If You Anchor in the Mouth of the Sakonnet River

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Third Beach is tucked behind Flint Point near the mouth of the Sakonnet River, on its West bank. If the wind and the seas are coming from the South or East, this is not a good place to be. The mouth of the Sakonnet can get brutal.

But with winds from anywhere in the West, this is a delightful anchorage and is the best possible starting point for a transit to Cuttyhunk, Buzzards Bay and places East. The anchorage is in one of those bays that looks shallow on the map but much deeper in real life.

Most people, understandably, anchor South of Third Beach, tucked in behind Flint Point. Contrarily, we prefer to anchor under the cliffs and houses just to the North of the beach. We are usually the only boat anchored there. You can tuck in here surprisingly close to both the cliffs and the beach and be comfortable in about 18 feet of water. With decent weather, the main disturbance on summer weekends will be powerboats towing kids around your boat until they all go home.

It would be easy to dinghy ashore to the beach.

The town of Sakonnet is on the East side of the river. We have visited there by car. The town surrounds a small harbor but we have never gone in there by boat because I do not think they offer much welcome to visiting sailboats. However, my guidebook says that there is in fact a small marina there. So I might be mistaken.

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