We almost lost the captain…

…that was the beginning of a post from my friends who have left their dirt house for a life on the seas. Al and Jane are Loopers- traveling the east coast of America! Some days are filled with inspiring sunrises, whale and dolphin sightings and then relaxing with docktails while snug in the marina. And then there was this scary day, as Jane recounts it…

As we headed south out of Vero Beach Captain Al was calmly sitting in his helm chair. We were in minimal traffic. I was not paying much attention but I looked over to the starboard (right side) and noted a boat had come up on our stern quickly and it seemed to hover 20 feet off the starboard stern which is like the blind spot on a car. Then the guy gunned his engines and blew past us putting a dangerous wake directly in front of our bow. The wake hit so hard that it threw us sideways and Al was tossed right out of his chair. Coffee was everywhere and he moaned so I knew he was not unconscious. I got us back on course in the channel despite trembling hands, while Al slowly got up onto a bench seat to sort out his injuries.  He ended up with a bad skin tear on his ankle and wrenched his right hip. We survived but it was a wake-up call for handling emergencies on board.  Some boaters just don’t understand the first rule of boating:

You are responsible for your wake!!

Good advice, right? Applying this to everyday life, it seems to me that all of us, not just boaters, are responsible for our own wake, for what we create or for the results of our own actions. Whether we did something marvelous or whether we made a mess, whether we intended to act or whether it was an accident, we still need to own it.

The waters- rivers, seas and oceans- are compelling to us. We honor their majesty and might and fear their strength and unending power. Perhaps that is why there are so many quotes and thoughts about sailors and boats. In addition to you are responsible for your own wake here are a few that make me pause and ponder. (I have done my best to find the correct attribution for each quote.)

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship. Louisa May Alcott

Remember, it was a professional who built the Titanic. It was an amateur who built Noah’s Ark
– Unknown, Ben Carson is one who has used this quote

The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea.
–  Isak Dinesen

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover

(Most people attribute this quote to Mark Twain, but he did NOT say it . Most people now attribute it to a 1990 book by bestselling author H. Jackson Brown, Jr. He published the work containing the quotation, but he did not take credit for it.)

He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.”
– Thomas Fuller

To sail is human… to power divine!
N.N.
– Preben Sejer Kristensen

A Smooth Sea NEVER made a Skilled Sailor
Used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt based on an English proverb

Thy sea, O God, so great,
My boat so small.
It cannot be that any happy fate
Will me befall
Save as Thy goodness opens paths for me
Through the consuming vastness of the sea.

Thy winds, O God, so strong,
So slight my sail.
How could I curb and bit them on the long
And saltry trail,
Unless Thy love were mightier than the wrath
Of all the tempests that beset my path?

Thy world, O God, so fierce,
And I so frail.
Yet, though its arrows threaten oft to pierce
My fragile mail,
Cities of refuge rise where dangers cease,
Sweet silences abound, and all is peace.

– Winfred Ernest Garrison

I will close with my favorite. And as you set your compass and follow your North Star, do you have a favorite quote?

There are good ships and wood ships,

ships that sail the sea,

but the best ships are friendships,

may they always be!

Irish Proverb