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To these ends, in 1996 Jerry, a Las Vegas real estate appraiser,
joined Marilyn, an astrophysicist at Lockheed Martin, on a two-week
passage from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas aboard Sea Wind, the
Modern Sailing Academy's 38-foot Hans Christian. For Marilyn,
observing the skipper's responses to conditions was "quite
useful," but the major benefit of that cruise, she says,
was getting used to a four-on/four-off watch system. "The
discovery that I could handle a four-hour watch was a real confidence-builder."
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Then this
past spring and summer, Marilyn and Jerry signed up for
different legs of the annual Pacific voyage of the academy's
53-foot Islander Polaris. Marilyn sailed from Acapluco
to the Marquesas, a 26-day passage, and Jerry joined her
there for the two-week, 850-mile passage to Tahiti by
way of the Tuamotus. "Thanks to El Nino, we never
found the Coconut Milk Run, and we had head winds all
the way to Tahiti," Jerry says.
"From Rangaroa to Tahiti it was really rough, with
twenty- to twenty-five-foot waves, wind gusting to forty."
What did he learn? "In conditions like that, you
need to sail with people you like and enjoy spending time
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And you need to concentrate on taking care of your-self, eating
well and hydrating yourself." And what did Marilyn learn?
"That what Polaris's skipper told us was true: 'It's like
you're in a self-defense class, and at the end of each session,
you go out into a back alley to meet real muggers.' You learn
to live somewhat normally in a tiny little world in which the
weather is unpredictable, the watch schedule is relentless,
and things break."
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