Travel & Waterside Inns
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The Seaport Experience In mid-October in recent years we ' ve tried to break away and sall y forth for an end-of-the-season cruise eastward. Last fall we broke away all right , but walked out into buffetting easterlies that kicked up a nasty chop in Long Island Sound and held our progress down to short (and bouncy) hops along the coast. As we turned around and sailed throu gh Plum Gut to begin our westward passage home, the wind slapped around to the west-another dead muzzler! As daylight waned it came on like gangbusters, thick of rain and fog . Gratefully we picked up the well marked entrance to the Connecticut River and slipped between the breakwaters to put our lines ashore a mile or so upstream , where I knew a secret that would restore the crew's shaken faith in the merits of giving up vacation days to this kind of sport. Above the pier was a large sign reading " Dock & Dine. " We splashed in across the pier, shed our foul-weather gear and tucked into a tremendous dinner beginning with clams and progressing on to a lavish bouillabaisse . Having been beaten about the ears and ·shook up by the sea, we now savored its fruits in snugly cheerful, well lit , dry surroundings . Ensconced at our table, I watched the bobbing mast of our chartered sloop weave through flying sheets of rain, while conversation picked up , after the crew 's first onslaught on the steaming dishes. Sea stories were to ld , there was a little laughter, even a bold mention by the youngest member of the crew about next year's trip. The fo llowing day we were up betimes and steamed out to meet clearing skies and a giddily warm , reaching southerly all the way back up the Sound to our home port. I don ' t know if Dock & Dine at Saybrook , Connecticut, always provides this kind of weather for departing guests, but they are guaranteed to dry out sodden spirits and put fire back into the bellies of beat-up crews. The restaurant is owned by a sailing couple , former volunteers at South Street Seaport Museum . They kriow what sai lors like . Earlier in the summer , I encountered another very worthwhile (and somewhat cheaper) restaurant in that part of the world . This was when the bark Elissa made her fab led trip down the Sound and up the Mystic River to Mystic Seaport Museum under the National Society 's sponsorship--and Revell Carr, Mystic's director, made hi s speech of welcome SEA HISTORY , SUMMER 1987
threatening to weld shut the drawbridge below the Seaport, so the handsome Elissa would have to stay . When the speeches were over, an old crony of crui sing days, Clark Thompson, appeared out of the crowd and took me in tow for supper at a favorite restaurant of hi s, downriver in the town of Mystic . Giaco's Ship 's Lantern Restaurant it's called , and it's just across the bridge that Revell wanted to weld shut , a little way inland at 21 West Main Street. What a place! Not just ship 's lanterns, but binnacles, engine room telegraphs , steering wheels , lobster pot buoys, paintings , ship models and glass tanks fu ll of fish flicking their tail s lazily about crowd the place , with a boating population of varied styles and ages taking up the remaining room , and with saucy waitresses flitting about through the interstices of people , tables and artifacts . Heaven! And that reminds me of R . H . Tugs , a little more sedate perhaps (but not too much}--a fine waterfront pub on the Staten Island shore of the Kill van Kull in New York Harbor. The Kill is an industrial waterway between the Island and the oil-and-coal port of Bayon ne , whence the Cape Horner Wavertree sailed 92 years ago for Calcutta. Nancy Pouch , whose late husband Tim * had put up the Wavertree at Pouch Terminals in those now-distant days when we brought the ship back to New
York , in Jul y 1970 , took the National Society's Harbor Curator Mel Hardin and me to lunch at R. H. Tugs last fa ll , saying " I think you' ll like this place. " Nancy , a Trustee of the Society, is given to understatement . We loved R.H. Tugs. We had gangs of drinks and las hings of spaghetti and looked down the waterway just outside the window, remembering the memorial procession we had organized for the artist John Noble . That was a true harbor occasion with working craft taking time from their jobs to steam slowly down the Kill , appearing out of the mist in line ahead so yo u didn't know who they were until they were there . As we talked of these things , we heard a dull rumble that shook the windows, and a great rust-blotched , salt-rimed wall of steel passed by a biscuit-throw away. A big ocean carrier from Port Elizabeth , aro und the corner in Newark Bay--0utward bound. Life goes on!
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And let us rejoice that there are on the face of the earth, and around its waterways, good inns and pubs in which to celebrate life's passage. If you would like to hear more about these places and what happens in them , we' ll continue this column in the next SEA HISTORY PETER STANFORD *For a brief sketch of the life and career of A.T. Pouch, Jr. , see S EA HISTORY 39 , p. 6.
Dine in relaxed elegance in the heart of the South Street Seaport. Yankee Clipper's Wavertree Room The Yankee Clipper, one of South Street Seaport's finest restaurants , recently dedicated an opulently refurbished room to honor the historic Wavertree, a tall ship now berthed just outside the restaurant's multipaned windows. The dedication of the Wavertree Room goes beyond its physical proximity to its namesake, however, for the room actually once served as the office of Baker, Carver & Morrell, general agents who represented the Wavertree in the 1800s. - VIA PORT OF NY-NJ, March 1986
110 John Street,
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Major credit'cards
·3a • 212-344-5959
ac'cepred.
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