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Lawrence B. Rasie Jr. of Branford, a reporter, a fisherman, and a lover of the sea, died Feb. 13 at a rehabilitation home in Guilford. He was 81. He and his wife Barbara Carlson lived in Middletown before moving to their seaside home in Branford 30 years ago. Larry had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for several years, yet to his last days could enjoy the always-changing views of the Sound from his porch.

Larry was born in Norwich, the son of Lawrence B. and Virginia Rasie. As a boy he lived in West Hartford and attended Hall High School, leaving before graduation to enlist in the Navy, where he served as a control-tower operator. Later, he majored in English at the University of Connecticut and graduated in three years. While he was working as a reporter on the Hartford Courant, he earned a master’s degree from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Graduate Center in Hartford.

He joined the Courant as a bureau reporter in 1963, and through the years wrote and edited town news, and covered the aircraft industry and general business news. He retired in 1991, and then set to work compiling and writing Directory of Business Information, which cited more than 10,000 business sources. It was a task that took almost three years of nonstop research.

Earlier, Larry’s love of the sea shone in feature stories; in a photo story headlined “Blues and Boats,” he wrote, “It’s that time of year again, when man meets bluefish at The Race...” He found the drama of men trying to best blues “one of the most exciting shows on the Sound.”

At one time in his life, he owned and lived on a boat that had taken him some time to find (and so he dubbed her Eureka—“I have found it”). The boat, an old wood cabin cruiser, had quite a few mishaps that required skilled boatmanship or a tow or both. When he finally sold the boat, he wrote in the Courant of the joy of acquiring a boat, and the equal or greater joy of selling it. Larry had a waggish sense of humor, which combined with his delight in word play could lead to very funny (and sometimes exasperating) puns.

All his life, Larry was devoted to his dogs—from Queenie, a dog of his youth, remembered by Larry’s sister Cynthia as a “fat, round hound type,” to his last-loved Kipling, whose photo looked out at him as Larry died.

He leaves his wife; a son and daughter from his previous marriage, Mark (Patty) Rasie and Beth Rasie; granddaughters Lindsey and Taylor Rasie; and sisters Cynthia Wlascinski of Deland, Florida, and Judy Rasie of Ledyard. Memorial donations may be made to the Bambi Bailey/Barbara Carlson Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, 70 Audubon St., New Haven, CT 06510. Please see an online memorial at www.wsclancy.com.