ADVENTURE HELL OR HIGH SEAS

we were in Roatán, Honduras heading back to Ole Lady when a comment from Taylor about my mishandling of a line resulted in us punching each other the face. He knocked me onto my back, and I knocked Taylor off the dinghy. He didn’t stop, though. He got me in a chokehold from the water, pulling me down from below. We both thought the trip was over then, that we were going to pack it in and return home. However, we came back together in the cockpit that same night. We cried a little, laughed a lot, drank even more whiskey, and finally, made a pact to not punch each other in the face again, no matter how drunk or angry we got.’

SOLACE IN A SAILING MISSION

Sometimes voyages can test any close friendship but add post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) into the mix and it is easy to see why emotions sometimes ran high for Taylor Grieger, the skipper, and his crew Stephen O’Shea, 29.