Cruise of the Leight, Part Four: I was imagining my summer of cruising as a “sailabout” of sorts, sharing qualities of the aboriginal Australians’ walkabouts. I was seeking the peace of wild places, mysteries of nature, depths of solitude, and the incomprehensible energy of the sea. I wanted to lieRead More

Cruise of the Leight, Part 3: I was imagining my summer of cruising as a “sailabout” of sorts, sharing qualities of the aboriginal Australians’ walkabouts. I was seeking the peace of wild places, mysteries of nature, depths of solitude, and the incomprehensible energy of the sea. I wanted to lie in the sun, drink wine, read, write and muse .

Cruise of the Leight, Part II: I was imagining my summer of cruising as a “sailabout” of sorts, sharing qualities of the aboriginal Australians’ walkabouts. I was seeking the peace of wild places, mysteries of nature, depths of solitude, and the incomprehensible energy of the sea. I wanted to lieRead More

I was imagining my summer of cruising as a “sailabout” of sorts, sharing qualities of the aboriginal Australians’ walkabouts. I was seeking the peace of wild places, mysteries of nature, depths of solitude, and the incomprehensible energy of the sea. I wanted to lie in the sun, drink wine, read,Read More

Playing the weather cards in the Gulf of Maine can be an uncertain business, for the forecasts and local meteorological realities, particularly wind speed and direction, are at odds as often as they’re on the mark. Summer 2016 was a blustery one, the forecasts regularly calling for winds gusting 20Read More

Some say there are no wild places yet to discover in the Gulf of Maine, or wild times to be had in its ports-of-call. Nonsense!

Moores Head, the spruce-crowned jolt of Isle au Haut, was doubled on the water as the Leight’s bow cleaved satin seas, a faint chuckle coming from under the bow. We’d waited out three days of easterly weather in Seal Trap and were itching to sail, but only a few errantRead More

Humor is a rich, but all too rare a commodity among coasters, for we are a serious-minded bunch. Further, many amusing incidents have no witnesses, and a good bit of it is accidental. In 70-odd years of sailing, I have made just about every laughable gaffe there is to beRead More

Pulpit Harbor reminds me of a favorite aunt of mine, there being a pleasing disposition, interesting character, old-school charm, and sense of style to it that has aged well, and is a pleasure to behold. Though hardly wild, there’s a pleasing ruggedness to the spruce-crowned shore, and a sense thatRead More

Ragged Island, the farthest offshore of Maine communities, still seems possessed of the rugged character and drama invoked in Elisabeth Ogilvie’s “Tide Trilogy.” Pithy novels set in the early 1900s, when life 15 miles to sea was a stark and elemental business, the spectacle and gritty realities of the placeRead More