The first weekend of summer just wouldn’t feel the same if it wasn’t on the water.  Typically I can be found among the masses fighting the traffic to get to the Cape, but the truth is I can be made ridiculously happy with any body of salt water, and get by in a pinch with fresh.

Boston Yatch Club – Waterbug Race

This weekend I find myself in Marblehead blogging to you from my lounge chair overlooking the harbor, waving to my neighbors the Boston Yatch Club.  I do love sailors, they are a handy bunch, rigging, splicing, tying knots.  I may have mentioned a time or two before that while I am happy to make polite conversation with a man that knows how to make a phone call, the one that wins my heart is the one that knows how do to things, build things, carry heavy things.  I digress.

Lobster Shacks … I could tuck in here for the night.

“Call it unique, picturesque, cussed, distinctive, pixilated, fascinating – that’s Marblehead, a town in love with liberty and rugged individualism, its people and its history, its crooked lanes and irregular houses, its customs and humor defy conformity and dullness.  The irreligious settlers, the adventurous fisherman, the zealous patriots of 1776, and the daring Privateers of 1812, the clipper ship captains, and yesteryear’s fish peddlers, imbued their town with a spirit as rocky as the peninsula itself.” – Opening paragraph of Marblehead – The spirit of ’76 lives here by Pricilla Sawyer Lord and Virginia Clegg Gamage (1972)

Room with a view.

These gals were right about the winding roads, and crooked houses.  The streets make Boston’s one ways look like Washington DC, but getting lost in Old Town will likely end with you finding something out about yourself, and the history of this quaint New England town.

It’s no surprise that Marblehead is home to so many architects, the buildings – from lobster shacks to mansions are irresistible.  I’d love to get my hands one, strip it down to the studs, and give it a whole new lease on life.  I think I can smell the sawdust, or is it the salt air?  Either way, two of my favorite aromas.

Happy Summer Sunday to all you salt water babies.