Experience
______..&..
Bedford, that largely Portuguese city which is today home to the last of the Brava packets, the Ernestina, which our Society had some role in saving, with Pete Seeger, Frank Braynard and the joyously creative Cape Verdean community. And there is Mystic Seaport Museum, surely at its best when you have to crunch through the snow from exhibit to exhibit, and when the topmast of the L.A . Dunton seems to scrape audibl y against the overhanging cloud bank that gathers on our coast each winter. The duPont Restoration Shipyard-well, that's always a treat, but surely more so than ever in winter, the traditional shipbuilding season when there are no birds whistling or gentle waters lapping around the comer just outdoors, but life comes down to the work at hand and a stove stuffed with odd scraps of wood. On across the Thames and Connecticut Rivers, some twenty miles to the westward is the seaport town of Essex , which like the other villages mentioned here , tends to draw into itself in winter to leave the bare river anchorages and the coves that flank the town to north and south looking much as they did in the winter months when the young Captain Henry Champlin, driven upriver by the British blockade of the coast in the War of 1812, successfully courted Amelia Prudence Hayden , daughter of old Uriah who built ships and kept the waterfront tavern. The Hayden house still survives, kept today as a private club. But just a little inward you will find the Griswold Inn of 1776, a great haunt of sailing people, at least since the 1930s when the likes of Hubert Toppin and Sam Wetherill held forth at its bar. It still radiates the atmosphere of openhanded hospitality which it had then under Frank Ladd-a tradition worthily upheld by Bill and Vicki Winterer, who served as volunteers in the early days of South Street Seaport Museum in New York. The Gris is a bit expensive, and in summertime tends to be very crowded; but at least have a quiet mug of ale there. Here , as elsewhere, you' II meet tourists, in winter a quieter breed. But who, finally , is going to scorn tourists? Isn't that who we all are, searching our bearings, searching out meanings in the experience of our lives and grateful for gathering places along the ways we are each following?
U. S. Coast Guard Inspected ~ ~ ADVENTURES ~ UNDER . . .-.. , SAIL ~~
EXPLORE THE MAINE COAST Weekly Sailing Vacation Windjammer "MARY DAY" For Free Folder Write:
Capt. H.S. Hawkins
,c....,;ot-;= -
,'
· --- .
Box 798A
Camden, Maine 04843 207-236-2750
GRISWOill INN Serving Neighbors and Travelers for Two Centuries LUNCHEON AND DINNER DAILY FAMOUS HUNT BREAKFAST EVERY SUNDAY OVERNIGHT ACCOMMODATIONS
Reservations Suggested. Ring (203) 767-1812
Established in 1935
~~
~ ~
WHALE WATCH .. aboard the 95 ' ~ ~'A.V SCHOONER ~~
HARVEY ~~ ~~ GAMAGE~,
'f$..~~~~L
~'\)~
7 SCHOONERS
~~~rs
Sailing from Camden • Rockland Portland, Maine ... Boston, MA Mystic, CT • Hudson River . . . St. Martin . .. Many more! Write or call. DIRIGO CRUISES 39 Waterside Lane· Clinton, CT 06413 1-800-845-5520 • From CT 669-7068
Capt. Ray & Ann Williamson
KEEP THE TRADITION ALIVE ENJOY A 3 OR 6 DAY CRUISE ABOARD AN HISTORIC VESSEL
Departing each Monday & Thursday. Rates from $250-$495. Group rates available June & September. For information: Box 617-H, Camden, Maine 04843 (207) 236-2938
Dine in relaxed elegance in the heart of the South Street Seaport. Yankee Clipper's Wavertree Room The Yankee Clipper, one of South Street Seaport's finest restaurants, recently dedicated an opulently refurbished room to honor the historic Wavertree , a tall ship now berthed just outside the restaurant's multipaned windows. The dedication of the Wavertree Room goes beyond its physical proximity to its namesake, however, for the room actually once served as the office of Baker, Carver & Morrell, general agents who represented the Wavertree in the 1800s. -VIA PORT OF NY-NJ, March 1986
P ETER STANFORD
>per SEA HISTORY, WINTER 1987-88
33