Old Saybrook is a village on the west side of Connecticut River, about 1.4 miles northward of Saybrook Breakwater Light. There are several small-craft facilities along the west side of the river from Saybrook Point to Ferry Point, about 2 miles to the northward.
North Cove, a dredged small-boat basin that affords excellent anchorage, is entered through a dredged channel that leads westward from the main channel about 0.4 mile northward of Saybrook Point. In 2009, the controlling depth was 6.7 feet (8.0 feet at midchannel) in the entrance channel to the basin, thence 5.6 feet in the basin, with shoaling to 4.3 feet within 10 feet of the channel limits. The entrance channel is marked by private buoys.
Navigation:
Click the “Map View” button above to see a chart of this harbor.
To enter Connecticut River from eastward, pass southward of Hatchett Reef and Saybrook Bar, until Saybrook Breakwater Light bears 315°. Steer for Saybrook Breakwater Light on this course through the buoyed opening between the south end of Saybrook Bar and the east end of Long Sand Shoal to the entrance channel between the jetties.
To enter from westward, pass 1 mile southward of Falkner Island Light on course 076°. This will lead about 0.4 mile northward of the lighted bell buoy on the western end of Long Sand Shoal and about 0.2 mile southward of the lighted bell buoy southward of Cornfield Point. Then steer about 067√Ç°, with Saybrook Breakwater Light a little on the port bow to the entrance channel between the jetties.
Saybrook Breakwater Light (41°15’48″N., 72°20’34″W.), 58 feet above the water, is shown from a white conical tower on a brown cylindrical pier on the south end of the west jetty at the entrance to Connecticut River. A sound signal is at the light.
Saybrook Outer Bar, which obstructs the mouth of the Connecticut River, is shifting, with depths of 2 to 12 feet extending nearly 2 miles off the mouth; it is marked off its southeastern end by a lighted bell buoy.
