Editor's Letter

On a damp gray morning in September, I left a dry room in a B&B on Bellevue Avenue to walk down to Bannister’s Wharf, smack in the middle of the harbor front, ground zero for the town’s seafaring past.

It's time for a change of watch at Soundings, but it's definitely not goodbye. The ship sails on, with able crew.

I remember the first time I walked though the door at the Soundings offices in Essex, Connecticut.

On a damp, gray day in May, I trudged along a country road lined by towering hornbeams, across a short field and past the chicken coop.

If I’m really honest with myself, my love of boating is deeply entwined — no, totally inseparable — from my love of the sea.

Once upon a time, I was not obsessed with boats.

I’m not a covetous person by nature — maybe because I feel I have been lucky, or blessed, in all the ways that matter.

Yesterday afternoon I looked out my office window and saw hints of spring.

If we’re shipping the March issue to the printer, and you’re reading the March issue of the magazine right now, then March is finally on the horizon. In the Northeast that brings a mixed few weeks of leaden skies and dirty, icy slush, with an occasional snowstorm of epic proportions.

Fall and early winter are always a busy time for marine journalists, with boat shows and travel ramping up the time away from home and the race to get each issue of the magazine out.