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 a short trip in theirRead More

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 (generated by the spinning ofRead More

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 Christmas 2013. Tom’s wife DudleyRead More

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.