Yesterday, a group of admirers gathered in Bow, England to celebrate the life and work of Cecily Fox Smith. She was a Victorian poet best remembered for her poems about ships and sailors in the last days of the age of sail. She wrote more than 600 poems which were published in more than two dozen volumes. The March 27, 1915 edition of the Spectator magazine reviewed her book “Sailortown” saying, “No one, not even Mr. Masefield, has written finer sea ballads or come closer to the heart of those who go down to the great waters.” AlPoetry.com has a wonderful collection of her work available online.
In recent years, her work has seen a revival as her poems have inspired musicians to write music to her verses. Over 70 of her poems have been adapted as songs. Here are two examples:
What is the best way to celebrate sailing? My first response is to say, go sailing. Sailing, seems to me, to be its own celebration. There is that moment when everything falls into balance — when the force of the wind on the sails, the lift of water flowing across the keel, the drag of the eddies boiling off the hull — when you can feel the perfect equilibrium of all the forces of the sea and sky in the gentle tug on the tiller or wheel. That instant is, for me at least, the perfect celebration of sailing.
I wish that I had been sent to a summer camp aboard a historic schooner when I was a kid. Growing up in Texas, I remember summer camps notable for scrub mesquite trees, cactus and snakes, only some of which were poisonous. But I digress. This summer the 1928 Delaware Bay Oyster Schooner,
I will admit that it was news to me that the 
Last month 
In the last decade, ten people off Western Australia have been attacked and killed by sharks. All of the deaths have been attributed to attacks by great white sharks. Earlier this year, the government of Australia set out on a trial program to “cull” dangerous sharks, targeting, in particular, great whites. The initial results were not encouraging.
In 2006, 
The days around the summer solstice will be a busy time on the Hudson River. We recently posted about the 
The Coast Guard has issued its final report on the sinking of HMS Bounty in October 2012. 
The Atlantic Monthly has a wonderful feature this month — 
The