Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The romance of the sea

Today is a good day to remind ourselves of the romance of the sea.

John Masefield summed it up nicely with his Sea Fever:

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by...

Surely no one who has sailed at night under starlight will be unmoved by those words.

And there are of course many others, siren calls of distant shores, tropical nights and of ships that pass by night.

But the reality is of course very different. Being waken at night by calls that can't be ignored, one's life becoming secondary to the demands of the ship, warm glow vanishing after a drenching in cold water.....

I was wondering that maybe there are echoes there of shore based romance and maybe that's why some like to sail solo.

Can you think of any other parallels between romance vs. realities of the sea and shore?

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