Book Description

Penelope Down East is a collection of stories about sailing the Maine coast in a small catboat with no engine. This is cruising the way it was done a hundred years ago—and it takes a high level of seamanship to get anywhere. If the wind or the tide is against you, you must adapt, change plans, tack all day, or hole up in a harbor and wait for better conditions. It makes for delightfully unpredictable adventures. Cheney’s writing style is clear and familiar, like the old salt at the dock spinning yarns of his many voyages. He loves and appreciates all the beauties, big and small, of the Maine coast, and of his faithful boat. This book will appeal to native Mainers and to sailors anywhere in the world. --- “Bill Cheney is a fine sailor, storyteller, and wordsmith. Put together, it’s no surprise that he has given us a fine collection of sailing stories. If you have heard much about cruising the fabled coast of Maine and, as yet, have never done so, here is the vicarious experience you have been waiting for. If you have cruised this iconic, watery world, as I have, and want a companion to share many of your favorite bays, islands, harbors . . . and to introduce you to new experiences and places . . . here you will find your soul mate and guide.” —Roland Sawyer Barth, author of Tales of the Intracoastal Waterway: An Account of a Passage from the Florida Keys to Cape Cod in a Seventeen Foot Catboat “Bill Cheney is a skilled mariner and an even better essayist. His descriptions of life aboard an engineless catboat along the rugged Maine coast are vivid, tender, poetic, and sometimes wildly humorous. He speaks to us in every key. There is no one quite like him.” —Clinton Trowbridge, author of The Boat That Wouldn’t Sink and The Crow Island Journal ----- E-book bonus: All the photos and charts, of which there are many, are in full color in the e-book. ------