Thursday, December 16, 2010

Lost In Woodmont




I wasn't exactly sure where I was. I knew I was several miles west of New Haven but anything more precise or specific was hazy at best. After following streets with straightforward names like Beach Rd and Ocean Boulevard, the path became more confusing with each road becoming more narrow and circular. Was I in Milford? West Haven? I didn't know.
I spend a good portion of my floating life worrying about getting lost in fog. All the electronic devices in the world can't prepare you for that moment when a buoy isn't where you thought it would be. It is a scary feeling.
Unless you are hiking in the wilderness, getting lost on land is child's play. You are not lost in the classic sense, you are just not where you thought you would be. A little bit of backtracking or asking for directions usually regains your bearings.
But on this November morning, I felt I had been blindfolded and spun around several times. At least three times I passed the same house with a tiki bar on the front porch. The one-way streets all seemed to circle back to where I presently was. I was lost in a maze and couldn't find my way out.
I later learned  I was in the Woodmont section of Milford. Originally a summer community, it is now a mixture of various sized homes and designs. A walkway with random park benches wraps the shoreline and provides access to several small beach areas squeezed between the rocky shoreline
The most unique feature of Woodmont however is the rock themselves: orange phyllite. They provide a sharp contrast to the expected granite along these shores.
According to the Geology Of Connecticut, the rock is "a slate or phyllite, highly fissile, sericitic, and usually dotted with minute garnets."