A great place to start Barn Island in Stonington is one of the best places to launch a boat in Eastern Ct. It has a huge parking lot but since it is so popular it frequently fills up so people park on the side on the road. No one seems to mind but it does make for a long walk back to your vehicle. The ramp is steep but the water usually deep so it’s easy for even a relatively large boat to get under way. Once you are in the water you have several great options. If you are in a kayak you can go north up the Wequetequock river, or south out to Stonington, Long Island Sound, Sandy Pt. or Napatree Point. This whole area was absolutely hammered by the 1938 hurricane and a beach in the area used to be called Kitchen Beach because appliances ripped from cottages were found buried in the sand for decades after the hurricane. Fortunately no hurricanes have hit in a while and the area around Barn Island is called Little Narragansett Bay and is usually quite calm. If you want more excitement in your yaking you can paddle out to Napatree Pt and old Fort Mansfield where rocks, old fishing piers and heavy wind and waves can conspire to give you a near death experience if you desire. Pretty good surfing out by Napatree also. For something less exciting you can go over to Watch Hill and get ice cream and some good seafood or just land on a isolated beach on Sandy Point Island. This was actually a part of Napatree but the hurricane literally tore the spit of land away and is now a rolling island. If you go east you can explore the very cool town of Stonington. Barn Island is a great place to launch no matter what your intentions are or abilities are. Just make sure you get there early during the summer weekends or you just might be in for a long walk to get back to your vehicle.
