I remember standing on the flight deck of Kennedy while anchored off Rota, and thinking to myself, this is the view that Columbus would have seen, the same waters he would have sailed from. Later on, in Seville, I saw and touched his tomb in the Cathedral there. A Cathedral, I might add, that seemed to be bathed in the gold brought back from the New World by those who came later.

Yet, to gaze out upon the eternal sea, to taste the tang of the salt air, the smell of it, and sea how absolutely huge, how endless it all seems, and how puny you feel, how insignificant you realise you are in the great scheme of things, is quite sobering to a young immortal alpha male.

Those epiphanies have a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. You get all comfortable with your role in the world, and suddenly… BAM. There it is.

The ocean was my epiphany. It changed me and my views of life forever, and for the better, I might add.

Great pic, skipper.