Adventures and Cruises

“When in doubt, go out,” was the plan, and to outrun the soup, we headed farther offshore. The gloom seemed to lighten eight miles from home, but this was Maine, and we knew better.

September 2021 By Mark Barrett The southwest wind was whipping through the Cape Cod Canal, and it would be right on my nose with a west-running tide. I wasn’t sure I could make headway against the wind with the little outboard on my 40-year-old J/24.

Mid-July along the Maine coast can be clear and calm or foggy and rough. That’s why you seize every favorable weather window, and hope the forecast is not as bad as it is predicted.

Morgana was rocking gently in her slip without any new bumps, dings, or worse. I could, and had, docked Morgana in a slip for the first time! I had stayed the course despite my fears, inexperience, and self-doubt.

Part 1: In 90-degree heat, I covered my exhausted body with a 10-below sleeping bag, fitting penance for someone whose plan for cruising from Boston to Rhode Island was “Let’s hope for the best.”

September 2021 By Homer Shannon It was the morning of July 14, 1999. Three boats from the American Yacht Club in Newburyport, Mass.; Carpe Diem, Overtime and Cinderella, were anchored way up in Quahog Bay. Homer and Dee Shannon from Cinderella had just returned from

Atlantic crossing? Let's think about that a little more.

Who wants to face discomfort, despair, physical depletion and loss of zest for life, for four hours or four weeks, to compete with a boat that might average five mph? Well, Gulf of Maine racers do.

One day I’m retired and idle: the next, I’m an oyster farmer. How did I go from eyeballs-deep in a couch to total immersion in raising Eastern oysters? Well, hang onto your hat!

August 2021 By Fred Douglass My father’s family had built a Shingle-Style cottage on the western shore of the Sheepscot River in 1903, when my father (Alfred W. Douglass 1899-1970) was just four. His father had decided to spend the plupart of his father’s money

July 2021 By Thomas Dudley This posthumously published essay is the second in a series of lively, often wry, reminiscences to be published in Points East over the coming months. Thomas Minot Dudley, of Durham, N.H., died at the age of 83 the day after

These two Massachusetts-based families decided to reposition their boats for a season to explore regions outside their usual homeport cruising range.

There is nothing worth doing more than “messing about in boats,” extolled Mr. Water Rat in “The Wind in the Willows.” But you don’t want to mess with mischievous farm stock on a Connecticut island.

Restrictions of a worldwide virus made working online from home the norm, so, with our Nordic 44 Mystic waiting in Maine, why not call her home-in-transit for a few weeks and set sail?

“How to move. When to move. If you had to think about it, you weren’t going on the boat.” The boat was Galatea – a 38-foot steel-hulled yawl that was sailed across the Atlantic in the summer of 1964 – and the remembrance is courtesy

From an early age, the author was drawn to the mystical act of propelling a sailing vessel by harnessing the wind; and his wife, Dudley, also felt the magic. But it wasn’t all “tailwinds and flat seas.”

And, in Newburyport, Mass., it always has, literally and figuratively, as the mighty Merrimack River has powered a shipbuilding industry, a rich international trade, mill wheels, and, today, a waterborne tourism.

One person’s candidate for the junk pile can be another’s gem. And thus it was that a beloved, but deteriorating, steel sailboat became a treasure for a couple in search of a new floating abode.

During the summer of COVID-19, we celebrated 33 years of marriage by cruising locally, focusing on Buzzards Bay and cozy Rhode Island. Short of a hurricane, what could possibly rain on our parade?

March/April 2021 By Paul Brown In the late 1980s I was relatively new to sailing, and had recently purchased a 1968 Thunderbird 26 I named Brownscow. Brownscow’s design was the result of a contest offered by a West Coast plywood company in 1958, and –

Part 3: The J/30 Mojo finally found some wind, and Mark and Diana sailed efficiently from Portsmouth, N.H., to Boothbay Harbor, Maine, despite a nav-bungle and a minor piloting error.

The author and his wife had long dreamed of cruising south for the winter and returning in the spring. Finally they did it, with two dogs, aboard the Banjer 37 motorsailer Magus.

While I have made many hundreds of trips from Portsmouth Harbor to the Isles of Shoals across the full range of weather and seasons (wind, rain, fog, snow and freezing spray) I had never been thoroughly scared until one afternoon a few weeks ago.

Part 2: Some hairy autumn sea miles remained between Sea-Finn and her Midcoast Maine destination, including a forecast of 17- to 20-foot waves, 65-mph winds – and infamous Kennedy Rock.

By Pam Humbert For Points East The new year was still young and unsullied back in mid-January when our club met to unveil their summer cruising plans. The room was abuzz with dreams and the anticipation of a fresh new year and a season yet

The fates conspired against me in my attempts to visit Fishers Island, as though an invisible force was blocking my access to it. Last summer, I broke through, with an emotional epiphany.

By Tim Plouff For Points East It was to be a glorious summer day in Maine, and the promise of making new discoveries – as always, to us – was as exciting as the forecast. Our boating friends Allison and Andy Moorwood had proposed a

How do you get a teen-age boy to go cruising in Maine with his father (no, this is not the lead to a new joke), to share in the joy of quiet nights under a blanket of stars, to be away from his friends, from

When my son and shipmate Randy, and his family, rented a cottage in Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard, I decided to solo my 33-foot Young Brothers Jonesport-type lobsterboat south for a visit.

By Nim Marsh For Points East Magazine November 12 breaks in high overcast, 52°, wind southwest, 10. At mid-day the air is still raw, but the compass reads 180° – due south – and all is right with the world. At roughly Mile 34 on

Part 2: Contending with windless seas, tipsy restaurant diners, and the threat of leisurely breakfasts and shopping sprees, the J/30 Mojo finds herself near the doorstep of the Maine coast.

Part 1: With crew unavailable, the author, a relative cruising greenhorn, chose to singlehand to Downeast Maine from New York. He reached Kennebunkport, learned a lot, and nobody got hurt.

Mark and the indomitable Diana set sail from Buzzards Bay’s Red Brook Harbor aboard the J/30 Mojo, destination Mount Desert in Downeast Maine. The first leg, to Gloucester, was almost flawless.

By David Roper This year’s cruise to Maine was supposed to be a quiet, reflective time spent mostly anchored alone in a bay I’ve always loved. For the first time in many years, my wife would sail with me on the Downeast leg from our

A medical emergency cuts short a cruise of a lifetime

Some of the coast’s most interesting eel ruts are invested of a particular attraction because only rarely do the tides, our timing, and the weather align, at which occasion we get to plumb the depths of interesting places like Pleasant Point Gut. Only a few

Home: safety, quietude, belonging. Port: haven for mariners and vessels. Saquatucket Harbor, in Harwich Port, Mass., has been our home port – away from our true home port – for 20 years.

I promised I’d buy a bigger boat, with a standing-headroom cabin, if she survived a summer cruising on my J/24. She not only endured, she thrived. The ball was in my court. Big time!

June, 1994. 200 miles south of The Cape. Wind 40 knots, gusting higher. 20-foot waves. Water north of the Gulf Stream 50 degrees. Destination, Spain. This is the story of how we almost got there.

Let’s join this peripatetic cruiser aboard his Saga 43 ILENE, around the cabin table, for a breezy account of a monthlong cruise along tiny Rhode Island’s extensive and varied shores.

Cruising under sail is one of the few places in life in which we can escape a world certain it has a right to be in our faces 24/7, to always be badgering us to buy stuff, act now, shape and share our views, to

We always spend as much time as possible on our Finngulf 391 sloop West Wind, a 39’ masterpiece from Finland. Whether we would be aboard this past summer was certainly in doubt.

By Marilyn Pond Brigham From 2005 to 2009, I was a Waterlily. Waterlilies are members of the mostly over-40 ladies sailing program at Quissett Yacht Club (QYC) in Falmouth, Mass. The Waterlilies program meets on Friday mornings, July through August, and has done so since

By Frederick Findlen One beautiful October morning, my wife and I, both novice mariners, decided to take our last boating trip of the year. We checked the marine forecast, then launched our 17-foot motorboat in the New Meadows River in Brunswick, Maine. The plan was

Ride the prevailing southwest wind north and east along the New England coast, and you’ll ultimately find yourself in the pristine waters of Downeast Maine. Take the offshore fast track there.

I married this man because, well, sailing was part of his fabric, and I was determined it would be part of mine, too. Little did I know then that I also had a magic boating key to pass on to my family.

By Dick Klain My last cruise down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) was several years ago. Since that time, I have stayed up to date on the ditch through friends. When the coronavirus hit, I wondered what my friends who were still down south would be

This means we’re going to cruise clockwise around a figurative clock face in Gloucester Harbor, check out the seaport’s charms, and learn of the weed-bearded growlers and hazards that abound there.

Sailing Scared: Maine to Florida 2014-15 by Karlene Osborne; Custom Communications, Inc., 2019; 128 pp.; $16.95. Book review by Randy Randall Reading “Sailing Scared,” Karlene Osborne’s new book about a cruise from Maine to Florida via the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), one realizes early on how

Experience is the best teacher, and lessons can be learned by straddling “exciting” and “really dumb.” In that spirit, I planned a 20-mile, Force 5 downwind flier from Portland to Harpswell

Guest Perspective: Paul Brown Fundy Flotilla 2004, from Northeast Harbor to Grand Manan, and then on to Saint John and the St. John River. Brownscow, my Beneteau Evasion 32, had made it to Grand Manan, New Brunswick, and then had to leave the flotilla as

The schooner was pinned against 40-foot cliffs, pounded by seas that threw spray over their tops. A former owner of a towing and salvage firm, I thought I could haul her off with my 46-foot sedan cruiser.

On their first short cruises as a couple (see “Cruising with Diana, Part 1,” December 2019), it was two boat-lengths forward/one back for Mark and Diana as they set courses – often divergent – to perceived common grounds on which they might sail constructively, as

The first trip to the Isles of Shoals in the new year was a combination supply run for the Star Island caretakers and a reconnaissance mission for upcoming building projects. We loaded a dozen small bags of groceries and a few bottles of wine –

Part 1: I had this great, new girlfriend, and I wanted to take her cruising, but my boat was a 40-year-old J/24 with minimal, claustrophobic accommodations. Well, one step at a time.

 “Low bridge, we’re coming to a town,” the old barge song continues, and these days many of those towns on New York’s Western Erie Canal and Seneca Lake are spellbinding waterfront villages. Aboard Weak Moment, our 32-foot trawler, we’ve now seen quite a few of

By Tim Plouff For most Mainers, the name Saddleback has long been associated with the western Maine mountain near Rangeley that was a popular ski resort for decades before successive owners fell on hard times. While the ski trails remain closed, an effort to re-start

Many years ago, in the late ’90s, I had an old Star that I loved in a way that was inversely proportional to the aggravation it caused me. One of my top-five epic sails was aboard this boat, as was one of my top-five epic

We awoke to the reflections of sunlit seas dancing across the cabin ceiling, a rich wash of blue sky overhead and the telltales hanging limp. The mate, who functions better than I in the early hours, pulled up a forecast. “Southwest 5,” she muttered sleepily

The last big weekend of the year promised a full house at the Oceanic Hotel. A two-day island wedding extravaganza was also on the schedule.

Guest Perspective: Capt. Michael L. Martel I awoke in the darkness with a start, disoriented, only to eventually realize that I was still in my bunk, fully dressed and wrapped in my blanket against the cold. Even though the last two days had seen the

 The move aboard Klang II was supposed to be the start of our live-aboard lives and, perhaps, some ocean vagabond years, but a boatyard conflagration made a grand attempt to intervene.

Guest perspective: Christopher Birch “What’d you sail in on?” asked the man shaving at the sink next to me. “A Caravan 18,” I replied, pleased with my quick thinking and grateful for the shaving cream concealing my smirk. It was a beautiful August morning in

Sure, New Hampshire has a paltry 18 miles of Atlantic shoreline, but it packs a disproportionately wide variety of cruising sights and experiences in just New Castle and Portsmouth alone.

And it was a sweet life indeed aboard the 41-foot Concordia yawl Dolce, on a delivery from Boston to the Newport Boat Brokerage Show to be sold. No one bought her, but that isn’t my story.

Part 2: For years, son Randy wanted to spend just one night where no marinas, restaurants, or marine facilities existed, just wildness. Before we turned back to Marblehead, I took him to Roque Island.

The Cape Cod Canal separates the Cape peninsula from the mainland in serpentine fashion, and, as with the notorious reptile of Eden, transit requires numerous encounters with tidal temptation.

Part 1: Glorious sunshine, water glinting like diamonds, spruces above granite-shored islands, a lobsterman’s windshield flashing in the sun. This is what we dream about on dreary February days.

Guest perspective/Randy Randall “Hey Dad,” Jeremy yelled. “Looks like you hit the jackpot! What is all this stuff?” He was right. I’d practically filled the front of my kayak with trash. “Help me unload all this,” I told him. But you see collecting trash is

I’ve explored five Martha’s Vineyard harbors – Menemsha, Lake Tashmoo, Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown – and each seems to delight visiting cruisers in its own special way

Anyone who’s been to Great Salt Pond, on Block Island, knows how magical it is, especially on a warm summer night, and you’re surrounded by hundreds of other cruisers. Without anyone there – not a single other boat – would it still feel the same

Part 2: The author reveals more favorite Maine anchorages – not the “best” ones – and the crew of the Saga 43 Ilene favors small places with solitude or ones with good eats, museums and theater.

Smitten by the Masefield “Sea Fever” romance of sailing vessels, but hesitant to embrace the recreation of moving small boats with the wind, Tricia espouses powerboating. Years later, epiphany.

You’re watching a video of the coast from Mystic, Conn., to Boothbay, Maine, filmed in midsummer from offshore. Now press the fast-forward. But don’t forget fast-reverse.

Part 1: Not “Best Anchorages,” just our preferred harbors, islands, rivers and coves, and we favor smaller places with nature and solitude – or ones with good eats, museums and theater.

And why not? This seaport on the North Shore of Boston has a grand maritime history, classic architecture, tourist haunts, boating services, and more witchcraft lore than the average salt can handle.

Part 2: Former professional mariner Capt. Dick Allen and his wife Bev begin the circuitous homeward leg of their inland Triangle Loop cruise aboard their 32-foot Seaquest trawler Weak Moment.

Part 1: What does a former professional ocean mariner do when he seeks relaxation? He heads to the inland waterways of the U.S. and Canadian Triangle Loop on his 32-foot trawler.

Competing in a New England classic-yacht event aboard a British-built 1939 Gloucester-type staysail schooner may not be for the weak of spirit, but it will be exhilarating and the experience of a lifetime.

New England offers countless harbors, both great and small – some bustling with commercial traffic, others quiet and “undiscovered.” For me, none is more interesting, vibrant or gorgeous than Boston Harbor.

Part 2: In the August issue, the McGuires and their trawler Hope entered Long Island Sound, expecting to be underwhelmed. Instead they were delighted and excited. On the next leg, they were challenged.

In 2017, we cruised from our hailing port of New York City to the Bras d’Or Lakes of Cape Breton Island, at the north end of the Maritime province of Nova Scotia. We liked what we found.

“You have to sail Newfoundland; there’s nothing like it,” a colleague had proffered decades ago. And for years we dreamed of cruising to this Maritime province. Then, finally, our reverie came true.

Our eastern Long Island Sound cruise was one of the more delightful – and humorous – we’ve ever logged; and it was, literally, right around the corner from our Rhode Island homeport.

In 2017, ten sports boarded the f/v Nor’easter, out of Kennebunkport, Maine, to fish some 25 miles at sea, in 300 feet of water on Jeffreys Ledge, for cod, haddock, pollock . . . and blue shark!?

Can a sail across Maine’s Casco Bay qualify as a cruise? Yes, when the vessel is a nine-foot Nutshell Pram with a podiatric whisker pole and the skipper has prehensile toes.

Part 2: In the December issue, this 75-year-old circumnavigator was motoring toward the legendary Downeast island from southern Maine in an 80-year-old square-stern canoe when his cruise went figuratively south. Here’s how he reached his hallowed destination.

Part 1: A 75-year-old circumnavigator, I hoped to visit Roque Island, Downeast, from southern Maine, in an 80-year-old canvas-covered, square-stern canoe. My learning curve was steep.

We’ve got routes and geographical waypoints. Alternate itineraries. Mileages. Shoal sections. Open stretches. Wind exposures. History of the Atlantic, Gulf and Okeechobee waterways.

Part 1: We were told that the Statue of Liberty must be seen at least once from one’s own boat. This was our hook for a cruise from Newburyport, Mass., to New York Harbor.

Guest perspective/W.R. Cheney Someone once said, “Go west young man,” and I usually do, although I’m not that young any more. I go west not to build a sod house and start a farm on the Great Plains, nor to join the forty-niners seeking gold

Guest perspective/Bill Hezlep In the Rivers and Harbors Act of March 3, 1909 , Congress ordered the United States Army Corps of Engineers to develop a set of surveys and proposals for the construction of “a continuous waterway, inland where practicable,Read More

Guest Perspective/Russ Roth Every year Marty and I try to go someplace new. For us this is primarily focused on the coast of Maine. But we believe it is something to strive for no matter your homeport. It is just too easy to fall into

The Run to the Crescent is a fundraising 13-mile inflatable-dinghy cruise-in-company from Newburyport, Mass., up the Merrimack River to the Crescent Yacht Club in Haverhill.

Fall. This four-letter word creates passion in many, but I lament the nasty season that follows, so please excuse my disdain for the arrival of autumn.

Like so many New England sailors, I have long thought of taking Preamble, my 1998 Island Packet 37, south for the winter. Typically, the idea surfaces while I’m finalizing my fall haul-out and winter storage plans.

More than 60 years ago, a young Bay Stater conceived the idea, and started planning it only a couple of years ago. Now it’s been realized in a fast Cal 2-30 named Scooch.

What an incredible week my husband Bob and I had aboard the 700-passenger m/v Adonia, the sole ship in Carnival Corp’s brand-new Fathom line.

Our mission was to deliver a 38-foot Young Brothers gillnetter from Islip, Long Island, to Portland, Maine, the week before Christmas. The pennants on her gillnet buoys snapped ominously like prayer flags.

Part 1: What do you do when you want to attempt the Great Loop, or the Down East Loop, but don’t have the time? You invent a new, shorter circle and name it after its fanciful shape.

In the spirit of minimalist David Buckman, the author embarked upon his “Epic Voyage Writ Small” in a 20-foot daysailer. But did David ever sail with two 10-year-olds as crew?

Part I: The 19th- and early 20th-century granite mining operations in Maine's Penobscot Bay were the hooks for this trailer-boat cruise to Hurricane Island, Tenants Harbor, and the Muscle Ridge Channel.

A perfect summer day on the outer Cranberry Isles - with boat and bicycles - confirmed to us that this combination is ideal for scratching the surface of these islands.

A leisurely ramble, east to west along Maine's Eggemoggin Reach in wet, windless and buggy conditions still delights the skipper of the 22-foot, engineless catboat Penelope.

While Middle America puts on a pretty face for those who pass by on the highway, the view from the Intracoastal Waterway is of a different stripe, perhaps a more accurate display of what America is all about.

Between Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound are the pristine Elizabeth Islands, from which it's a short hop to Martha's Vineyard. A pleasant, relaxing week of true cruising can be had in and around them.

After five years of roaming the seas, the Martin family has found a spot of land on which to live, at least for now.