Wickford, RI

Monday, 30 June

“Yeah, that’s Clingstone. Be’n thaih many times.”

Clingstone is a “peach” of a perch, with views of Newport, Jamestown and up-and-down the East Passage.

This from Patty, the yard manager at Dutch Harbor Boat Yard, as two sailors from Virginia rode with her to “downtown” Jamestown. Patty was going for “pots”—that is, engine parts—and the crew of Steadfast was along for the ride to kill time.

The door remains but the truck went out of service sometime ago.

Steadfast cast off from Newport’s Brenton Cove at 0725 and after rounding Fort Adams, motored into an 8-knot southerly toward Beavertail light (remember, the south end of Conanicut aka Jamestown Island). Despite an attempted repair Saturday, Little Red still didn’t sound right. Her vitals all were good, though—oil pressure, water temp and volts—and she kept pluggin’ along into a building chop off the ocean.

Once round Beavertail, though, it was a quick downhill run back to the pier at DHBY where Dave-the-Diesel-Guy would take a look. While Dave did his magic, skipper and mate made the trip “downtown,” checked out some local art and enjoyed an “ice coffee” and the harbor view from the Corner Deli.

Back at the yard an hour or so later, Dave reported the silencer problem is common, explained his repair and said Little Red looked fine otherwise. The boat was back underway by noon, with the idea of heading back to explore Newport. But once beyond the shelter of Dutch Harbor, it just didn’t seem worth it to waste a grand southerly by slamming into four-footers. So Steadfast turned north, heading instead to the snug harbor at Wickford, about six miles up on the western shore. The harbor channel starts at the breakwater which, from out on the West Passage, blends in with the shore. But the water remains fairly deep close in, at which point the entrance become obvious.

A private home for many years, the tower once marked the entrance to Wickford Harbor.

Once inside, two of the four town moorings were still open at 1600 and Steadfast settled in for the night.

As for Clingstone, your correspondent had the pleasure of visiting for a few minutes on a misty, blustery morning fifty-some summers ago! Patty’s description confirmed some still vivid images of that visit, its total independence from shore connections (cisterns for water, solar and wind for electricity) and the eccentricity of the owners.

Quite the story but just one of so many, it seems, that add to the charm of the islands and harbors of Narragansett Bay.

After all these years, what a blessing to be back among them.

Steadfast out.