As a sailor, I know the maritime rule: Each day you spend on a boat with someone is a day your boat shrinks by a foot.
I can be high-strung and cranky when famished. "The Grizzly family," my ex-husband and I called ourselves when we were hungry. Groucho Marx once famously said, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." I could relate.
From online dating, three men asked me to sail from Seattle to Chile on their sailboat and back. Sounds romantic, but I lived on a sailboat in Seattle in my 20s. Rocking to sleep on the waves is lovely. Each item you bring aboard- even a toothbrush- reduces your living space.
"No way in hell," I thought and politely declined. I know what it's like to be cooped up on a sailboat with others. You reach a point where you want to jump overboard or strangle someone.
Growing up on a lake in Michigan with three sailboats, I spent hours cramped on a 36-foot Wayfarer sailboat with four kids, two parents and our 100-pound Labrador Retriever. Lady often swam after the boat. When she got tired, "Heave-ho!" we pulled her into the sailboat. In my imagination, if someone was going to walk the plank, I voted for my brother.
By age-11, I could handle a 10-foot sailboat. Loved when it was just me, the boat, wind and waves. Mom put oarlocks and oars in all sailboats. When the wind died, I rowed home.
Also spent the past forty years protecting my skin from sun. "The damage to your skin was from all of that sun reflection when you grew up on a lake," a dermatologist said.
In reality, long-distance sailing is difficult and dangerous. Hurricanes. Equipment failures. High winds and massive waves. Run-aground in extreme low tides. Circling sharks.
All of this happened to my parents while sailing in the Bahamas and Virgin Islands.