It was a meandering sail that took us from Vermont down the Hudson and to the Bahamas. A few years later, we sailed to Southern Maine and commuted back and forth from VT weekends and at least one summer vacation aboard. One our second trip to Penobscot Bay, I spied an old fish market on Camden Harbor that had been closed and for sale for several years. I remember vividly climbing the propane tanks and a tree and hoisting myself onto the roof. Bingo, a view of the entire harbor. We should live here, I thought. Later that night in Long Cove off Tenants Harbor, Mary Ann and I decided, we'd make an offer on the building.

Back in Vermont, we learned the offer was immediately accepted. Mary Ann got scared. I told her, "don't worry", our offer was contingent on the town giving us permits to do what I wanted to with the old building. The next week, the building permits arrived in the mail.

What an amazing summer! I showed up with a load of tools and met a helper I found on the internet, and off we went. We lived in a hotel across the street(the dog slept in the car), worked our tails off, and threw open the doors of the Camden Harbor Fish Market 3 months later.

I don't know how we did it, but we were running a store in high season in a busy harbor. We learn quickly; All I knew about fish was how to catch them. All our fish was a "loss leader", except for lobsters, they lived in our harbor water tanks until you sold them. A store owner spends 14 hours a day in the store, etc.

On the bright side, we met everyone in town, our kids got to meet all the kids in the harbor park next door, we'd found a wonderful community. We lived on our boat in the harbor and rented the upstairs townhouse which looked out over the harbor and park. A deck off the back hung over water fall that crashes into the harbor below. We moved upstairs after the high season and settled in for the winter and the kids walked to school.

After the whirlwind season, I realized I wasn't a store owner. For the first time, we could see our boat from our bedroom, but we had not time to sail! It would take a decade to even begin to learn how to make money in the fish business. So we hung a CLOSED sign on the door. The two of us creating the store was the right thing though, we had tenants lined up wanting to lease the space. And the space above had the same draw. Plus designing and building on main street gave me clients in the biz I knew.

I can hardly believe 15 years have flown by looking at these photos. Beware sailing away in your boat.