A curious thing happens after you've been tested at sea. If the high winds, rough seas, and blinding white light of a near-death experience haven't permanently drained the pallor from your skin, turned your hair stark white, and stolen the twinkle from your eyes, then you'll probably turn into a cocky, seafaring bastard.

And so it was that I parked my car on a sunny Saturday, slung my dry bag over my shoulder, and sauntered coolly across Camden's Harbor Park toward the Mary Day. A mere three days had passed since I'd last struggled against wind and sea, since I'd last heaved a line with all my might, since I'd nearly lost my symmetrical features to the Mercantile's swinging boom, but I was already eager to return to "the shit"-as the schooner bums say.

When I tossed my dry bag over the rail and clambered onto the deck of the Mary Day, however, I immediately realized this would be a wholly different seagoing experience.

For starters, the Mary Day was built for comfort.

Most windjammers are turn-of-the-century working boats; vessels that freighted granite, fish, or lumber, but had long since been reapportioned for the passenger trade. The Mary Day, on the other hand, was built with passengers in mind.

In 1962, when the demand for windjammer vacations was on the rise, the newly christened Mary Day slid off the ways and into the cold waters of Maine. She'd been built in the same spirit as the others-she carried the same look and sailing characteristics-but she was longer, wider, and roomier than her antique counterparts.

This extra space affords a fair number of relative luxuries, the most striking of which are chairs. (Let me say that again.) Chairs! In an industry that by and large asks its patrons to sit atop cabin houses and keep a stiff upper lip in the face of lackluster lumbar support, the advent of deck chairs aboard the Mary Day is patently decadent.

The second most striking example is the Mary Day's cabins. Not long after I dragged my lumbering frame onto the deck, the Mary Day's mate, Sara Andreatta-a North Carolinian whose frequent and defiant use of "y'all" at 44oN makes her instantly likeable-carried my luggage down the steep companionway ladder and led me into my quarters for a brief tour. (There was standing room for both of us-another tall-ship rarity).

"This is your window. This is your skylight. This is your reading light. And this is a duct that channels hot air from a woodstove into your room," Andrea said.

Xanadu.

The third most striking aspect of the Mary Day is her general appearance. Most tall ships are imbued with an age-old patina of salt and grit-a degree of wabi sabi that no amount of sandpaper or fussiness could ever make fair - yet the Mary Day was positively gleaming. This impeccability might be largely due to the Mary Day's relative youthfulness, but the remainder is undoubtedly the work of her owner, the fastidious Captain Barry King.

At first glance, fastidious is a bizarre choice of adjectives. Captain Barry has the most brambly, gravity-defying beard outside of New York's Upper West Side. If you were to indulgently describe this beard to a composite sketch artist, you might be handed a charcoal-on-paper rendering of the Wookie Chewbacca. It is an awesome, awesome beard.

But like any true master of his craft-whether it be Albert Einstein, John Lennon, or post-election Al Gore-you can't judge a thinking man on kempt. Plus, it's all part of Captain Barry's central paradox - the yin and yang qualities that make Barry who he is. (I'll come back to this.)To grasp the full fastidiousness of Captain Barry, you needn't look further than his crew. The Mary Day employs more people than just about any windjammer in the fleet. It's a larger vessel than most, but even similarly sized vessels get by on much less.

Most crews are comprised of a mate, one or two deckhands, a messmate, and a cook. These crews generally work from April 1 until mid-October. Captain Barry employs that number during the same period, but he also keeps a full-time crewmember working on maintenance projects throughout the winter. During fit-out season, Barry also hired an out-of-work electrician to do some re-wiring and general maintenance. Throughout the sailing season, Barry has two apprentices and some bunkies-local teenagers who serve as housekeeping staff during turnaround periods between guests. Additionally, his wife, Captain Jen Martin, runs the business, helps with fit-out, helps with the sailing, and raises their two kids who live aboard throughout most of the summer. Barry is the first person to admit that his glut of employees resembles a poor economic decision. He knows he could run his business with fewer people and pocket the cash, but instead he takes the long view: more employees results in a better-looking, longer-lasting boat, which ultimately means more repeat customers and fewer major repairs in the future.

Barry takes a similarly fastidious view on today's shakedown cruise. This year he's sailing with a green deckhand and messmate, and a deckhand and a mate who are both fine sailors, but inexperienced in their new positions. To overcome this, Barry has enlisted the help of three friends and his wife to help train the deckhands, and a former messmate to help train the new messmate in the galley. There are so many auxiliary schooner bums on the Mary Day that a rogue wave could sweep half the crew overboard and there would still be enough able-bodied seamen to sail the ship, rescue the crew, and garnish hot soup for any storm-tossed survivors.

In fact, there are so many sailors aboard this ship that whenever I try to trim a sail, four or five people appear out of nowhere to wrest the line from my hands and do it themselves.Clearly, this was a wholly different seagoing experience. I was not going to be a cog in a much larger scheme. I was not going to be working in tandem with other wide-eyed passengers to keep this mighty vessel off the rocks. We, the passengers, would have little to do but sit back in our deck chairs, relax, and enjoy the show.

*****

The crew eased the Mary Day out of her berth under yawlboat power at 10:00 a.m., motored out of Camden Harbor, and raised the sails in a stiff 15-knot northerly breeze.

They struggled a bit while raising the headsails. The staysail was fouled and wouldn't raise, so the deckhand, Molly Eddy, climbed out on the bowsprit to untangle the mess.

There's something deeply fetching about seeing a twenty-something woman fearlessly teetering on cables and canvas above 46-degree seawater. This isn't some kind of damsel-in-distress scenario; this is the sight of a fully confident young woman steeped in her element. If I were in the same situation, I would almost certainly pee my pants. But here's Molly perched at the forward end of a 96-ton schooner, where death or dismemberment lies a single misstep away, and she's thoroughly unperturbed.

When the sails are set, the Mary Day rips eastward across Penobscot Bay. The sky turns gray, waves roll steadily southward, and we head toward Stonington.

I said earlier that there's a central paradox to Captain Barry. Again, a casual glance at his boat tells you that he is highly disciplined, and the amount of training he offers his new crew bespeaks his thorough planning. But he's not without an adventurous side. As we approach the Deer Island Thoroughfare, I suddenly sense that he's even a bit cavalier.

The eastern entrance to Deer Island Thoroughfare is a narrow channel that lies between Deer and Crotch islands. As we enter the thoroughfare, the wind is gusty and unpredictable, and often just a few degrees off our bow.

Most of the passengers might be placidly unaware of the intricacies of this impressive feat, but I know just enough about sailing to be beside myself with excitement. If the wind dies or veers closer to our bow, the current could push us helplessly in the direction we came, or against the rocky shore of Crotch Island. But, after a few breathless moments, we emerge on the other side without incident.

I asked Captain Barry about his choice to push on, and he said he knew he had the advantage. His boat weighs so much that its sheer momentum could push through any lee spots to safety. Besides, Captain Barry's wife, Jen, was standing by in the yawlboat to motor us of harm's way if the wind changed for the worse.I gained a great deal of respect for the captain during those few moments. It was a nice bit of seamanship. Here's a guy who knows his ship well, and intends to sail it to the fullest of his understanding. Captain Barry may have been working with a safety net, but he was tightrope walking, nevertheless. He, like everyone else aboard the Mary Day, was there to enjoy himself.

*****

Merchants Row is stunning. It's an archipelago of roughly 40 islands that lie between Deer Island and Isle au Haut. Nearly all the islands are covered in thick stands of conifers, and their shorelines are made of stout, unbroken stretches of granite bedrock. At the turn of the last century, many of these islands were quarried, and the granite was shipped to far-flung locales like New York and Washington. Today, the granite output in Maine is a fraction of what it once was, and Merchants Row is now renowned more for its beauty than industry.

And it is beautiful. From our campfire on the northern side of Hells Half Acre Island, you could point a camera in any random direction and snap a postcard-worthy photo of silvery water, stony islands, and pillowy sky.

We are having a lobster bake. Our hosts have given each of us a lobster, corn on the cob, and red potatoes. Before we eat, our captain half-jokingly implores us to embrace our inner Cro-Magnon selves. He instructs us to pin our steaming lobsters against the granite shelf of Hells Half Acre and use a rock to bash their shells like a blacksmith hammers hot iron against anvils. It is a uniquely primitive and satisfying experience to shatter your food and eat pulpy bits of tender meat with your bare hands.

During dinner, I sit with a group of four determined wine drinkers who traveled to Maine en masse. One of them-Becky, from Omaha, Nebraska-brought her own lobster-bashing rock to this island. Shortly before Becky left Nebraska for Maine, her friend's father mailed her the rock. He had been on the Mary Day years earlier, had kept the rock as a souvenir from his lobster bake, then gifted it to Becky when he learned of her upcoming trip.And so this palm-sized shard of Granite traveled from Merchants Row to Kansas, from Kansas to Nebraska, and from Kansas back to Merchants Row to bash away at lobster shells once again.

In some ways, the rock's circular journey to the heartland and back mimics that of the passengers. A substantial percentage of yearly windjammer vacationers are returning guests. On this particular trip, there are eight returning guests on a bill of 26, but Captains King and Martin estimate their yearly average is closer to 60 percent.

Clearly, they're doing something right.

After dinner, the crew rows five passengers at a time from Hells Half Acre back to the Mary Day in the diminishing evening light. Two of the wine drinkers had been separated from their companions and ended up on the same rowboat as me. Midway through our short passage, one of them belts out a Patsy Cline tune along with an auxiliary crewmember. Maybe it's the wine, or maybe it's the careful hosting aboard the Mary Day, but this particular group of passengers is relaxed.

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