Even now; with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt. I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.
Only fools and passengers drink at sea.
To the question, "When were your spirits at the lowest ebb?" the obvious answer seemed to be, "When the gin gave out. "
For will anyone dare to tell me that business is more entertaining than fooling among boats? He must have never seen a boat, or never seen an office, who says so.
There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
I don't know who named them swells. There's nothing swell about them. They should have named them awfuls.
When you're on a boat, 15 nautical miles off the coast and you're with a bunch of fishermen, they don't give two shits about who you are.
The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life.
Spirits rise as the sails fill. . . Gone is the sea's glassy surface, and with it the terrible glare. Close the hatches and ports! We're sailing again!
The only way to get a good crew is to marry one.
Being hove to in a long gale is the most boring way of being terrified I know.
Men in a ship are always looking up, and men ashore are usually looking down.
I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
I want a boat that drinks 6, eats 4, and sleeps 2.
No literature is richer than that of the sea. No story is more enthralling, no tradition is more secure.
The ocean is an object of no small terror.
There is but a plank between a sailor and eternity.
Headwinds are sore vexations and the more passengers the sorer.
The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help the boat sail herself.
