You'd be hard-pressed to find any family of seafarers, fisherfolk, or plain coastal types without some horror tale on the water. It just goes with the territory; salt water envelopes most of the world and is dangerous.Â
The Devil
Rooted
I entered my shop this morning to smell linseed oil, varnish, and wood shavings.
QUAAK
The ship in the background is the USS Constitution. The nearby building is the maintenance facility where much of the new materials for the Constitution's rebuild were fabricated. Tucked away on the far back of the second floor was my friend Bill Brommell's workshop. Around that time, I was newly unemployed by the Department of …
Shore Wise
When I visit a new coastal community, I always scan the local paper to see if it covers the waterfront. Even if there are no arrivals and departures, the coverage of the waterfront gives me a good feeling for the community. Is it a "working waterfront," a tarted-up playground for the wealthy, or an ignored …
Recollections
Some Hot! I recall that on the coast, way back when, the older ladies would sit on the porch on July evenings complaining of the heat. I'm in my garage workshop carving a sign and idly listening—" Ahhh! Some hot!" Aunt Grace would declare, and Cora, my mother-in-law, would pipe an agreement. Off to one side, my father-in-law, …
Twilight
Twilight is not just a simple fading of the light. If you're a sailor, there is civil twilight and nautical twilight. Then some sit, gin and tonic in hand, waiting to see the green flash as the rapid tropical sunset fades into the short tropical twilight
The Great Sail Contest
The Mermaid Inn was not the best in town. However, it had the distinction of surviving an insurance fire staged by New York owners and abandonment in the Great Depression. Having survived hardship, The Inn had acquired the crusty "knock me down, and I'll get back up" reputation that locals admired because they saw it as among their best traits.
Cribbage, Lights List and Coastal Pilot
The broken cribbage board and the Coast Pilot Take me back to the days when I learned to "Hand, Reef, and Steer" aboard the 34-foot ketch Psyche.
Dissonance
The other day I had a strange experience. Someone had posted a video of the fourth of July celebration in the community where I used to live on the Maine Coast.
Stash
I was talking to Spinney. It was a late August Sunday evening, and we watched the sun sink into the bay. A conversation about the green flash had evolved into a discussion of the Golden Age of Piracy.
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