Category Archives: sea

THE WAY OF SAIL by Peter Nolan Smith

May 7, 2020 – 11:59 am

Once the world had traveled by sail. One side of my ancestors had arrived in America on the Mayflower. The trip lasted 66 days. My great-grandaunt Bert had circumnavigated the globe in the 1870s. Her father?s clipper ship had been powered by wind. Steam engines had replaced sail by the beginning of the 20th Century. […]

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The Bark MAGGIE MOORE

January 30, 2020 – 10:29 pm

I found this photo of the bark MAGGIE MOORE dating back to approximately 1877. My great-grandfather Charles S. Smith was the captain and owner. I recall the photo from my grandmother Edith’s house in Westbrook, Maine, but not the written page attached to the back of the frame, which had been penned by my grandfather […]

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ATLANTIC SLAPDOWN by Peter Nolan Smith

September 8, 2016 – 2:03 pm

Last Saturday afternoon the streets of Brooklyn sweltered in the sultry August heat and my landlord invited me to join a family excursion to the beach. I had only swam in the ocean twice all summer, so my answer was quick and to the point. “Gimme five minutes.” I ran upstairs and changed into my […]

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Summer’s Almost Gone

September 20, 2015 – 10:40 pm

Published on: Sep 20, 2015 On Saturday I stood outside the Fort Greene Observatory. The sun was strong and the remained summery. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I checked the time on the bank tower at Atlantic Terminal. It was 4 PM. Riis Park was an hour away by train and I […]

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Cut Schurkes Loose

April 2, 2014 – 9:01 am

According to Wikipedia the etymology of the word “shark” might have been derived from the Yucatec Maya word xok, pronounced ‘shok’. Evidence for this etymology comes from the Oxford English Dictionary, which notes shark first came into use after Sir John Hawkins’ sailors exhibited one in London in 1569 and posted “sharke” to refer to […]

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