Stonington to Stonington, anchor

Rumor had it that there was a wonderful Portuguese restaurant just around the corner. So Highwind and we decided to travel 20 minutes to make the dinghy ride there much easier. Both of us had anchors down by 9:30 am. 

We spend the day getting seriously rocked by lobster boats zipping by us at 15 knots and kicking up 4 feet wake. A couple of times I had to race down the stairs in preparation for the disruption to save the food that's cooking from falling on the floor, or make sure the fridges were secured. We've lost food stuffs before. Maine: Come for the lobster, stay to get the snot waked out of ya!

One of the more interesting vessels we've seen.

But the real adventure happened in the evening. Dinner reservations were around 6:15. We dropped our dinghy and picked up Hannah and David by 6, then headed to the restaurant, which supposedly had a dock.

Well... when the tide was high it did. Tides fluctuate about 10 feet here. We slowly made our way to a working dock near the eatery only to hit the bottom about 5 feet from the floating dock. With the use of some paddles David and Russ pushed the dinghy through the mud and close enough to the dock that Hannah could straddle the distance and get onto the pier. That was a sight to behold. She then pulled us into through the mud so that the dinghy touched the pier and the rest of us got off. (Not that she's crazy strong, although she's quite fit, but without that extra weight the dinghy was just a tad more buoyant).

The view out the back.
Still getting used to seeing so much rock.

Then we had to climb about 7 feet up a less than encouraging hand-built ladder to get up the pier and onto the working dock that (we learned) did belong to the restaurant. Good thing, too, else we'd have been trespassing. Then find our way up to the restaurant.

We checked in and got seated outside. While the service was slow, the meal was wonderful. The place closed at 8, which was why I made the reservations around 6, but we ended up not leaving the place until 9 pm. In the dark.

Reversing out tracks we made it back to the dinghy, which was now only 3 feet beneath the dock since the tide had risen significantly. We climbed back on the tender, then traversed the dark water -- dodging prop traps and mooring balls in the dark -- back to our boats.

Nothing like a little adventure to round out a good meal.

David took these when we docked.
Note the land/rock just to the left.
The dinghy is attached to a floating pier,
attached with rope to a taller pier, 7 feet higher.

Clearly, this is a working pier.
If this didn't belong to the restaurant,
we were what they call "criminals."

Russ took this mid-way through dinner, proof
the dinghy was there and the tide was rising.