Greg, Barb, and Pope's Excellent Adventure--From Their Perspective

Given that everyone sees the world with different colored glasses, I invited other crew members to share their wisdom and philosophical reflections about life on a boat. (Be sure to read my version, too, on this blog post.)

First, Barb's perspective:

Our sailing saga started with baby steps. The excitement of launching the boat from the womb was seriously hampered by rough seas and hourly rain/wind squalls--hard labor. Consequently, our first anchorage, only 3 miles out, was dubbed "the crib."

Itching to get out of the crib and into the playpen, we ventured forth only to find more rain squalls, 8-foot swells three seconds apart, and 26-knot gusts--yikes!  What were we thinking?! (Opinion shared by two of the crew; guess who?) Retreat to the crib!

By day 3, the rain abated, wind lessened, and we graduated to a full-fledged crawl--motoring and some sailing with only a few stumbles (fish pots on starboard!). We arrived at our destination, Marie Galante, where we crawled to the dock slowly (dinghy engine smoking!). Today we're finally on our feet--sails full, sun shining, and now, with smiles all around, enjoying our "blue-water" playground.

Greg's tale of woe and astonishment:

 

Barb thought I was sporting a decent tan and she was getting extremely jealous. Then I accidentally wiped my arm, scraping off a 5-day patina of suntan lotion, bug repellent, and tons of sweat, salt and sand. No tan whatsoever underneath. 

So to make sure I have an awesome tan when I get back, I have decided not to shower at all until I get back home. 

As you may know, we have an extra berth on the boat since one couple dropped out due to illness. Barb has moved into the spare berth. I haven't figured out why. 

Finally, Pope's rose-colored glasses, which can detect "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly": 

The good: No one has attempted to mutiny or kill the captain; we have wonderful weather, sunshine, warm 17-knot breezes, and calm seas with big ocean swells, at comfortable 10-second intervals.

Cute, dilapidated villages come complete with friendly people and creole food grilled in home-built stoves on the beach. Then came top-drawer French dinners in Les Saintes.
 

Some new kinds of good, also. Never before have I had croissants delivered to my mooring for breakfast in the morning. 

Never before have I had a brand new outboard engine delivered to my boat while anchored a half-mile offshore.

The bad: the dinghy engine we started out with never worked properly. Cooling system kaput. No tools to fix it. 

The ugly: for the first several days we had rain so hard it sounded like low-flying aircraft, wind gusts over 30 knots, and nasty seas producing  mal de mer in the crew (i.e., loss of cookies). One windward ocean crossing had to be aborted due to crew queasiness.