Hidden Schooner

photo by Eric Murphy

This photo was taken during a reconnaissance trip along the Second Peninsula, outside Lunenburg.

I knew I was going to have Will find the trapdoor to the  secret tunnel which in turn would lead to the boat house. After he crashes through the rotten boards, he finds a hidden schooner with the name Fathom on its transom. So you can imagine how stunned I was to return to this boat house a year after I’d found the empty boathouse and sitting there is a beautiful Tancook schooner.

That’s the power of the well-written word.

My hair stood on end because my fiction was catching up to reality. This boat was built by schooner master David Stevens. I’m reading a biography of his published a few decades ago. The author speaks of the wonder he experienced in sailing on this very schooner with David Stevens at the helm. I never sailed with David Stevens, nor have I sailed on this particular schooner. But the  book made me feel as though I had. That’s the power of the well-written word.

• October 4, 2013