If I looked scared, it was because I was imagining doing it 100 feet aloft instead of six inches off the tweendeck, and in a freezing gale off the Horn rather than in a balmy winter's day of 65-70 degrees tied up to the gentle harbor of San Diego.   

That made it pretty scary -- it comes home to me over and over how tough life was, on average, a mere hundred years back. An2d for men of the sea, brutally so.   I'd say we have a lot to be grateful for.


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