Pamela Gibson

Saga of Skinny Ditches If you’ve cruised, you know narrow channels are marked with red and green buoys or numbered placards and you stay well inside them. They mark the limits of the dredged channel so you don’t run aground. On the West Coast water’s pretty deep most places. In the Gulf, people walk a … Read more

Getting the Boat Ready The year we made a decision to move onto the boat, we knew our previous three-month summer cruise in the Pacific Northwest would give us a good idea of what the boat needed. When we ended the trip, we sharpened our pencils and made a list. Then we shipped the boat … Read more

Once upon a time I married a man who liked to mess about in boats. He had a dream of cruising the waters of the Eastern United States and maybe the rivers of Middle America, when the time was right. In 2015—thirty-four years later—we completed that trip. It took us from the Gulf Coast to … Read more

Anxiety is something most of us live with. In my case, it is caused by lots of things: poor sleep, little exercise, a changing world I no longer recognize, and the aches and pains of aging. The main stressor is frustration, usually caused by my computer. I did not grow up in the computer age. … Read more

My kids loved Halloween. I didn’t. Nights were usually cold, sometimes rainy. The kids wanted to start early and finish late. Instead of a cute plastic pumpkin for their candy, they took pillowcases—more room for their haul. Candy—in many shapes and forms—were strewn on the floor afterward while they picked out the “good stuff.” Sometimes … Read more