“You want me to hand you that rope?” An abrupt silence fell across the stern of the boat. All eyes turned to me like when a stranger enters a tavern in an old spaghetti western. My soon-to-be father-in-law, a seasoned sailor, looked on curiously as though his mind was drifting somewhere between laughing and tossing me overboard. Then in a very matter-of-fact tone, he announced, “When you’re on a ship, it’s called a line.” I peered over my shoulder to my significant other, who smirked with amusement as though to say, “Welcome aboard!” So, I picked up the long, nylon-braided line (that very much resembled a rope), and wondered how such an inauspicious introduction to sailing might play out for this landlubber from Indiana.
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