Saturday 19 July 2008

Maine man

Peter H. Spectre, editor of Maine Boats and former editor of WoodenBoat, is a "rowboat kind of guy". Well, not right at the moment, as he confesses in his blog, Compass Rose Review. He is running a motor boat right now, but wisely intends to get shot of it.
For Spectre lives on Seal Harbor, Maine, which is a place God made for rowing, he says:
"Seal Harbor is a rowboat kind of a place. It's big enough so that a crossing from one side to the other can seem like a voyage, especially if the wind is blowing hard or the tidal current is running strong. It's small enough so that you can row for half an hour or less and come ashore on an uninhabited island that perhaps hasn't seen a footstep for days, or even weeks if it's late fall or early spring. It has a main anchorage off Sprucehead Island for the lobster fishing fleet, a lesser anchorage in the lee of Slins Island, and a bunch of isolated moorings here and there, all of which makes rowing and gawking at the boats one of the great pleasures of a summer afternoon."
Idyllic. And, what's more, Spectre has a view of all that from the easy chair in his studio. "What more could a rowboat kind of a guy want?" he asks.

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