Sailing Vacations
A Maine Windjammer

Good morning everyone. We have big doin's here in our world. The weather has continued to be magnificent with temperatures soaring in to the 50s. The sap has been running and we boiled our first batch of syrup on Sunday. The sweetest taste you can imagine comes from your own homemade maple syrup. If you have any kind of maple (or even a birch) in your door yard, tap it and boiled down just a gallon. You will probably only get a half cup of syrup but the taste will amaze you. Down at the harbor the docks were launched on Friday and rode out this weekend's storm just fine. Many thanks go the harbormaster and the Camden town crew who made this possible. Yesterday chief mate Rob was up for a visit and we ran the power line and did a quick clean up aboard the schooner. After a few months in Belize Rob has some good stories to tell and the corn rows in his hair to prove it. Tomorrow I am off to Texas for my annual trip to sail aboard the tallship Elissa in Galveston. The sailing...

Good morning everyone. The weather has been absolutely spectacular these past few days… a harbinger of summer weather to come. There is so much we want to do now that the snow is melting away. Sawlogs that have been buried in the snow drifts are ready for sawing. Yesterday Bruce and I built a brow for the mill. In the past we have had to roll the logs up a couple planks to get them on the mill. With the new brow we can keep logs off of the ground and roll them straight from our tandem axle trailer onto the brow and from the brow onto the mill. It all goes pretty darn slick. And all of this was built with logs that Bruce and I milled ourselves. I also fired up the mill expecting to have a number of cobwebs to have to clean up after a year of idleness. She started on the second pull with gas that I put in a year ago! That Briggs and Stratton fuel stabilizer is amazing stuff. I highly recommend it. I whittled out one small pine log and the mill ran just fine. Bruce has some more sp...

Good morning everyone. We are up and running with several projects this week. Jim Dugan has been hard at it again and built us a new website that we can begin to manage and update on our own. That means fewer visits to the "cave" where all things great in the publishing world originate, on and off-line. Check out the new website . While it may look a whole lot like the old one there are many subtle differences that the creepy crawlies of the web will recognize and a few that even you may recognize. The website may begin to take on a little more of our voice over time but Jim swears he will be watching like a hawk for anything that does not meet his gold standard. Jim knows I can get a little carried away. But we look forward to being able to keep the website up-to-date at 3 in the morning instead of waking up Jim. So here is where we need your help. Are there any glaring mistakes that we (don't hold Jim responsible) have made? Email us and let us know so WE can fix...

Good morning everyone. Well I just had to say it before you did. Yes, we are truly nuts. Now we have gone and added one more adventure to our already full lives. As you can see she is some cunnin'. We have named her Colby. We had a sign... literally. We were in the car brainstorming names on the way to get her at WalMart (yes, you heard it right) and there at the Waterville exit was a sign for Colby College. Colby just happens to be dear Mary's alma mater. It is also the name of one of my favorite ledges in Jericho Bay, the Colby Pup. It just seemed to fit just like the way she came to us. Nothing about our Sunday was going to be different than any other except that I just happened to be helping a friend get her generator back in the barn while Jen and the kids met her new puppy Sherman. They fell in love... so easy to do. We called and there were had two pups from the same litter available... no commitments yet. We had been having the long family debate for weeks about the k...

Good morning everyone. If time flies when you're having fun what does it mean when time is going at the speed of sound? We are in a big push right now. Sarah and Katie have been working very hard to get projects done. Blockfest is finished and the replacement of so many patent roller bearings with bronze oilite sleeves will reduce the maintenance time next winter. The trail boards, those beautiful boards with the gilded scroll work that grace the bows, are all painted. Jen will touch up the gold leaf in the spring. Our small boat Rosie is painted and Anna awaits her turn in the shop. The yawl boat Arno is in the barn. Katie and Sarah are stripping the varnish on the rails this morning. Varnish is beautiful but it does tend to look tired after a while. The office has actually been quite busy with the usual year end turn around and many reservations coming in. This spring like weather is getting everyone excited about sailing this summer. Speaking of which, we finalized plans to...

Good morning everyone. Happy Groundhog day to all. Will Phil see his shadow or not? The kids are hoping Phil sees his shadow and we get six more weeks of winter. The weather has been so beautiful here this last week that I am quite content with the beauty of this season. For any of you who have been around the schooner for any amount of time you have undoubtedly met Bruce. A dear friend, Bruce care takes a small summer cottage, a work of art itself, on Burnt Island. A week ago we had a rainy and blustery southeaster that blew some shingles off the roof. I had the good fortune to give Bruce a hand making repairs. The day was so beautiful that we just had to take a stroll. So Bruce with his ever present coffee cup and me with camera in hand, my heart leaping like a little child, we strolled through the spruce woods and over the granite bedrock. The light was so bright it actually hurt to look up at times, a true antidote for cabin fever. I am not a photographer but I love to try to ca...

Good morning everyone. Another year has passed and this week we celebrate the anniversary of the launching of Mary Day 48 years ago. Who would have thought that the first schooner ever launched as a windjammer would still be here almost 50 years later. She is blessed and so are all the guests who have had a chance to share this experience and keep Mary Day and all of the windjammers here in Maine alive. The days of working commercial sailing vessels paying their own way in the world are no over yet! As much as anything the launching of Mary Day revived the notion that large sailing vessels could still, after a 38 year hiatus, be built here on the Maine coast. Thanks to all of you out there who have sailed or ever dreamed of sailing aboard a Maine windjammer. As you can see from these photos dating back to 1977 not a whole lot has changed although some of you may see something interesting historic detail in each photo. Have a great day. Be well. Do good.