Preface
Disclaimers, apologies and other excuses
Well, I think I've finally finished putting this together. I don't think it's really possible that I'd ever finish this to my satisfaction, but I do think that I've finally reached a point where I'm comfortable enough in pretending that it's done -- for now.
What follows is an account of my very first open-sea sailing trip. The trip must have made some impact on me, because I've easily spent more time documenting it than I spent on the trip itself. But, before we get into that, I'd like to clear up a couple of points, right up front.
The main point is that this story involves a lot more people than just me, but it's still pretty much based on my perspective of what happened. Worse (or better) yet, it's based on my warped perspective of what happened. Life would be a lot easier if the only people I had to deal with were complete strangers because at least that way, I'd never see any of them again, and therefore wouldn't have to explain myself to them. But, life isn't that easy, and the vacation did mean dealing with a lot of people who are actually friends of mine (or maybe were friends of mine).
The characters depicted in this story may be based on real life people, but the ones you'll find here exist only in my mind. That's a nice way of saying that I may have said a few unflattering things (that might not be true) about people (who might not exist in real life). Call it literary license, but the truth of the matter is that I think it's funnier that way. It's just that it's been pointed out to me that some people may take my rankings seriously, even though that certainly isn't my intention. To anyone mentioned in this travelogue: I didn't mean it, and thanks for letting me caricature you.
Special thanks should go to Georgia Hilton for her efforts in organizing this trip. Georgia spent huge amounts of her time (and her money) to make this trip possible. Any of us who had the pleasure of joining her on this little outing certainly benefited from her generosity, and certainly have her to thank for a bucketful of fond memories. If I've taken a large number of potshots at her, it's only because she presents a larger than life target. Additional thanks go to Kathy Hunt (the Sail 93 poster child) for all the work she did in keeping us fed.
This was a great trip. Considering the amount of effort that Georgia put into planning it, the amount of effort she put into seeing it through, and the amount of time and effort she put into producing momentos for us (from the pictures to the trip video), it had to be something special. Considering the amount of time I put into documenting it, I must have enjoyed it, too, although it isn't generally in my nature to make such admissions.
I've tried my best to document everything of any consequence that happened, at least within my jaundiced eyeshot, but I'm sure I missed quite a bit. On top of that, my definition of "everything of consequence" still leaves out quite a lot of good stuff, simply because there isn't the time or paper to get into everything. Perhaps if I had more time, money, and paper, I could share with you the endless Ferris Beuhler jokes, the incessant declarations of Sir Chas, the list of our celebrity lookalikes, or Christine Candee's endless stream of "Girlie-man" insults. Then again, this is my story, so I get to tell my jokes.
I could have also documented the shipboard romances, and there were quite a few (ranging from casual to matrimonial), but personal decorum prevents me from doing so. Suffice it to say that friends were made, and good times were had by all, and even better times were had by many.
Finally, there is a category of events that falls into the "If you write about this, I'll kill you" category. Given that self preservation is high on my list of things to do in my spare time, I've done my best to observe peoples' privacy whenever requested. I hope I didn't slip up here. Suffice it to say that just about everyone on the trip had at least one major scale "Oops!" that isn't documented here. Don't worry, your secret's safe (especially for the right price).
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