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 Boater's
Blessing And Other Notes 
May
there always be water under your boat,
May she always be seaworthy, ever afloat,
May the bilge pump be certain to work night and day,
May the compass and charts always show the safe way,
May you find gentle harbor as every day ends,
May you lower your anchor amidst peace and good friends.
-
Unknown
"We
can not direct the wind, but we can adjust our sails" -
Unknown
"Was
there ever a sailor free to choose that didn't settle somewhere near the
sea?"
~Rudyard
Kipling
"The
reason I love the sea I cannot explain..."
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
1910-1997
"He
is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and exact
a motive power out of the greatest obstacles."
- Henry
David Thoreau
One
ship sails east and another sails west
With the self-same winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.
As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life,
Tis the act of the soul that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"I come
back from sailing changed in a way
I find difficult to express."
- unknown
Summertime
and the living is easy;
Fish are jumping,
and the cotton is high.
Your daddy's rich and
your mamma's good looking,
So hush, little baby, don't you cry.
~George
Gershwin (1898-1937)
The
Wistful One
My window
opens upon the sea
And the smell of the sea
comes in to me -
And the voice of the sea
that calls and calls,
And the sea's hands beating
upon my walls.
Sometimes I
wake
in the night and hear
The sound of the sea,
and it seems so near
That I wonder how
I have strength of will
To listen and listen
and lie so still.
I wonder how
I can stay in bed
With a smoth'ring ceiling
over my head!
I envy the men
who can dip and ride
And drown, if they will,
in the brown, salt tide.
Oh why is a
half-grown lad so free
To pack up his clothes
and put out to sea,
While a maid must live
out her life on shore
Mending and washing
and sweeping the floor?
Some moonless
night,
when the sky is black,
I'll run away
and I'll never come back;
And maybe the girl
who used to be me
Will be far away,
like a lad, at sea!
by Abigail Cresson
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