Heading out to sea while understandably not for the faint of heart, is otherwise and (by what I imagine to be reasonable standards) considered a glamorous and fetching celebration charged with magnetic potential and intrigue. What after all could be more wholesome than bouncing about on a cork on open water miles from land’s end or familiar territory with nothing but the horizon to indicate whence you came or wither you go! And from what little I recall of my erstwhile sailing days, the character of the sea is highly mutable though seemingly inconspicuous.

Nonetheless I divert from these incorrigible hazards by reminding myself of more digestible entertainment; namely, my unqualified passion for matters nautical. Sailing, yachting and seafaring generally constitute one of those non-fractious ingredients which I readily consume in whole or in part.  I am prepared intellectually to “interpret” nautical ventures (real and imagined) to my favour and personal improvement.  I consider this accommodation no more than literary licence; that is, mere codswallop. Rubbish.  But amusing!

I will not pretend that my days as a landlubber are over. But given my latest absorption in matters nautical I will say I would in the future prefer to be acknowledged as either a Man of the Sea or merely as a sailor. Following our recent communications with Sonda Coote, Travel Consultant of Regent Cruise Line (and having booked one of her salivating cruises) I have – in the interest of seafaring – augmented my current posture towards humanity and decided instead that “Captain” may in the future be a more suitable noun of address (only should the occasion arise naturally).

Meanwhile I intend to maintain my present course which, without mistakenly presuming I’ll be right about where I am going to end up, is categorically directed to sunshine, social communion and the sea.  It is for this reason also I may have jokingly postulated converting to the subaqueous tribe of unrepentants who govern the sailors at sea. By this of course I mean only that I now willingly and no doubt comically adopt the nautical theme. It’s the only way I know to spirit life’s smouldering embers.

I must admit that I have spent most of my life on land. The opportunity to embrace such an unctuous theme at sea is therefore naturally exciting.

poop deck
poop | po͞op |
noun (also poop deck) the aftermost and highest deck of a ship, especially in a sailing ship where it typically forms the roof of a cabin in the stern: there on the poop stood Captain Meech.
verb [with object] (usually be pooped) (of a wave) break over the stern of (a ship), sometimes causing it to capsize: carrying a high sea, we were badly pooped.
ORIGIN late Middle English: from Old French pupe, from a variant of Latin puppis ‘stern’.