Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

 Last month I spent a very happy Saturday at Essex and Ipswich with my gentleman caller. We went to the Shipbuilding Museum (new-new-new book research!) and whiled away the afternoon at Crane Beach (above).  If you are even a little bit into nautical things, I recommend a visit to the Shipbuilding Museum. Those guys are REALLY passionate about building and preserving old-fashioned sailing vessels. Among other things, I learned the origin of the expression "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea": the seam between the last plank on the deck and the side of the boat was known as the "devil seam" because it was so tricky to seal, and if it began to leak mid-voyage one unlucky sailor would have to lower himself off the side of the ship to fix it up again.  The rest of this post is just cool boat photos.