Seems to me that some cruisers posting here are really no longer cruising.
Take Bruce in Bangkok, for example. He admits he's thrown in the towel and
has been living aboard tied to a dock in Bangkok for several years. Prior to
that, he engaged in some limited attempts at cruising which resulted in his
being stuck where he is now in a backwater, third-world country a few
thousand miles downwind from his departure point. Why, any old Rube on a
balsa raft could have accomplished that kind of thing!

One must wonder if his failing to succeed at cruising causes any advice he
has to offer the group to be suspect? After all, would you listen to advice
from a lawyer who lost every case or was disbarred? Or a doctor who had lost
a number of malpractice suits? Or a professional sports figure who failed to
make the cut?

Yet you seem to listen to failed cruisers and take seriously what they have
to say? Is it because you are so undiscriminating that you identify with
failures? Or is it that you seek out persons who are likely to be on par
with your own low expectations and abilities and their failures help comfort
you and assuage your own repeated failures and thus make your own lack of
success seem normal. Perhaps this is why Skip Gundlach seems to have little
or no motivation when it comes to doing things right??? How can one expect
professionalism from those who seek out and identify with mediocrity?

Shouldn't you folks more readily identify with successful cruisers and seek
out advice from them? Why identify with failures when many good role models
are available? Why support those who don't see failure as anything to be
ashamed of or avoided? Simply by associating with failures you tend to
become one yourself.

Success breed success! Try not to forget it.


Wilbur Hubbard