August 2003 By Tom Snyder I went sailing in early June, and I know this sounds like bragging, but I got lucky. You never think it’s gonna happen and then, bang, all the stars line up, and there you are thinking, “I can’t wait to tell all the guys IRead More

July 2003 By Dodge Morgan The deep sea is the most pervasive wilderness of all existence on earth, wilder than a mountaintop or a backwoods river or a desert barren or an untouched timberland. The deep sea is intensely and uniquely wild by virtue of its expanse and by theRead More

July 2003 By Tom Snyder There’s a fun, new language in the airI recently wrote a column for this magazine trying to update and to render politically correct the traditional vernacular of seamen. In it I mentioned body parts and I am sorry, because I crossed a line. In myRead More

June 2003 By Dodge Morgan I hear those stories that begin “I remember when I was” all the time. Often coming out of my own mouth. And then I scrub my memory a bit cleaner and can actually “remember when I was.” The purpose of these stories is to pointRead More

June 2003 By Tom Snyder Sometimes when one is invited to go aboard another person’s boat (let’s call him Lance) one discovers that Lance is a nautical know-it-all, a seamanship showoff, a boatyard boaster, an aquatic attention-seeker. Boats are fun, but even on a beautiful boat on a beautiful day,Read More

May 2003 By Dodge Morgan The Human Genome Project has really screwed up how we can account for our personal sailing characteristics. Who knows but it may have even screwed up how all of human behavior is viewed. We used to have a simple “nature or nurture” debate, but nowRead More

May 2003 By Tom Snyder This is not a legal document with which I am trying to sue Points East Magazine or anything. All I am saying is that, for the record, I definitely thought of the whole flotilla thing before this magazine did. I remember saying to a friendRead More

April 2003 By Tom Snyder Maturity and experience tell us not to go to a boat store when snow is falling. This is more profound than wisdom advising us to avoid supermarket shopping when hungry, because this other hunger leans more toward longing. I looked up the word “longing” inRead More

April 2003 By Dodge Morgan The advent of the annual boat shows seems especially incongruous this winter. It takes a stretch of imagination to covet a pair of handcrafted oars when the outside temperature in Portland is 17 degrees below zero. But because boat people are natural dreamers anyway, theRead More

Readers write: Scariest moments at sea