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A lobster-boat tour for 'lighthouse fanatics'

By David Maloof, Globe Correspondent, 5/18/2003

GROTON, Conn. - Lighthouses can be seen as beacons of nautical nostalgia whose aesthetic purpose is to grace calendars and paintings.

Of course, they also can keep people from smashing up their boats. So maybe Jeff Dziedzic's frequent mentions of the dangers of taking a lighthouse tour on the southeastern Connecticut coast make perfect sense.

''I've got some full-float coats here,'' says Dziedzic, who runs DownEast Lighthouse Cruises out of the Pine Island Marina in Groton, ''in case we have a man overboard.''

Well, that would offer another perspective, but I intend to stay in the boat. From here, I can see the coastline's buildings, trees, and grains of sand glide by. And I can trust my fate to that changing, volatile thing that is needed to actually have a coast: the ocean.

I'm also trusting my fate to Dziedzic, who has staked a claim to a few of Connecticut's 248 coastline miles, and now gestures toward the boat's controls. ''Let me show you how to work these,'' he says. ''Just in case.''

Then he mentions the notoriously strong currents in Fishers Island Sound, to which another passenger offers supporting evidence: ''A few months ago, two guys went out in a small boat and didn't make it back.''

''Yup,'' says Dziedzic. ''That was right around here.''

As I adjust the anti-seasickness wrist bands I've hidden under my long-sleeved shirt and windbreaker on this overcast afternoon, I realize that my primary concern has shifted from queasy tummy to tragic demise.

Then, just before we head out, Dziedzic offers a final warning. ''Whatever you do,'' he says, pointing at the two white barrels standing in the middle of the deck, ''don't open these.''

Now I want to rip open the mysterious chambers. What could be inside? Land sharks? Cuban cigars? Used SARS masks?

''Bait.''

While I ponder this, the boat leaves the dock, and I look for reassurance. Instead, Dziedzic says, ''I'm a rookie at this.''

Fortunately, he doesn't mean at piloting a boat: He has his captain's license, having been trained for it by Bob Webb, who also is on board and will be available to pilot other tour boats, if needed. What's new is his tour boat business, which can carry up to six passengers to as many as 12 lighthouses, depending on whether you choose the 11/2- hour, four-hour, or three-hour tour, which I like to think of as the Gilligan Special.

Dziedzic's business will unfold along with the summer's usual sights and sounds of boating, fishing, and swimming. But on this day, the loudest noise is from the engine of the beat-up 35-foot lobster boat, and the dominant colors are the grays and browns of the sea, sky, and land.

Maybe the first lighthouse will offer some aesthetic reprieve. But the Avery Point Lighthouse is an octagon of brown concrete, lacking its top and looking every inch the major restoration project that it has become.

Meanwhile, this 1976 boat could use some restoration itself, as Dziedzic readily acknowledges. He has borrowed it for the day while he waits to close a deal on a (quieter) 31-foot lobster boat to which he will add cushioned bench seats and a safety railing.

This boat has neither, and so I rest my stern on the transom of the boat's stern. Webb assures me that the seat is safe, that Dziedzic shouldn't be popping any wet wheelies, then describes some of the lighthouses we will visit: New London Light and New London Ledge Light - ''the big one,'' says Webb. ''It looks like a hotel.''

Meanwhile, Webb explains how each lighthouse's unique identifying characteristics are noted on the map in his hands; for this one, a cycle of three white flashes followed by a red flash every 30 seconds.

Now we're negotiating waves that send us bobbing up and down as we head into deeper waters, where the current can reach five knots in what's known as ''Hell's Gate.'' ''It's very treacherous,'' says Webb. ''You get all of Long Island Sound, and the water has only two places to go - New York, or here. So there's a lot of current and that's why the fishing's so good.'' And also why the boating is so hazardous? ''Oh yeah,'' Webb concedes nonchalantly.

A former Wellesley resident who has returned home to Connecticut, he compares this area to his onetime summer spot, Chatham. ''This is more established - more year-round, with more people and more industry.''

Indeed, we can see the new Pfizer Research Center (a fairly modest compound), and if we were to continue west instead of turning southeast, we would reach the Thames River, leading to the New London Submarine Base, a high-security site since September 2001.

Once we've turned east and passed the marina, there's Bushey Point Beach, part of Bluff Point State Park; Groton Long Point, with homes that Webb describes as ''not that nice and right on top of each other,'' yet fetching ''$500,000 for a 600-square-foot cottage''; and then three sad-looking homes marooned on Mouse Island, where Webb says they get their drinking water from cisterns.

This is no homogeneous and affluent coast of sandy shore and seaside mansions. It's a fisherman's platter of nature, real estate, and industry, with planes from the nearby Groton-New London Airport passing overhead. Other than the water, the lighthouses are the only consistency.

But the lighthouses themselves are not consistent. The Avery Point one resembles a rusted, oversized hydrant, while New London Light is your standard-issue white base with dark top, and New London Ledge Light suggests a small hotel. There's talk of turning it into a museum and/or bed-and-breakfast.

Morgan Point Light is the farthest east we travel, though on longer tours Dziedzic will reach Stonington Harbor and even Watch Hill Light in Rhode Island.

There are many ways of looking at a lighthouse - not just visually, but historically (when it was built, restored, and/or de-manned), even through quirky narrative angles. Our stop before Morgan Point is the North Dumpling Light, which sits on an island in New York waters. When state authorities told the island owner, Dean Kamen (the New Hampshire inventor best known for the Segway sidewalk scooter), that he needed a permit for his windmill, he declared his small island an independent nation with its own currency and flag.

Then there's New London Ledge Light in the role of a ''haunted lighthouse.'' About 80 years ago, the story goes, the lighthouse keeper's wife ran (or maybe sailed) off with the Block Island Ferry captain, sending the abandoned husband to his death from the lighthouse roof. Ever since, doors supposedly open and close, decks are swabbed, and moored boats set adrift with no apparent human intervention.

Well, most lighthouses now run without human intervention, anyway, and New London Ledge Light was the last one on Long Island Sound to be automated (in 1987).

With straying wives, one man's loss is another man's gain. The same can be said for why Dziedzic will pilot a lobster boat for his tours. For thanks to the changing marine and economic character of the Connecticut coast, such vessels are quite available: As area lobsters have died off in recent years (Dziedzic blames the spraying to kill mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus; the two creatures are biological cousins, belonging to the same phylum), lobstermen are selling their boats and getting out of the business.

While some other tours use larger boats, some customers prefer what Dziedzic offers. ''I had a lady from Farmington call for her mother'' who lives in Arizona, Dziedzic recalls. The mother ''can't wait to get on a lobster boat. I assured her that it was going to be all clean and quiet.'' Disappointed, the daughter replied, ''`You mean it's not going to smell all fishy?'''

Dziedzic says that all reservations thus far have come from outside New England, including a Colorado man who last year toured Maine's lighthouses, and this year will see the sea lights of Cape Cod, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

Such light would be welcome as we head back on our 11-mile, two-hour journey under skies that have darkened further. ''But this was very calm for 1 in the afternoon,'' Dziedzic says, ''when you can have a 15-knot breeze and two- to three-foot waves.''

A part of me wishes we had experienced a stormier journey. I'll leave that to some summertime ''lighthouse fanatics,'' as Dziedzic calls them. The other part of me gladly steps back on shore, inside the coastline, where lighthouses are quaint calendar images and the only thing hugging my wrist is a watch.

David Maloof is a freelance writer who lives in Belchertown.

IF YOU GO ...

H ow to get there

Groton is about 100 miles south of Boston, or almost a two-hour drive. Take Interstate 95 south to Clarence B. Sharp Highway/Highway 349 south (exit 87). Take a right at the second light, then a left at the next light (Eastern Point Road). Follow past Pfizer, a golf course, the University of Connecticut, and Shennecossett Yacht Club; Pine Island Marina is about 1/4 mile past the yacht club.

What to do

DownEast Lighthouse Cruises at Pine Island Marina

568F Shennecossett Road, Groton

860-460-1802

www.downeastlighthousecruises.com

Lighthouse cruises ranging from 11/2 to four hours; $50 to $85 adults, $25 children. Also available: one- to two-hour lobstering trips, charters of sportfishing boats, and kayak rentals.

Project Oceanology

Avery Point

1084 Shennecossett Road, Groton

800-364-8472

www.oceanology.org

Offers 21/2-hour boat ride and guided tour of New London Ledge Lighthouse; $19 adults, $16 children 6-12; no children under 6. Open Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday (June 14 through Labor Day), 4-6:30 p.m.

Sunbeam Fleet

Captain John's Dock

15 First St., Waterford

860-443-7259

www.sunbeamfleet.com

Lighthouse cruises (daytime or evening, mostly Sundays or Wednesdays); $40 adults; $35 62 and over; $20 children 5-12; free 4 and under. Groups: $35 each (10 or more), $28 each (25 or more).

Bluff Point State Park

New London, CT

860-444-7591 (c/o Fort Trumbull State Park in New London)

Open year-round, 8 a.m. to sunset. Bluff Point's 800 acres are billed as ''the last remaining significant piece of undeveloped land along the Connecticut coastline.'' Activities include boating, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, picnicking, and shellfishing (call 860-441-6600 for permit).

W here to stay

The Shore Inne Bed and Breakfast

54 East Shore Ave., Groton Long Point

860-536-1180

www.theshoreinne.com

Five rooms with private baths; $95-$135, including continental breakfast. No smoking or pets; children allowed. Two-night minimum stay. Private beaches; boats can be anchored offshore.

Steamboat Inn

73 Steamboat Wharf, Mystic

860-536-8300

E-mail: mailto:%20sbwharf@aol.com

www.steamboatinnmystic.com

Ten no-smoking rooms, $200-$285, all but one overlooking the Mystic River.

W here to eat

A bbott's Lobster-in-the-Rough

117 Pearl St., Noank

860-536-7719

www.abbotts-lobster.com

A ''dock and dine'' (or drive and dine) BYOB facility specializing in shellfish, open daily May 23-Sept. 1; Friday to Sunday until May 23 and Sept. 5-Oct. 13.

Captain Daniel Packer Inne

32 Water St., Mystic

860-536-3555

www.danielpacker.com

A more varied and upscale alternative to Abbott's; appetizers ($6-$9); entrees ($17-$25) are almost half seafood, the rest meat and poultry.

This story ran on page M22 of the Boston Globe on 5/18/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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