Selden Creek, CT

[Joe Montana]

Selden Creek.jpg (166.59 KiB) Viewed 1050 times

With our Typhoon Daysailer, we're able to leave the Connecticut River and explore Selden Creek, a peaceful freshwater tidal ecosystem a short distance north of Hamburg Cove, and about a mile south of the Chester-Hadlyme ferry. It's a short trip up to Selden Cove, but a long trip back in time. The creek can't look very different today than it did in 1696, when Joseph Selden purchased Twelve Mile Island Farm -- 4,000 acres which included Selden "Island." At that time, it was actually a peninsula, and remained so until an 1854 storm breached the land and connected the river to the cove at the northern end of the creek. Once inside, it is blissfully quiet. Weekday's you'll have the creek pretty much to yourself. On weekends, you're likely to share it with others who kayak, canoe or picnic and swim off small boats. Once you're past the shoal at the southern end of the creek, the depth is consistently about 10 feet, until you get to cove, itself, which is quite shallow.

In addition to sharing a bit of information about one of the places we sail out of Essex, this is an experiment in adding a photo to a post on the new board!

[kerlandsen]

Love it.

I was a very young teenager, ok, maybe 10 or 12.
We would take my dad's Tartan 27 from Groton to Portland, CT each winter. We were motoring up the river and the skipper/co-owner/dad's best friend said, "Hey what is that over there" we checked the chart quickly and made the turn. It was beautiful. We made it inside and found a couple of larger boats inside and were very impressed they would be in there.

Since our trip had us continueing to the north, we kept going thru. Made it out where the creek gets considerably wider. We all know what happens to creeks when they get wide, they get shallow. We wanted to go towards the middle, but the birds were standing in the way, literally. Too shallow that way. I got in the dink and rowed out in front of the Tartan, an oar length was plenty of water. We played that game until we came back to the original banks of the river. I got back on board.

We did bump the bottom a couple of times when a large tour boat went by and cast a wake, before we made it back to the channel.

I have never been back, but I sure would love to get back in there and explore some more. Thanks for sharing the photos.

Kyle E.

[Jim Walsh]

Hi Joe,
Nice posting on Seldon Creek. I'm getting pretty tired of the winter season, even though this is the best winter I've ever experienced....so far. I keep thinking winter will strike us with a vengance for growing complacent. It is nice not worrying about snow accumulation on the winter cover. Hurry up spring!
Jim

[Markst95]

Thanks Joe, Brings back alot of memories. For quite a few years a September ritual was to launch our kayaks at the Ferry by Gillettes Castle and paddle down to Selden Island for an overnight Campout.