You "landed" a 150 foot ship in Kobnhaven?

Is THAT what happened to the docks there? Would a better skipper have left her afloat instead of landed? Is that why you fuss around in play boats now?

I know about life at sea, about standing watch in the winter gales of the North Atlantic while searching through ice-encrusted binoculars for the tell-tale wake of a U-boat's periscope. About being ice-bound off the shores of Boothia and listening as the ice crushed the very keel and timbers of the ship. About riding the wild storm with the sail ripped to shreds and the rudder nearly gone, the oarsmen all that kept us from wallowing in the troughs of the waves to o'ertopped our mast. And I know too of the pleasures of the quiet harbor and the joys of sacking, rapine, and burning villages before we returned, treasure laden, from going a-viking.

Or the quiet of The River, when the stars above go on forever and me and Huck and Tom paddling like mad to avoid being run over by a steamboat.

Do not think I am a landlubber, sir.