Distilling the essence of life at sea: It’s a love-hate relationship, a roller coaster. The journey becomes etched on our skin. Vibrant bruises match vivid sunsets. There are tremendous stresses on equipment as well as our bodies. We learn something new each day, about sailing and ourselves. Sailing the oceans isn’t easy, but offers magnificent rewards with perseverance. We whinge about the effort, but secretly we are glad, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.