Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible (Doug Larson)
___________________
The land breeds and supports all kinds of human beings - wise men and fools, brave men and cowards, sharks and simpletons, bustling grabbers and weary slackers.
But the sea only breeds one sort - the virile sort. The sea is the great maker of men, men of courage and grit, men of authority and resource, men of nerve strength and muscle fitness. For fools she has no use, nor for slackers, nor yet the timid. These she either breaks or casts aside. And it has always been so. From the days of Noah the sea has never bred a wastrel. Her men have bone and character, the firm lips of responsibility and the far-seeing eyes of the distant horizon.
Salt water produces nothing small, nothing petty, nothing insignificant.
(The Last of the Windjammers by Basil Lubbock, written 1927)
___________________________
"On a Polar expedition begin with a clear idea of which Pole you are aiming at, and try to start facing the right way. Choose your companions carefully - you may have to eat them." (Unknown)
___________________________
“Any damn fool can circumnavigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk.”
Francis Chichester, yachtsman
__________________________
This is a true story:
A Canadian was on holiday in Phuket, Thailand. He was fascinated by the locals and their culture, and every day he watched a lone fisherman head out at dawn in a tiny longtail boat, and come back at sunset with enough fish to feed his family for that day. At the end of his holiday, he felt he had to speak to the man. Approaching him as he came in after a day's fishing, he offered to buy him a beer and went with him to a local bar to offer him some advice.
"I've been watching you, and I think I can help you. In my country I'm what's called a management consultant. That means I help people to run their businesses more efficiently. At the moment you're working very inefficiently, and as a result you are just making enough to support your family, and no more. Your major asset, your boat, isn't being used to it's maximum potential. I think you should get a loan from the bank and employ a young lad. Two of you fishing from that boat will be a lot more efficient, and within about two years you'll be able to pay off the loan and buy a second boat. You can employ some more people to run it, and in about five years you'll be in a position to step back and just employ other people to go out and do the fishing. In ten years, you'll have a business running four or five boats, employing two fishermen on each, and you'll be able to sit back in an airconditioned office and count the money. By then your little business will be worth enough that you can sell it and retire early. Just think - you won't have to work. You'll be able to spend your time doing what you really enjoy." The Canadian smiled at the fisherman. "What do you enjoy doing?"
The fisherman looked at him over his beer. "Fishing."
__________________________
Slow me down
You can run several agendas in life, but you cannot run them all at a hundred percent without someone paying the price. We have so many excuses. The main one is that we convince ourselves that a slower day is coming. We say to ourselves, “When the house is decorated, when I get my promotion, when I pass those exams – then I’ll have more time.”
Every time we have to say, “Not now, Darling…” we tell ourselves it’s ok because that slower day is getting nearer. It’s as well that we realise, here and now, that the slower day is an illusion – it never comes. Whatever our situation, we all have the potential to fill up our time. That’s why we need to make time for the things that we believe are important – and we need to make it now.
________________
"Nothing seems to really matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or you never get anywhere at all you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular, and when you have done it there’s always something else to do…if you like, but…you’d much better not."
(The Wind in the Willows)
___________________
"If we can hit that bulls-eye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
Captain Zapp Brannigan
(My favourite utterly mixed metaphor!!)
___________________
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't
do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from
the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
~ Mark Twain
___________________
`Is it so nice as all that?' asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.
`Nice? It's the only thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on dreamily: `messing -- about -- in -- boats; messing -- -- '
-- The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame
___________________
Life's Short - Eat Pudding First!
_____________________
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing."
Helen Keller
1880-1968, Blind/Deaf Author and Lecturer