Sailing Vacations
A Maine Windjammer

Good Morning Everyone. Well my time here in Texas is almost through and as much as this is a special place to be I do miss home, Jen and the kids, the smell of the woods in spring, the schooner. Elissa is an incredibly special vessel, made more special by the people who volunteer thousands of hours a year to keep her is sailing condition. There are very few museums in the country that understand that the preservation of something like a ship has value only when it is used for what it was intended for. Sure there are trade offs and compromises to keep an Elissa or Mary Day inspected by the Coast Guard but without these concessions to the future the past would be sitting idle on one side of the surface or the other. We will be sailing overnight off the Texas coast tomorrow in to Wednesday before we fly home Thursday. I will be sleeping in the cabin that some other mate slept in 130 years ago excited about the adventure but dreaming of home as well. Yards will be braced by volunteers...

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...