Sea Stories

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  1. The Ghostly Palatine Light

    The Ghostly Palatine Light

    It's late October. The leaves are falling and darkness comes early. It's the perfect time to bundle up and gather around a bonfire on the beach to swap ghost stories. There are many nautical spine-tingling tales, but here's our most recent favorite: the ghostly Palatine Light of Block Island. 

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  2. Blackbeard!

    Blackbeard!

    The most famous pirate of all time, Blackbeard, died three hundred years ago this week. He inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Long John Silver and J. M. Barrie's Captain Hook, and has been portrayed on film by actors like Ian McShane and Peter Ustinov. As well known as he is, there is much about him that remains mysterious.

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  3. The Burning Ghost Ship of Northumberland Strait

    The Burning Ghost Ship of Northumberland Strait

    What's the scariest thing you've ever seen while boating? We're not talking about close encounters with sharks, though those are pretty scary. We want to know your creepy, weird, spooky sea stories. Last year, we scared ourselves silly with the tale of Mary Celeste, the most famous ghost ship of all time. This year, we turn from the warm waters of the Sargasso Sea to the windswept Maritime Provinces for a legend as chilling as the Bay of Fundy.

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  4. The Luck of the Irish

    The Luck of the Irish

    Humans have been boating for tens of thousands of years. Spear points found on the Greek island of Naxos suggest that even Neanderthals took to the waves as long as a quarter of a million years ago. The far-flung islands of the vast Pacific Ocean were discovered by ancient seafarers, some of whom built the mysterious moai statues on Easter Island eight hundred years ago.
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  5. The Gales of November

    The Gales of November

    November is a month for unpredictable, dangerous weather on the Great Lakes. The most ferocious winds don't usually roar in until late in the month, as they did in 1905. Over two days near the end of that November, the "Mataafa Storm" damaged or destroyed 29 ships on Lake Superior, including the steamer which gave the storm its name.

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  6. Ghost Ships

    Ghost Ships

    Hallowe'en is a few days away, the leaves are falling fast from the trees, and the gales of November are winding up here on the shore of Lake Michigan. On nights like this, the waxing moon glows in a halo of clouds, and the waves seem to sigh mournfully, as if lamenting the summer that is gone. This weather puts us in the mood for a good ghost story, of which the history of boating has no lack. Help yourself to some hot cider (or a pot of grog, if the fancy takes you) and gather round.
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