Turn the frown the other way around!

Although I can’t put my finger on any specific incident at this moment, we are sometimes surprised at the level of intensity with which people respond to posts where I share something that is less than 100% positive. For example, if I write about a dinghy being stolen on an island, no doubt several people will recommend shunning that island altogether. Or if I mention that a pair of swim fins were ‘tiefed‘ off a boat (that would be ‘stolen’), I’ll end up with one or two responses about how to turn a boat into Fort Knox. I bet that if I was to say that we found a strange vibration in our engine at least one person would post that the engine block is cracked or that the pistons are about ready to fly out!

To be successful at cruising, successful meaning being able to survive and continue at it long term, one really needs to develop a roll-with-the-punches attitude. In addition to that, having a positive outlook and being able to treat setbacks as valuable learning episodes wouldn’t hurt either. A couple of our readers recently commented on how they feel that we have such an attitude. While I would definitely agree, until they had mentioned it, I really hadn’t given a lot of thought about how important such a quality is for cruisers to have.