Dave Roper has been a regular columnist for Points East for many years. Next to sailing, telling and writing stories is his favorite pastime. His books include Watching for Mermaids (a three-time Boston Globe best seller), Beyond Mermaids, and Rounding the Bend. All can be purchased through amazon.com or via his website: www.roperbooks.com His entertaining special event readings have been delivered at over 30 clubs throughout New England.
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
March 20, 2023
Spring 2023 By David Roper It could be his last night on earth. But twenty-seven year old Sam Martin doesn’t know that yet. It’s 9:35 pm. Saturday, January 5, 2004. It’s 12 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind is gusty and southwest. Sam is sitting on
Read MoreJanuary 30, 2023
Winter 2023 By David Roper For Points East In my files this winter, I came across this invitation from nearly twenty years ago, sent to ‘middle-aged sailing men’ who are now, in 2023, old sailing men: As a Middle-Aged Sailing Man Known to be a
Read MoreNovember 21, 2022
December 2022 By David Roper From the upcoming book, “The Ghosts of Gadus Island” August 11, 1967 – Morning, Day 1 A Remote Island Off the Coast of Maine A tall teenaged girl moves close to the cliff’s edge, looks out to sea, runs
Read MoreSeptember 26, 2022
October/November 2022 By David Roper As you can see from the black and white photo here of your Poppy, I have been watching much longer than you, for more than sixty years, in fact. Sailors know it is important to always keep a watchful eye,
Read MoreAugust 22, 2022
September 2022 By David Roper This is a continuation from the August issue of an excerpt from Dave’s upcoming book “The Ghosts of Gadus Island” August 1985 Artifacts – Gadus Island, Maine “What about cucumber guy?” Sophie asked, after Cleo joined her at the top
Read MoreJuly 25, 2022
August 2022 By David Roper This is a continuation from the July issue of an excerpt from Dave’s upcoming book “The Ghosts of Gadus Island” August 1985 Fog, Gadus Island After a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs, Sophie climbed a couple steps on
Read MoreJune 20, 2022
This is a continuation from the June issue of an excerpt from Dave’s upcoming book, The Ghosts of Gadus Island. July 2022 By David Roper August 1985 Fog, Gadus Island Cleo awoke to find their world embraced by a blurry soft white and edgeless cocoon
Read MoreMay 23, 2022
This is a continuation of Dave’s piece in the January/February 2022 issue, an excerpt from his novel (retitled), “The Ghosts of Gadus Island.” June 2022 By David Roper …She turned to her teenaged daughter Sophie, who was now leaning forward over the cabin trunk, anxiously
Read MoreApril 18, 2022
Back when I was 17, I took my first bible to sea. Oh, not that Bible. But a yellow paperback one. I figured it was maybe my best resource as I set off solo on my greatly modified ‘round the world adventure aboard my $2500,
Read MoreJanuary 31, 2022
January/February 2022 By David Roper These are the first published opening pages of Dave Roper’s new book, “Odin’s Island,” inspired by a true story. Odin’s Island – 1985 It had gotten cool, and the wind had started to increase and turn northeast, and this gave
Read MoreNovember 22, 2021
Boat and owner share some characteristics. They're both getting older, but not ready to part yet.
Read MoreSeptember 27, 2021
"I can't keep it from you any longer," I told my wife. It was a tough message to deliver, but I had to do it, for her sake.
Read MoreAugust 23, 2021
Atlantic crossing? Let's think about that a little more.
Read MoreJuly 26, 2021
Where does "Slush Fund" actually come from? Pick up some valuable trivia to impress your boating friends.
Read MoreJune 21, 2021
July 2012 By David Roper When visitors from landlocked places come sailing with us, it’s really sweet. They’re so excited, and try their best to assimilate to the sailing world, buying the proper boat shoes and sailing shorts, researching and trying out a few terms
Read MoreMay 17, 2021
June 2021 By David Roper Let’s face it: We humans are fascinated with screens. They’re everywhere. At every boat show there are throngs around the latest electronic breakthroughs. The marine store catalogs are filled with page after page of electronics. On boats, these electronics have
Read MoreApril 19, 2021
A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality. – John F. Kennedy May, 2021 By David Roper So, what should he do? There
Read MoreMarch 15, 2021
Spring and the boating season was fast arriving. It was time for "The Talk." Yeah, THAT talk.
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2021
Midwinter 2021 By David Roper There are good ships, and there are wood ships, The ships that sail the sea. But the best ships, are friendships, And may they always be. -Irish Proverb You could easily say that the pre-COVID-19 photo on the following page
Read MoreNovember 23, 2020
A 21-year-long relationship meets a soggy, although predictable, ending
Read MoreOctober 13, 2020
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
Read MoreSeptember 28, 2020
As soon as you set foot on a big yacht you belong to someone, not to yourself, and you die of boredom. -Coco Chanel By David Roper For Points East Magazine Tiny boats and huge yachts. The allure is almost always there, despite
Read MoreAugust 24, 2020
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
Read MoreJuly 25, 2020
By David Roper For Points East Once upon a time there was a man who felt that his life was a canvas painted in various shades of gray. His job lacked challenge, his friends were dull, and his girl didn’t cast her eyes down and
Read MoreJune 22, 2020
“We’re getting to be antiques,” I whispered to Elsa, as I collapsed into the cockpit after dropping the old Herreshoff anchor 50 yards off a nearly abandoned fisherman’s wharf. It was the end of a brisk fall solo sail, a late cruise, as I was
Read MoreMay 18, 2020
By David Roper In these times of COVID-19, statistics show that many people are virtually escaping to paradise via YouTube. If you Google “Sail to Paradise,” you’ll get 40,300,000 hits. As of today, there are 1,300,000,000 YouTube videos out there, movies from every imaginable category.
Read MoreApril 20, 2020
The Buddhist desire is to empty oneself in order to be filled. In this time of “social distancing” we certainly have an opportunity to slow time’s winged chariot, to empty ourselves of all the chatter and clatter of everyday life, to fill up the spaces
Read MoreMarch 16, 2020
By David Roper For Points East Editor’s note: Dave Roper is on vacation, so we’re cutting him a little slack this month. Here is one of our favorite columns of his, which ran in April, 2013. They owned a small inn on the coast of
Read MoreJanuary 27, 2020
As with fish tales and fishermen, we boaters have a tendency to exaggerate regarding the size of the wind. And why not? After all, there’s nothing so boring as an average statistic. Exaggerating wind speed, especially if you’ve been out in it on the water,
Read MoreNovember 18, 2019
Romance: a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life. I was in my mid-20s. A hopeless romantic. Alongside me sometimes stood a mailman or a UPS driver, sometimes both, by the pavilion on the right bank of the Mississippi River in
Read MoreSeptember 23, 2019
In ancient Roman times, Atargatis was a beautiful and powerful priestess who fell in love with a human shepherd boy. He, simply being mortal, did not survive her divine lovemaking and died. She became pregnant with his baby and soon became distraught and remorseful. After
Read MoreAugust 26, 2019
What often happens in Maine did: fog. How thick was it? Suffice to say, one year we could only electronically determine that we had “made harbor” each night. Even then, we were only half certain we were “in harbor” at all. Rarely did we see
Read MoreJuly 29, 2019
I’m writing this the day after receiving an email with this picture and a note that said her owner just couldn’t keep her up; that it was so sad to see such a beautiful yacht decline; that he was considering giving her away if anyone
Read MoreJune 21, 2019
Last summer I wrote a column about First-World problems and a bumblebee. Well, really it was about an engine that would struggle under load, making a sound not unlike a person choking to death. I dared not throttle up when that happened; hence, I ran
Read MoreMay 20, 2019
Last month, in the library of my town of Marblehead, Massachusetts, my friend and neighbor put on a world-class exhibition. Not of books, art or music. But of antique outboard motors – 20 of them. It was an exhibit of the first 50 years of
Read MoreApril 22, 2019
There’s always been something special about conversations in the cabin. Maybe it’s the feeling of having “made harbor,” perhaps after a long day at sea, the anchor dug in nicely, the stinging spray and wind now gone from our faces. Somehow, fears and trepidations get
Read MoreMarch 18, 2019
For three years, Barry was my crew chief aboard a 135’ Mississippi sternwheeler I used to captain on the Upper Mississippi. But he was more than that. He was an incorrigible practical joker and a daredevil. He rode his 1000cc motorcycle at insane speeds, pulling
Read MoreJanuary 28, 2019
The following is a sneak peak at David’s forthcoming book, “Beyond Mermaids: Life’s Tangles, Knots, and Bends,” content that will likely appear as the preface of the book. It’s tempting to draw out the world you want from a picture. A lot of what we
Read MoreNovember 19, 2018
If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Statesman, 50 AD Years ago, I wrote about embarking on a process of understanding which is the right boat for each of us, and doing that
Read MoreSeptember 24, 2018
In my late 20s, I somehow bit off more than I could chew, talking the owners of an emerging excursion boat business into implementing my grand plans for its expansion. I modeled this expansion on another business I worked for: the 10th largest excursion boat
Read MoreAugust 27, 2018
Those of you who read last month’s column know I saved the life of a bumblebee and that, as he was headed to shore, he buzzed me. Not that kind of buzz. More of an informational kind of buzz. You see, my engine had been
Read MoreJuly 30, 2018
I’ve always liked bumblebees, but that Sunday morning my mind was elsewhere when I spied one on deck, upside down and caught under the jib sheet. I wasn’t in a compassionate mood, as my broken engine diagnostic process was reaching the end of the line
Read MoreJune 25, 2018
When my dad gave “Sea Gypsy” back to me, he wrote on the inside cover page: “The Bible as Translated for David Roper.” It’s true, I did want to follow in the author’s wake. Even as a teenager, Peter Tangvald’s sailing vagabond lifestyle appealed to
Read MoreMay 21, 2018
Once upon a time, 35 years ago, I lived in a houseboat under a bridge on the Upper Mississippi River, where I happened to captain a 135-foot sternwheel cruise ship. Having grown up on the ocean, I’d always thought of the Mississippi as some legendary
Read MoreApril 23, 2018
Years ago I wrote a column about my notorious, crazy and fearless water-borne antics as a teenager. Most of these occurred in a 1960s-vintage Boston Whaler in and around Marblehead Harbor. And most of the negative outcomes from my antics were due to excessive speed.
Read MoreMarch 19, 2018
David RoperOur oceans aren’t turning back. That’s clearer than ever, especially during our recent devastatingly high tides, which got me to thinking about old King Canute. I regularly walk by Brown’s Island, a lovely spot off Marblehead only accessible by foot at low tide.
Read MoreJanuary 29, 2018
For Christmas my dear wife gave me two books with the word “silence” in their titles. Perhaps she was trying to tell me something. They are both amazing. I haven’t shut up since. Really, though, I seek silence. On land. At sea. It recharges me.
Read MoreNovember 20, 2017
Well, you are about to embark on another enlightening, informative, instructive, illuminating, enthralling and clarifying episode of “Boat Talk,” hosted by The Shackle Brothers. As a bonus, we’ll also have a new round of The Puzzler, designed to stump all of you; or at least
Read MoreSeptember 25, 2017
As a devoted fan of “Car Talk,” the much-loved call-in radio show, I could never understand why there were never similar format shows on other subjects. Why not “Wife Talk,” or “Husband Talk,” or “Parents of Teenager Talk?” Why not “Boat Talk?” Well, you are
Read MoreAugust 28, 2017
“A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree.” Lord Nelson Until he went to sea with young Cubby on his sail back from Maine in a small cruising sloop, Big Red hadn’t been seasick and never dizzy when he got ashore. That
Read MoreJuly 24, 2017
“You should keep your opinions on all this boat stuff to yourself, Dave,” my dear wife said the other day, just after I’d picked up the mooring and settled down in Elsa’s cockpit. “They’re really just observations, not opinions,” I replied. “People are different. They
Read MoreJune 26, 2017
I used to be scared when I went to sea. But it was a healthy fear that was good for me, and got me this far. Then along came the kind of technology that exuded certainty, almost saying, “I’ll handle this part. I’m always correct.
Read MoreMay 22, 2017
Robert Pirsig became a sailor subsequent to the success of his five-million-copy bestseller, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” He also easily broke my publisher-rejection record, with 121 publishers saying “no” before one took him on. He holds the Guinness record as the most
Read MoreApril 24, 2017
“I don’t know, Paul,” I said in an uneasy tone as I sat on the couch of the big-time yacht broker who’d set up most of my boat delivery jobs. “I need to draw the line and quit this business before I’m 30. “I’m not
Read MoreMarch 13, 2017
It was in the midst of a long stretch of nothing as we headed home from Maine – hour after hour of incessant, greasy, undulating seas and an occasional glimpse of land off Cape Neddick – when my old psychologist friend spoke. We’d both been
Read MoreJanuary 27, 2017
In the midst of this year’s Points East holiday gathering I wondered, as I have done yearly at this event, why does this magazine “taste” so good? Why the devoted readership? Why the nearly 100 percent staff attendance at this party, year after year, many
Read MoreNovember 21, 2016
A bucket list adventure to the Pacific Northwest ends successfully for our columnist, but now withhout a bit of disaster.
Read MoreOctober 1, 2016
“This is not only a gripping story, but also one of the most dramatic and detailed sailing adventures of all time,” said none other than Walter Cronkite on the dust jacket of Ferenc Máté’s novel, “Ghost Sea.” Nearly a century ago, on the wild British
Read MoreSeptember 1, 2016
As we rounded Appledore Island at the Isle of Shoals Saturday afternoon, I crossed my fingers. It was high season, a weekend, and unbelievably hot ashore, so I feared all the moorings in the Shoals’ Gosport Harbor would be taken. But it was worse than
Read MoreAugust 1, 2016
As I was rigging some new jib sheets on board Elsa last week, a fleet of little 420 sailboats, each crewed by two young teens, sailed by me in Marblehead Harbor, headed in after a race. These kids were happy, smiling, and very polite to
Read MoreJuly 1, 2016
This month’s column was tight on deadline because I had to wait until June 5 for the release of critical information regarding Chang Ho’s mystery evening abduction in 1999. I have now obtained that information, which reinforces the phrase “the truth is stranger than fiction.”
Read MoreJune 1, 2016
Since the announcement of the upcoming publication of “Being Big Red,” a bunch of Points East readers have asked me, “How about a taste of what’s to come?” So why not a sneak preview? Here’s a piece from the middle of the book. “Big Red”
Read MoreApril 1, 2016
A good friend who is editor of a particular magazine I write for sent me a nice note a couple years back when I said I had a real conflict and couldn’t make it to an important event. “Well, Dave, I’ve yet to meet anyone
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2016
“It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see,” Henry David Thoreau wrote. He might have been thinking about this vessel. I know I was. And I knew I was looking at something beautiful. Something still beautiful. Others strolled by, seeing nothing,
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October 1, 2010
October 2010 By David Roper Faith, fear and fateThe strong southeast winds had not dropped with the sun as they usually did that time of year, and the threatening black ledges 30 yards from Elsa’s stern off barren Smuttynose Island were close enough to show
Read MoreSeptember 1, 2010
September 2010 By David Roper As they rounded the point, the fog came right back. Just then, the young boy caught the first smell of spruce and felt the warmth of the land. Despite the fog, he looked for the entrance to the cove, eager
Read MoreAugust 1, 2010
August 2010 By David Roper The thousands of items of marine gear on the market today supposedly exist to allow us a myriad of choices to facilitate our ability to get away, go boating, relax and be happy. I wonder, though. Robert Bellah, one of
Read MoreJuly 1, 2010
July 2010 By David Roper It’s 3:22 a.m. on a Friday in June and I’m sitting on Elsa’s starboard berth looking across at a small oil painting of Marblehead Harbor that highlights a handful of gaff-rigged sloops and schooners from another century. The painting has
Read MoreJune 1, 2010
June 2010 By David Roper Eight or nine miles out, in plain sight, Boon Island lifts its solitary shaft aloft like an ‘eternal exclamation mark’ to the temerity of its builders. There is no comfortable dwelling on that lonely rock, over which storms sweep unchecked.
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May 1, 2010
May 2010 By David Roper Why I’ve never sailed around the worldMany years ago – at age 16, in fact – I decided to run away to sea. I had been reading of Robin Lee Graham’s adventures as a globe-circling, solo sailing teenager. Seemed like
Read MoreApril 1, 2010
April 2010 By David Roper He broke his right hip at what was then his “advanced” age of 87. He was lifting the battery out of Coda, his last and final boat, which was tied to the dock at the end of a pier. He
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2010
Midwinter 2010 By David Roper On Dec. 15, 2009, Kenneth Ketchum, age 80, decided to sail alone to Mexico from Houston on his Downeast 32 sailboat. He had been living in his recreational vehicle, which he sold to buy the boat. One hundred and fifteen
Read MoreDecember 1, 2009
December 2009 By David Roper The boat was very tired, and the thought of getting her out of the shallow Maine cove, and sailing her to Massachusetts, made me feel weak and jittery. The paint on the sides had lost its high-gloss finish, and had
Read MoreOctober 1, 2009
October 2009 By David Roper She lay languidly between the arms of Harbor and Hall islands in the midst of ledge-strewn Muscongus Bay and, despite the disheveled condition of her captain and two mates who had not seen the likes of soap, razors or toothbrushes
Read MoreSeptember 1, 2009
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
Read MoreAugust 1, 2009
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
Read MoreJuly 1, 2009
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
Read MoreJune 1, 2009
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
Read MoreMay 1, 2009
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,”
Read MoreApril 1, 2009
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
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2009
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
Read MoreDecember 1, 2008
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
Read MoreOctober 1, 2008
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,
Read MoreSeptember 1, 2008
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
Read MoreAugust 1, 2008
August 2008 By David Roper The four of us were sitting around a mesquite-wood campfire at the base of a canyon amid the hills way outside of Tucson, near the old Tucson to Tombstone stagecoach road. We had spent all day in the saddle, my
Read MoreJuly 1, 2008
July 2008 By David Roper Remember responding to that “double dare” as a kid? Remember looking down off that ledge or that railroad bridge on that hot summer’s day and feeling pressure from your peers overcoming your basic survival instincts? Many of us jumped. Stupid.
Read MoreJune 1, 2008
June 2008 By David Roper A Points East reader fortunate enough to keep his lunch down while getting through my column about my holding-tank surgical removal struggle and the resulting effluent assault asked a legitimate question: So what did you put in that big space
Read MoreMay 1, 2008
May 2008 By David Roper “Hope for the best, but Plan for the Worst.” A famous round-the-world sailor had this imprinted on his companionway bulkhead. I guess he did it as a constant reminder. Makes sense. Those of us with a few miles under our
Read MoreApril 1, 2008
April 2008 By David Roper Thousands, maybe millions, of seagulls, geese, cormorants, ducks and fish poop into the water all around me 24 hours a day when I go cruising. But my waste is human waste, which apparently is a special excrement and needs a
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2008
Midwinter 2008 By David Roper My age of innocence ended around midnight one Saturday in the summer of 1969. It happened alongside a cruising yawl named Seaduction. What I inadvertently caused to happen, and what I experienced in a few short minutes, gave me my
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2004
What began as a promising relationship between man and bird ended tragically.
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