With a lifelong fondness and pride of living on the Chesapeake Bay, Bear started building models like the boats built by the watermen who lived and worked on the Bay for generations. Bear mills his own wood and makes just about every part of his models. Sometime around 2009, Bear rebuilt a wooden model ship that he bought some 40 years earlier in Italy and had sunk in a garbage bag in the attic. It has been all but forgotten until he got the idea to resurrect this model for their newly built porch with a Caribbean theme. Not knowing anything about rigging and sails, much less the way the boat was supposed to look, Bear started doing research. He is the proud owner of three library cards and a parking pass at the Mariner’s Museum Research Library. Long story short, he is still building model boats. He admits he still has got a way to go, but he is getting there. . .one boat at a time.

Enjoy the pictures.