A practical resignation is not the same as giving up. It is an unresisting acceptance of the inevitable – and it includes patience, submission, tolerance and fortitude.

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.

Grew up in Camden The Mystery Harbor is Camden, Maine. I was born and grew up in Camden during the ’50s and ’60s. Looking out, the harbor is Curtis Island. My great-grandfather was a lighthouse keeper there when it was called Negro Island. Anson Norton Thomaston, Maine   Maine toRead More

I got engaged there! That’s Gosport Harbor, at the Isles of Shoals, looking across the N.H./Maine border toward Cedar and Smuttynose Islands, with Appledore (Shoals Marine Labs) at 11:00 o’clock. The view is from Star Island, Rye, N.H., in front of the Oceanic Hotel, operated by the Star Island CorporationRead More

Midwinter 2021 By Tim Plouff We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came. -John F. Kennedy January in Maine can be a long, cruel month. TheRead More

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.

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 trip Downeast to Jonesport, Maine,Read More

By Jack Farrell For Points East Magazine The regular visitor to this space may recall a story from a few years back when I was given permission by a wise octogenarian (and frequently cantankerous) Star Island guest to be a curmudgeon once in a while. He declared that those ofRead More

View’s even better with a Mudslide This view is from the end dock at Kingman Yacht Center, in Cataumet, Mass. It’s a beautiful place to watch the sunset; even better if you are about 200 feet from this spot at the Chart Room, with one of their famous mudslides inRead More