I came to the ET Trading forum a few days ago - grasping for validation of my wacky trading style (tape reading?) - in spite of being a pathetic "noob", I received very kind and helpful replies to my "dancing with the devil" post. Please don't take this as a snub but I will be sailing "off the charts" for a little while. I have found my heading - pursuing a course that takes me away from the "fleet" - confident that ahead are unshoaled waters, gentle swells, and fair winds. Want to say thanks again to this truly wonderful forum - looking forward to the next voyage. Cheers!
Dear 8 lb 7 oz baby Jesus... a 19-MINUTE-LONG video on how to tie a frickin' bowline??? If it takes you more than 5 seconds after an hour of practice (and for the rest of your life after that), keeping away from boats - and anything more complicated than a granny knot - would be a very good idea.
A little off topic but years ago I had a sailing buddy named Phil - now departed - was a WWII merchant marine vet - he single-handed a beautiful Tahiti Ketch he built from scratch using rented molds - tied a bowline faster than you could blink - he was quite a guy. Once upon a time I dreamed of sailing South - job/wife/kids/etc. - now I "sail" around the living room.
I spent a bunch of years cruising the Caribbean, then came back via Bermuda and spent a number of years going chasing the warm weather up and down the East Coast. Doing something similar in a 40' RV these days (I'm in the Colorado mountains right now)... but man, I sure do miss the ocean sometimes. I'll return to it one of these years... it calls to me more and more as time passes. But yeah, tying a bowline should be damn near a spinal reflex. In the dark, behind your back, with one hand if need be - it's just one of those knots you can't live without on a boat.
(laughs) yes. We learned around ~20 different knots in few days. But, probably, we would be those 19 min vid amateurs too, in any other profession. (at least in the beginning) So it never happened ?