John Griswold

A friend texted recently to say he had bought a new yacht. Ok, I said. He asked if I would like to help him transit it from Fort Pierce, Florida, to his home port of Havre de Grace, Maryland, a trip of about a thousand miles up the East Coast, in the…

I think we can say scientifically that the universe perks up when we approach new ventures. The data is in. The universe gets interested. You gotta be careful out there. Before I left for this trip, I was rushing around but paused to eat some dry…

My friend Chris is good at fixing mechanical things, which is good because he has a tendency to poke at them to see if they will continue to work, even if they are vital. As he learns the navigation system on his new boat he likes to poke at the…

People have been saying they would have liked to go on this trip, or wish we would pick them up in Charleston, or they tell me good-naturedly they are jealous, etc. Believe me, I understand. It is an opportunity of a lifetime, and it is my great good…

“I didn’t think I’d learn so much,” my friend Chris said. We had been in the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) all day, headed from Southport, North Carolina, toward Belhaven Marina, up the Pungo River in North Carolina. Our first four days up the East…

Things can go swimmingly for so long that they seem to be proof you will make it. Success by sunk cost! Then, smack in the middle of a shouted discussion about politics, alcoholism, and past lovers, you run aground at full speed off some unnamed…

John Griswold is a staff writer at The Common Reader. His most recent book is a collection of essays, The Age of Clear Profit: Essays on Home and the Narrow Road (UGA Press 2022). His previous collection was Pirates You Don’t Know, and Other…

Having the boat lifted out of the water and inspecting her props, rudder, and trim tabs took no more than 30 minutes. It cost the same as my monthly rent. Everything there was fine though, so Chris asked the marine mechanics to search until they…

An exchange at the start of Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song portrays the comedy of surprise at learning something that changes the landscape we thought we knew. Brenda Nicols and her husband Johnny are driving to pick up her cousin Gary…

Often we think that the paths we choose are straight—northerly from Florida to Maryland, in the case of the transit of my friend’s boat, Castaway—but in reality our lives are made of arcs, loops, and retracings. Chris and I often veered off course,…