Sailing Vacations
A Maine Windjammer

Good Morning Everyone. Maintenance update from the global headquarters: windows, screens, skylight covers, lanterns, Suzannah. We have been busy in the office these last few weeks and I am ready to get going on some barn projects. Kaitlyn and Jen have managed to get a few things done out in the barn. Kaitlyn finished painting all the windows, fixing all the screens and painting those as well. Pictured here are the buff skylight covers all done, nary a brush mark to be seen. Kaitlyn and Jen did a great job. Sawyer started a refinishing project last fall, a small boat named Suzannah. That 8’ pram that I built years ago has been sitting in the dooryard for years and has proved great practice for Sawyer and Kaitlyn. You would hardly think that oil lamps need maintenance but they do rust out in the weather and I have been told by the local hardware store that the particular variety we have will no longer be available. Since we have so many spare parts for these I figured we better try...

Good Morning Everyone. 18 degrees this morning and overcast but, all in all, still a good day for a swim in the sea of life. Today is the birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the great 19th century poet, born in Portland, Maine on this day in 1807. He was a prolific writer with The Song of Hiawatha, The Ride of Paul Revere, My Lost Youth, The Village Blacksmith, and many more poems to his credit. I remember having to perform Evangeline in high school and this phrase sticks with me: Neither locks had they to their doors nor bars to their windows; But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners; There the richest was poor and the poorest lived in abundance. Evangeline. Part i. 1. We still don’t lock our doors. A few other passages for your day: Where’er a noble deed is wrought, Where’er is spoken a noble thought, Our hearts in glad surprise To higher levels rise. Santa Filomena. My soul is full of longing For the secret of the Sea, And t...

Good Morning Everyone. We had a glorious Sunday here with temps jumping up into the high 20s and crystal clear skies. Sunrise this morning is at 0624 and sunset is at 1726. We have just passed the 1st quarter moon on Saturday. High tide in Camden is at 0603 and low tide is at 1251. Sawyer and I took a couple hours to go ice fishing again. He caught and released a beautiful pickerel (or pickle as he called it). Jen and I figured the bees would be flying Sunday, cleansing their hives, so we went down to the field to watch them do their thing. Sadly 2 of the three hives seem to have given in to this past month’s extended cold snap. There was plenty of honey but the hives just couldn’t sustain the warmth required to keep the poor creatures from freezing. We opened things up to see how their food supply was and they seemed to have plenty of honey still untouched. We wrap the hives in black tar paper to help keep them dry and to give them a little solar gain on the coldest days. It s...

Good morning everyone. Well we had a blast fishing yesterday. The picture should tell it all. Sawyer caught this 15”brown trout and I am not certain who was more excited, him or me. The ice was full of friends and families out enjoying a beautiful day. I can see ice fishing gear in our future, as a matter of fact sawyer and Courtney each came home with a complimentary “tip up” fishing rig. Like sailing, ice fishing seems to be filled with times of sedentary anticipation and enjoyment of the day interspersed with moments of exhilaration. Like any worthwhile process it takes patience but to see Sawyer’s beaming ear to ear smile made all the waiting worth its weight in gold. Sawyer's first question this morning,"Can we go ice fishing today?" Photo by CB Spady, Captured Images Hope you have a great day. Be well. Do good.

Good Morning Everyone. We’re goin’ ice fishing today. Sawyer is pretty darned excited and I am dreaming of a big lake trout to decorate the fry pan. This will be a first for both of us and the weather looks to be just right. I will have a full report for you tomorrow. Here is a delicious recipe Mary learned from renowned cook and longtime summer resident Ruthie O’Connor when she was living out on Monhegan. Ruthie’s Fish Capers white fish fillets ½ cup vegetable oil 1/3 cup lemon juice ¼ cup chopped onion 2T caper4s and juice 2T catsup 2tsp sugar 2tsp worcestshire sauce 4 bay leaves, crushed 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped salt and pepper to taste paprika Combine ingredients, except fish and paprika. Pour sauce over serving size pieces of fish in a shallow baking dish, single layer. Let stand 30 or 40 minutes turning once. You can then remove fish and reserve sauce for basting or you can bake the fish right in the sauce. Sprinkle with paprika before baking. 350 degrees for 20 to 2...

Good Morning Everyone. Yesterday I told you about our wonderful evening with “Lady” Jane and Mary Day Hawkins. I will attempt to relate to you a story that had me thinking and laughing. As we grapple with our current ADA dilemma I wonder about how we value “old timey” things, including windjammer vacations on cool old schooners and this story really got me thinking. I mentioned that Jane is writing her memoirs. Sitting at home she does the “hunt and peck” thing that I can relate to. One day her typewriter up and croaks on her. Now what is a gal to do? So down she drives to the local “big box” office supply store. She wanders around for a few moments and a young clerk asks her if he might help. This young man, shirt half untucked, could be her great grandson for their difference in age. Surveying the aisle of keyboard word processing items before her she summons all the composure she can muster and asks him if she might be able to buy a typewriter, a regular ordinary “old fashione...

Good Morning Everyone. We had gorgeous day here yesterday and looks like we have another one on tap. We are all feeling the returning light. I hope you can imagine how good that feels to us here in Maine. One of these days I might even be tempted to take off my long underwear…..but not yet. I am sure winter still has a few treats in store for us. Speaking of treats…we had a delightful treat last evening. We had 3 generations of Mary Day sailors out for dinner in Camden. We were celebrating “Lady” Jane’s 90th birthday. Her life is an amazing story and she is a very funny and charming woman. She is one of my hero’s not just for the 23 trips she has sailed aboard the schooner but for coming through 90 years of thick and thin with humor and passion in tact. Jane is cousin to Havilah Hawkins, the schooner’s designer and original owner. Jane summered in Sedgewick, Maine on the Eggemoggin Reach and remembers the old cargo schooners. Sitting beside Jane was another equally amazing woma...

Good Morning Everyone. We are having a heat wave around here. Just crazy! I haven’t seen the 6 AM temperature this warm in a long time, a balmy 19 degrees. Today is a day for meetings in town and for working in the barn. Kaitlyn painted window screens and primed skylight covers in the barn yesterday. We also worked on one of the small boats. She will be back working in the barn today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Our web guru Jim Dugan has constructed a new lighthouse tour that you should take a look at. I would be interested to hear any thoughts you might have. The goal is to just do a simple tour of the lights that we might see in the course of a lighthouse cruise. I can see all manner of opportunity for developing a history of each light in this tour but we are just taking baby steps for right now. Speaking of which, the Indian Island Light at the entrance to Rockport Harbor is a one I never see enough of. Rockport was once part of Camden and t...

Good Morning Everyone and a happy Shrove Tuesday to you all. We will be celebrating Mardi Gras ala Maine today. We’ll be out dancing in the snowdrifts in our long underwear and eating the last of the venison before we have to give up something for lent. While I don’t have any confessions (to shrive) to make I do have reason to celebrate. According to weather reports from across the country we have warmer temperatures headed this way and thoughts of spring are not far off. The kids were talking the other day about putting out the maple taps. Sunrise is at 0633 and sunset is at 1718 (5:18 PM). That is 10 hours and 49 minutes of daylight and we’ll take it, a full hour and a half more than we had at the winter solstice. Remember I told you that the cold is my friend and how much I do love the snow? Well Oscar, our propane delivery man, came yesterday and the bill for just keeping the barn from freezing was sobering. I may give up propane for lent. The sledding has been awesome as ...

Good Morning Everyone. A cool blustery morning here with an inch of fresh snow on the ground. We had a great trip out to Islesboro yesterday to visit with friends. The ferry trip is always fun and to feel the vessel roll on the light swell was music to my bone marrow. I suspect the ferry employees thought we were just a few french fries short of a happy meal as we were the only people standing outside on the observation deck taking photos and basking in the beauty of the day. They kept looking out from the warmth of the pilot house, scratching their heads and wondering who let the wacko family aboard. The Camden Hills covered with snow, Grindle Point Light, long tail, golden eye, and bufflehead ducks, a loon fishing for crabs, and a walk in the spruce woods overlooking East Penobscot Bay were all a joy to see, smell, and feel. One lone fishing boat was out hauling crab traps which is the only winter fishery I know of up in this part of the bay and only a few folks do that. We can’...

Good Morning Everyone. Today is the new moon. The stars were just dazzling here last night. I love to see the constellation of Orion this time of year. Given that it is Sunday and this is supposed to be a day of rest we are going out to Islesboro island to visit friends. I can’t wait to ride the ferry, see the winter ducks on the bay, smell the island spruce, and just take a few moments with dear friends. I offer you my favorite morning recitation, the Sanskrit Salutation to the Dawn which I often quote on the schooner: "Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of our existence, the bliss of growth, the joy of action, and the splendor of achievement. For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vison but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day." This photo of the schooner’s transom at sunrise in Brunt Coat H...

Good Morning Everyone. A beautiful morning here. I am a little late getting this posted. I am continuing my research on ADA issues I mentioned the other day and spent 2 hours online this morning looking through all manner of government websites. This is the beginning of school vacation week here so the kids are getting a chance to play and rest instead of scurrying off to school first thing. This picture reminded me of how important and realxing a good nap can be for all of us, young or old. And I love nothing more than a nap in the sun with the gentle roll of the schooner rocking me like a baby. Doesn’t that just sound like heaven! Have a great day. Be well. Do good.

Good Morning Everyone. 2 degrees below zero and the wind chill has all the makings for frostbitten noses. We spent most of yesterday digging out. I don’t recall plowing conditions quite as difficult as I encountered in our 1500’ of driveway yesterday. I had to drive a few laps around to break the snow with the tires and then take small bites out the crusty mess that was left. I only got stuck 3 times and a few hours late had myself and the neighbors plowed out. We have a business meeting in town today and will try to get out to check the schooner on the low tide this afternoon. All looked well from the shore yesterday. We’ll be painting screens in the barn this afternoon. My heart is warmed today by seeing first light before 6 AM. Light makes all the difference in the world. I noticed yesterday that the woodchuck in the field had dug out of its borough. The snow and crust had been pushed away from the high entrance to the woodchuck’s winter lair. Glad to see he is making it. ...

Good Snowy Morning Everyone. I don’t have much to report today on the schooner front. 10 degrees in the dooryard and the NW wind is biting at the fingertips and tossing the treetops about. Yes, we received a good old-fashioned New England snowstorm yesterday. School was cancelled for the kids and they spent much of the day out playing. I plowed one big bank of snow for them to build a snow fort and banked snow at the bottom of their sledding hill as well. 14 inches of new snow fell yesterday (local reports of higher amounts in our town). We spent a fair chunk of the day just keeping the drifts away from the door. Wind speeds at Matinicus Rock Lighthouse reached 50 knots yesterday with gusts to 60. The Penobscot Bay weather buoy had a steady 25 with gusts to 30 and with the wind shift from east to west has not slowed down the winds one bit. So I am throwing in a historical photo, which I mentioned the other day. I haven’t been down to the harbor today so Mary Day might look just ...

Good Morning Everyone. Happy Valentines Day to all of you. 6 degrees outside. The snow is falling here and it is expected to reach near blizzard conditions. Yahoo! We love the snow and this winters drought appears to be coming to an abrupt end. We scurried around yesterday afternoon like little squirrels, stashing firewood and clearing the dooryard for plowing. Kaitlyn and I also put some time into fixing cabin window screens and getting those primed to paint. We had an ambulance training meeting last night, blood borne pathogens and haz-mat awareness. Jen made the trek to Boston and back yesterday with successful completion of her application for her Coast Guard license renewal. So in the spirit of love we provide the accompanying picture. These are some of our favorite birds. We hear loons in some of the anchorages we visit, yodeling away in the night. Dreamy and mysterious, just like love can be. Loons are diving birds and I have heard that hey can go quite deep to find no...

Good Morning Everyone. 6 degrees below zero this and the wind chills will be bracing. We are in for a snow storm according the National Weather Service tomorrow. The forecast is for 8-12 inches of new white stuff here and 12-18 in the western mountains. So much of today will be spent hunkering down for an anticipated snow day for the kids and office day for us. Jen left at 0500 for Boston to go renew her Coast Guard license. Congratulations to Kaitlyn who just passed her National Registry EMT exam! I received an email yesterday from 2 fellas who really should be working instead of reading this blog. They were wondering what it is we do to get the schooner through the winter unscathed. The single most important part of our annual maintenance cycle is the winter cover. Without that shrink wrap cover the schooner wood be open to elements, namely rain and snow, with no ability for the crew to work through inclement weather getting the boat painted. The schooner actually spends mor...

Good Morning Everyone. And happy Lincoln’s Birthday. 10 degrees in the dooryard, crystal clear skies and just flat calm and still in the woods. I can hear the occasional pop of a tree in the frozen darkness. First light is already here. Sunrise 0645, sunset 1706 (5:06 PM). It is another busy day here with a meeting in Camden. Sawyer enjoyed his first downhill ski race yesterday. Shades of his father and grandfather before him flashed through my mind. Skiing was a big piece our family experience back in the days when it was more affordable. Just being outdoors in the crisp air together enjoying winter was a bonding experience. Our family sailing vacations were the summertime equivalent. There are not too many places in the world where you can ski on a mountain and sail on the ocean within a few miles of each. One curiosity of the Camden Snow Bowl is the fact that you can see the ocean from the top. I don’t have a picture of that to share but the breathtaking beauty of the sno...

Good morning everyone. Below normal temps again this morning but the promise of a warm sunny day; temperature is forecasted to soar right up in to the 20s today. A friend left 2 snowmobiles in the yard a few years ago and we fired them up yesterday for a ride around the field. Sawyer and Courtney loved it. “Mama, daddy, can we do it again.” Yes, Jen jumps right onto the snowmobiles just a quick as I do. Go Mama. Today Sawyer has his first big ski race at the Camden Snow Bowl. There is a winter festival in the Harbor Park in Camden this weekend. I was marveling at the sculptures in the amphitheater. On display for all to see were these crystal clear hand carved ice statues. After admiring what the human hand can so delicately create I went out to check the schooner. All dry in the bilges. Cover in tact. Harbor froze over out to the yacht club. As I walked back up the beach from the schooner I couldn’t help but notice the ice sculptures on the beach created by a different hand. ...

Good Morning Everyone. 0 degrees in the door yard. Sunrise was at 0648 and cast a warm pinkish glow across the eastern sky. The last quarter moon is today. I can see it just to the south of us at this moment. Owning and operating a windjammer has some real challenges. This blog could be controversial for some folks. I do not mean it to be that way. I said from the outset that I was going to give folks a look behind the scenes, to share our imperfect lives. For those of you I upset I welcome your phone calls (800-992-2218). For several years I had the honor of sailing with Skip. Skip had some “disabilities”. He was blind. His cane held up a body that was not the once youthful and active vehicle with which he pursued his vigorous life passions. He was a sailor before this writer was even a pup racing around the waters of Buzzards Bay on the Cape. If I recall correctly, he had a beautiful wooden Wianno Senior. Skip always brought his family along on the schooner to give ...

Good Morning Everyone! Let’s not even talk about the thermometer this morning. I am getting a new one down at the hardware store today. Although ours isn’t broken I feel like I just need something new to tell you so am hoping a new thermometer might read something different than 0 degrees. I don’t mind the cold as much as I do reporting the same thing to you every day. Cold is this relative sort of thing. I love the cold. The cold is my friend. I can always put more clothes on during the winter but on a hazy, hot, and humid summer day there are only so many clothes I can legally take off. Thank goodness for that you say. So if the cold is just a state of mind then what do we say about all the swimmers in the accompanying picture. I came across these non-retouched pictures this morning to prove that 1) the water in Maine is not as cold as some folks say or that 2) Maine windjammer passengers are a special breed. I promise I did not digitally scan the swimmers into this scene. ...

Good Morning Everybody. A whopping 2 degrees above zero this morning and clear as a bell. We are approaching the last quarter moon here in a couple days. The moon is beautiful sitting low in the western sky as first light approaches. Yesterday was another busy day. There just are not enough hours. Or maybe my expectations need readjusting. The forecast for today, mostly busy, slight chance of craziness, followed by clearing minds late tonight around bed time. Jen took today’s photo of me trekking out to the schooner across the ice. (I am that tiny little dark spot on the ice under the bowsprit) Some of the windjammers have the ability to be dockside and can step aboard at will. Not so much with us. The dock system was left in one winter like this one with disastrous results. The ice is a powerful creature scouring the intertidal zone. I don’t understand how the rockweed survives it. A few pilings at the newly created harbor head dock facility were plucked up by the ice and to...

Good Morning Everybody. Keep the woodstoves burning. 0 degrees in the darkness of the dooryard. Today is a day to run errands in town after a few days in the office. We have meetings here and there and then home as quick as we can. Our summers on the boat are precious. We love the bay. We love the people. We love the sailing. It is a part of who we are. But home is where at least part of our hearts is and our time home in the winter is cherished as well. I am already counting the days left in our wintertime at home with a mix of sadness and joy. Soon enough crew will be arriving and we will be back on the schooner working away to get ready for the season. Kaitlyn painted windows here yesterday. She is doing a great job. The Appleton Volunteer Fire Department is a small group of amazing men and women working hard to keep the town safe. We have fun working together. I am always reminded of the power of people energy when I am down at the station. And for part of my year the...

Good Morning Everyone. Another chilly morning with 2 below on the thermometer out in the dooryard. We had a very busy day in the office yesterday catching up on everything we missed while we were away. Kaitlyn painted cabin house windows upstairs in the barn after school. We spent the better part of the day feeding woodstoves. The passing of Ken Black, “Mr. Lighthouse”, saddens us all. Many of you may have never heard of Ken or knew about the amazing way he lived his life, giving to others, and working diligently to preserve the history of lighthouses in this country. Here is a link to a website about Ken and his work, American Lighthouse Foundation So today I focus on the history of one of my favorite lighthouses, Fort Point Light. This still active light is a state park that anyone can drive to and visit. Sailing to Fort Point Cove in a schooner is a trip in history. The currents in the river entrance can make it difficult place to get to or from. Fort Point guards the entra...

Good Morning Everyone. 4 degrees below in the dooryard this morning and the full snow moon is casting the shadows of the trees across the snow cover. So for those of you who heat with wood, please grab a mirror and go check your chimney. Clean out the ashes in the basement and take a peek up through to see that the creosote isn’t building up. Or get a qualified professional to take a look for you. ‘Tis the season for chimney fires. As the temperatures are forecasted to stay quite cool here for the next week folks will be stoking the stoves hotter than usual. So just be aware and if you haven’t had your chimney cleaned in a while you might want to give it a look. Yesterday Kaitlyn and I painted out our little boat Suzanna in the barn with an ambulance call thrown in for good measure. Sawyer came out to give a hand as well. Sawyer was also our staff photographer du jour so he gets today’s photo credits . He loves taking pictures. This morning I was looking through his work and ju...

Good Morning Everyone. We are back home this morning. The temperature is 6 degrees out in the dooryard and the sky is as clear as a bell. While sunrise is 0715 it doesn’t actually clear the ridge to the east of our humble acres ‘til 0755. The almanac says that today (0715) is the actual mid-point of winter, Ground Hogs Day aside. We had a few inches of snow here at the global headquarters while we were away. Building a fire in the barn I noticed that Kaitlyn did a great job sanding and priming one of our small boats and filling the firewood while we were gone. She’ll be here today painting. I have pictures to share of skiing, cutesy family stuff. So I am not very good at many things, particularly leaving home base and letting go of all the doings around our windjammer business. I took the laptop with us and checked the business email. I talked to people in the base lodge and on the lift about the schooner and what we do. This is what we do, live, breathe, eat, think; windjam...

Good Morning everybody. Fresh snow here in the Carrabassett Valley. The skiing here was great yesterday and the kids just loved it. We always appreciate good family time and when it is doing something outdoors and active so much the better, like a windjammer vacation. So just when I think I have left it all behind for a couple days… I was checking email this morning and we received an order for some of our coffee from the Mary Day online “Boatique”. So I realize as I am answering this person that we might be getting low on coffee. That’s OK I say to myself. We drive down the street to the Woodsman, this beautiful diner here in Kingfield. And across the street is Carrabassett Coffee, the people who roast and blend Captains Crank for us. So at 7 AM I see the lights on and walk over to see if I might be able to place an order. Tom greets me at the door with a smile, offers me a cup of coffee and assures me that our order will be sitting outside on the bench when we drive through ...

Good morning everyone. Writing to you from Sugarloaf USA where we are a skiing a couple of days with the kids. Yahoo. Happy Ground Hog day and check out the Full Snow Moon this evening. Some one recently asked me about the ecological aspects of windjammer vacations. Low impact tourism and “leave no trace” out door activities are one virtue of windjammer sailing vacations that we are proud of. I am always amazed at how little energy and resources we use aboard the schooner during the course of any week. Here is how things break down for us in a week’s time. In an entire week we use approximately 800 gallons of fresh water to cook, clean and bathe for 36 people. According to a National Geographic website “The average person in the United States uses about 100 gallons (379 liters) of water a day for drinking, bathing, cooking, washing, swimming, watering gardens, and such. Two-thirds of the people in the world use less than 13 gallons (49 liters) of water a day.” My math tells me ...

Good Morning Everyone. A beautiful 1st day of February. 6 degrees and overcast with the promise of warmer temps today. There is not much snow cover here and we have noticed that the deer are scraping away patches in the field to feed on the grass. We might get a little snow here the next few days. People often ask what we do for ourselves for vacation. Well…we don’t…. vacation that is. This schooner thing keeps us right to the grind stone most all the year round and to leave the office for a few days just leaves us feeling behind the 8 ball. So we grab little 2 day escapes and long weekends here and there. The kids have Friday off from school so we figured this would be as good a time as any. So we’ll head off to our favorite place to ski, Sugarloaf USA. We’ll get a chance to visit friends and Jen’s godparents kindly offer a place to sleep. Things have been some wicked busy in the office this last week and a half. I am ready to get out and stir. I did want to tell you that ...