Captain William Kidd was apparently a heartless, bloodthirsty pirate who terrorized the eastern seaboard of the United States and became enormously wealthy robbing the poor merchants in the seventeenth century. He hid it all in his secret island near the central shoreline of Connecticut. Our tour boat's captain showed off Captain Kidd's island. He talked about the great wealth that must still be safely hidden somewhere in Money Island and about people who still hunt for it.

It was only after I came back from the trip that I found that the reality is more complex, that "Captain William Kidd was a Scottish merchant transplanted to America, who was commissioned in 1695 to hunt down the pirate Thomas Tew (of Newport) in the Indian Ocean. While pursuing Tew, Kidd stretched the limits of his commission, which embarrassed his prominent British backers (including the Crown). When he returned home, Kidd was seized and, after a rigged trial in which evidence of his innocence was suppressed, convicted of murder and piracy and hanged in 1701".

But Thimble islands are beautiful and steeped in lores like these. There are now 23 tiny inhabited islands dotting the coast. A ferry will take you on a tour if you reach Stony creek by 3 PM on a day before winter sets in. Stony creek is a quiet, charming, rural fishing village near Guilford.

To get there, we got off I-95 at exit 52 (right after New Haven) and took much less traveled 146 via 142. 146 from Branford to Stony creek is a very pretty coastal road that loops around rivers, picture perfect churches, old colonial houses, New England clapboards and the occasional jogger. We got back on I-95 after we reached Madison; back to civilization, traffic jam and Honking drivers.