Sailing has always been a shared pastime for Warren and Jacquie Price, who celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary June 19.

The Boothbay Harbor residents would sail from their Cape Cod home to Maine and back, taking family members and friends along, exploring quiet inlets and visiting the islands nearby.  

The couple met in New Hampshire when Warren drove the car that took 15-year-old Jacquie and a blind date to a local dance. Jacquie grew up in Warner, New Hampshire; Warren, in Malden, Massachusetts.

Warren’s service in the U.S. Navy as a pilot and later with commercial airlines meant frequent moves for the couple and their four children. One of these was to Freeport in the mid-1950s, when the family discovered the Boothbay peninsula.  

The couple lived on Cape Cod for years. Warren was a captain on water as well as in the air. “Our big summer life was sailing the Maine coast,” Jacquie reminisced.  “People don’t realize how many islands there are.”

They would remain onboard throughout the summer, sailing as far north as Nova Scotia and Grand Manan Island. Jacquie would assist as first mate. “Warren would get the anchor rigged and I would push it over into the water,” she said.

Starting with a smaller sailboat named Interim (because they knew a larger boat would follow), the couple later sailed a Sabre named Intrinsic. Their daughter named the boat because, as Jacquie explained, “The word means ‘essential to one’s nature.’ ”

Warren remembers his last sail on Intrinsic with its new owner. “We approached the bridge at Southport. Dwight and Duane Lewis were there. They weren’t supposed to open the bridge at that time but they opened it for us to come through.” Warren remembers the Lewis twins said, “It’s OK. We know it’s your last trip so come on through. “

A gift subscription to Down East Magazine from daughter Laurie Dougherty led to a foothold in Boothbay. “My mother saw an ad for a house in the first copy of Down East they received,” she explained. The house at Ovens Mouth was known as “The Red House” and became a summer home for the family in 1985.

“My family has deep roots here,” Dougherty said. ”We have Maine relatives who served in the Civil War.”

Both Dougherty and her parents bought homes in Maine at the same time. Each greeted the other one day saying they had “big news,” and realized they had bought Maine homes on the same day – the Prices in Boothbay and Laurie in Bridgton.

Jacquie and Warren lived in the Red House until a few years ago, when they moved to St. Andrews Village with their cat, Marsea. Jacquie remembered the quiet town of Boothbay Harbor when the couple first started visiting, more than 30 years ago.

“It was a town for local people, rather than tourists,” she recalled. “We had Brud’s hot dogs and the Playhouse.”

“Bob Grover said I looked honest and gave me a charge account based on just that,” Warren recalled.

Asked what lessons each had learned after being married 67 years, Jacquie said she had learned to be flexible and to have patience. Warren said he had learned to wash the dishes.

Laurie summarized her parents’ long marriage: “They’ve had joys and challenges but they’ve always had each other.”