The Norwalk Islands

Always Inviting, Always Changing.

- Jeff Bolster

I fell under the spell of the Norwalk Islands early in life. My first dinghy, first fish, first outboard, first stranding, first (and only) dismasting and first island getaway — a camp that would have made Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn green with envy — all occurred in that enticing little archipelago. These Connecticut islands don’t rival Maine’s for brooding beauty, or the Caribbean’s for sun and sand. Yet their lure is undeniable.

When the glacier dealt shorelines, Norwalk drew a royal flush. It is only five miles from the eastern end of Cockenoe (kah-KEE-nee) Reef to Greens Ledge Lighthouse, but within that kingdom of islands, a world of wonders awaits. Beach combing, bird watching, paddling and piloting are just the start. There is fishing, of course, but there is also the presence of the past, which has an uncanny way of firing imaginations here. For centuries, these islands (20 of them, more or less) have been one of Long Island Sound’s great treasures, attracting pirates and preachers, fishermen and philanderers, dreamers and schemers.

At first glimpse, the chart plotter suggests that this stretch of Long Island Sound is anything but a boating paradise. With Hiding Rocks, Greens Ledge, Great Reef, Sheep Rocks, Haycock Rock, Cockenoe Shoal and Peck Ledge, the potential for running aground or dinging the prop seems limitless. More than one skipper and crew have found themselves high and dry at low tide, victims of the 6- to 8-foot swings. The water is thin for sure, but it’s eminently navigable by shoal-draft craft, or by those in deeper boats who pay attention.

The mystique emerges from the cheek-by-jowl assemblage of salt marshes, sandbars, oyster beds, rocks, channels, lighthouses and islands, one on top of the other and all of them constantly redefined by the angle of the sun, the state of the tide and your compass heading. Put another way, favorite places are endless, and they keep changing.