“Over twenty-three hundred years ago, a Greek historian wrote the following description of his meeting with a Phoenician seaman: “I found the mate of the steersman, who is called the prow’s man, so well acquainted with the location of each article that even when absent he could tell where everything lay and what their number was, just as a person who has learnt to read could tell the number and order of the letters in the name Socrates. I saw this man examining at an unoccupied time everything that is of use on board a ship; and on my asking him the reason, he replied, ‘Stranger, I am looking to see whether anything is lacking or out of order; for it will be no time to look for what is missing or out of place when a storm comes up at sea.’ “
Excerpted from “Sea Sense”, author Richard Henderson Publisher: International Marine Publishing Company, Camden, Maine.
Islander.