Dave Roper is a regular columnist for Points East. Next to sailing, telling and writing stories is Dave’s favorite pastime. His most recent book, Watching for Mermaids was a three-time Boston Globe bestseller www.watchingformermaids.net. His writing has been published in eighteen languages. Dave has been a yacht delivery skipper, captain of a 135’ Mississippi River stern wheel cruise ship, and life-long cruiser along the coast of Maine aboard his 31’ Independence sloop, Elsa Marie. Dave is the founder of A-Script, a career advisory and resume writing firm in Marblehead, MA. davidroper00@gmail.com
September 2009 By David Roper The wing of sail divides wind and then wind joins it together again. Nothing is used, so nothing is wasted. The Tao of Sailing Hold those words and bear with me. Think about cycles – life cycles. I know I was, as I sat underRead More
August 2009 By David Roper The year I met Big Red I was living alone in an ark under a bridge in St. Paul, Minn., on the Upper Mississippi River. Dave’s Ark was a 42-foot home-built steel houseboat which, due to its ancient and long-ago seized-up Ford 302 engines, neverRead More
July 2009 By David Roper Late afternoon finds her standing at the very edge of the sea, waves just touching her toes, the rising onshore breeze lifting her hair, sunlight glowing against her skin and faded neon bikini. One of the locals, one of the women who brings no accessoriesRead More
June 2009 By David Roper The most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you? Go ahead, name it. But you won’t top this: Actually, the absolute King of All Embarrassing Moments was witnessed not by me, but by my boss the year I was the captain of his 58-footRead More
May 2009 By David Roper Years ago, back in my boat delivery days, I was hired to help a couple head off on the first leg of their dream. They were an anxious pair, long on their romantic vision of “escaping and living the dream,” and short on the practicalRead More
April 2009 By David Roper July 12, 1959: 44.04N/68.35W, a small island east of Isle au Haut, Maine: So I ran, as I always did. Actually seeing two mermaids was all too much for a 9-year-old to understand. Who in the world would ever believe me? Talking about it withRead More
Midwinter 2009 By David Roper June 15, 1608: In 1608, the English navigator Henry Hudson was skirting the polar ice off the Arctic coast of Russia in his second attempt to find a northeast route to the spice markets of China. Near the coast of Novaya Zemlya, Hudson made hisRead More
December 2008 By David Roper On May 5, 1994, my now 92-year-old dad (aka, “Grampy” to Points East readers) self-published a book called “Roper Boats.” The book contained both pictures and narrative, done in his inimitable style, describing about 40 Roper boats owned either by his father, himself, or byRead More
October 2008 By David Roper I have eaten lunch in the Driftwood restaurant on Marblehead’s waterfront with the same three guys (a group known locally as “the boys“) once a week, 52 weeks a year, every year for the past decade. Over these 500-plus lunches, many conversations have been aboutRead More
September 2008 By David Roper For the last three days and nights there’s been just two of us in here. Two boats. Two people. He’s about a hundred yards away, aboard a tired 21-foot low-end cabin sailboat. One spreader droops down forlornly like the broken wing of a bird. HeRead More
We have complete issues archived to 2009. You can read them for free by following this link.