. The half-hour slacks at high and low water are the best times to transit The Race. The third opening, at the eastern extreme of Fishers Island Sound, offers a choice of five passes through the rocks east of Fishers Island. Tidal currents average about 2 knots through all five passes and, unhelpfully, tend to angle across rather than flowing through the passes. Of the five passes, only Watch Hill Passage, Sugar Reef Passage, and Lords Passage are recommended to boaters lacking local knowledge. Navigation between New London and Point Judith is further complicated by the busy traffic that characterizes these waters. Cruising sailors and powerboaters, racers, picnickers, anglers working the rips for bluefish and stripers (The Race is famous for its rich sportfisheries), tug-and-barge traffic between Boston and New York, ferries crossing the sound or plying between New London and Block Island, lobsterboats, commercial fishing vessels, and Navy and Coast Guard vessels operating out of New London and Groton all converge along this coast. It is not unusual to see a submarine heading to or from the submarine base located in Groton. Still, these waters offer a magical feel and a unique combination of delights, including Mystic Seaport; the commodious, breakwater-protected harbor of Stonington; the dunes and beaches of Napatree Point; the sheltered shoaldraft waterways of Little Narrag