Working on your "Spidey" sense...

I'm not finding this 5-year plan all warm and fuzzy, cyclists take note, and, for answers about bankers, you just follow the money...

A friend called me the other day wanting to discuss some issues he had concerning helping someone else bring his boat down to the Caribbean and his "spidey" sense was kicking in and telling him that, just maybe, this particular passage with this boat/captain was not a great idea.

I've actually been told more than once that I take a somewhat cavalier view of sail education and my "any idiot can sail" theory is somewhat off-base. While I continue to consider sailing a very simple set of tasks that anyone can do (OK, maybe not this guy), there is a hard part involved and it is not about trimming a sail, remembering which side you pass a red buoy while returning to port, or being able to pick up a mooring without having it become a "day of shame"...

The hard part most people have is allowing their brain to actually fire with all cylinders and take advantage of the myriad inputs available to us... "Spidey" sense included.

Your gut instinct, intuition, and subconscious situational awareness are a sailors best friend but most folks on boats have a really hard time learning to listen to it, even when it is screaming DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!!

You have to learn to listen...

As it happens, my friend listened and made the decision that this was not a passage that he wanted to have anything to do with and last I heard he was in a rented car heading home.

Listening to John Lee Hooker

So it goes...