Men, we sail on the morning tide!

has been my answer to scheduling departures for a long time now.

Now, the morning tide may not come until, say, 2330 but it’s still the morning tide. I generally call it the 2330 morning tide.

Newbies always ask why I call the morning tide the morning tide if it’s 1600 and I tell them that you have to call it something. I sometimes call it the 1600 (or whatever time we’re sailing) morning tide.

“Men, we sail on the 1600 morning tide!”

I figure that the pirates in the movies always sail on the morning tide and if it’s good enough for Errol Flynn and Johnny Depp it’s good enough for the rest of us.

I always wonder what it was like to sail a galleon all hung over and sick because generally the word is given to the crew when they are in some tavern somewhere bombed out of their minds and groping the waitresses that work there.

Of course, in the next scene you see the crew bright-eyed and bushy-tailed heaving anchor while cheerfully singing a sea chantey of some sort.

I’ve done that a couple of times over the years. I’d be hauling in deck lines when we sailed cheerfully singing a sea chanty about whores, rum, sodomy or the lash and left the crew either laughing or shaking their heads. The all-time hit single of time all time seems to be ‘The Good Ship Venus’.

I would imagine the truth back when really involved groans, curses and puking but that’s not what Hollywood wants us to see.

Pirates are supposed to be happy people.

Still, I generally sail on the morning tide no matter what time of day it comes.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY