Surly is as surly does...

In an industry which uses euphamisms such as "drop a crane load on him,"
"take it to the aft deck," and "it would be a shame if nobody cried 'man
overboard' when he went over the rail," you'd think sailors were a bunch of
hard-eyed, cold-blooded... well... sailors. And you'd be right, for the
most part.

I'm not going to try and dispell those stereoypes, either. They are what
they are. What I can attest is to the accuracy of the description my
grandfather once gave of going to sea (and I paraphrase): "It is little more
than a prison where you can get violently sick or horribly killed, on
accident or purpose."

And some days in the North Atlantic are like that.

I quit taking the dramamine, by the way, for a time when I need it. I

didn't need it during the hurricane (not really), nor during a pirate drill

yesterday while up in the bow- the deck was falling out from under us,

leaving us pretty much weightless. A fellow sailor mentioned the time when he had to hold himself down when the deck was falling because it was total freefall

and he'd float up into the air... it sounds far-fetched until you're pretty

much there yourself.

No spell check on these dinosaurs, and time for my watch. It is midnight,
and all is well.