annoy-nymous

Pepperidge farm remembers...

I have subscribed to your list! Good luck and hope for a release soon!

By the way, in case no one said it yet, thank you for your hard work and service to a very misunderstood and disadvantaged part of humanity. It's not glorious, it's dangerous and depressing, but it's such necessary work for our society.

Thank you also for being so encouraging to everyone in this thread who are thinking about getting into the business.

The best is when pods of dolphins ride your bow wave... you can see them play and frolic just a few feet away. On some routes/seasons the dolphins will stay with the ship for a week or more.

Flying fish and whales are common too. We try to catch them but in 5 years have never succeeded (we are terrible fishermen). Sometimes you get to anchor near strange exotic islands with very different fauna/flora and ecosystems... Those times I feel like Darwin exploring the Galapagos. Most of these islands are protected national parks with (maybe) 1 inhabitant who runs the light house. Very untouched by outside influences and species and we have to be very careful not to take any livestock/fruit/seeds on or off the island.

Best moments for me are when we sail into/out of a harbor, full sails and colors flying, blasting our horn and trailing a stream of yachts and smaller boats like an A-list celebrity and gawkers. Also all the kids that come to gawp.

Worst is really dense fog. You can't go very fast, it's very tense and you have very little time to react to hazards/buoys in the water. Very quiet and eerie. Sounds bounce around and you hear ships long before you see them.

Scariest is once during an ice storm, climbing aloft to repair a broken rope on the royal sail at least 90 feet above deck. Had to get up there fast so I wasn't harnessing in as I climbed (most crews I know of do this, you usually harness when you get to your destination to do work or if you're moving on the yards of a square rig or making a risky jump). As I reached up to grab the next stanchion with one hand, the ship moved and I ended up punching the metal with my fingers outstretched. Anyone who's stubbed frozen fingers before knows how painful that can be and I instinctively recoiled and drew my hand back. Unfortunately my leg didn't get the message and had already stepped off the rigging. Now the ship swung the other way, and I flipped backwards, dangling there by one knee upside down. Swinging back and forth in the freezing rain with only one leg curled around a rope, I remember thinking "yup, so this is when I die". I hung there for a few seconds while feeling returned to my hand, and then realized the situation wasn't that bad... I could get my other knee wedged in a different rigging, and use my abs to pull up enough to reach the rigging with my hands and flip myself around. I promptly harnessed myself in, sat in my harness and took a few breaths. Then I went up and fixed the rope.

Honestly I think the experiments with diagnosis through faking symptoms is very counter-productive. The very essence of psychiatric disorders are diagnosed through communication and dependent on self-reporting and behavioral analysis. If you lie and fake symptoms, why is it surprising you would be misdiagnosed?

This is like if you go to the emergency room, and complain of sharp chest pains. They would run CT scans, x-rays, check your various vitals, but if you insist on sharp pains, they would likely give you painkillers and may keep you for observation. If you then lied about getting bitten by a snake, they would run anti-venom tests and try to fight it. All you've proven is that you can waste a hospital's time and resources by lying. This says nothing about the efficacy of care on those with actual health issues.