Changing Course: A Woman's Guide to Choosing the Cruising Life

by Debra Ann Cantrell (Author)

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  Hardcover
  2000

  $17.88

  Men are from Mars, women are from Venus - like other best-selling clich?s, this one loses meaning with each repetition. But nowhere are the differences in planetary origin between men and women more evident than in the cramped, sometimes uncomfortable or downright scary confinement of a small boat at sea. In its review of Sailing - A Woman's guide, Sailing magazine pinpointed some of the differences this way: ask any couple living aboard an average-size cruising boat: men troubleshoot; women problem-solve. Men need to know what; women need to know why. Men prefer to learn by doing, figuring out things as they go along; women are more comfortable figuring out how things work before swinging into action . Those differences of a[[roach are commonly and dramatically evident in a couple's initial choice whether to pursue the cruising at all. Typically the man proposes and the woman disposes, and regardless of her choice, the marriage or relationship may or may not survive the consequences. This scenario is becoming ever more common as our means increase along with our work weeks, our discontent, and the visible role models offering a seafaring alternative. The author faced the dilemma herself when her husband proposed living on a boat. She would lose a career she loved (and with it, she feared, her self-esteem), the psychological sanctuary of a home in which she'd invested her creative energies, her support network of friends and family, even her prized lily garden -everything, in short by which she'd defined herself. The more she pondered the implications of choosing to embrace her partner's desire to go cruising, the more she wondered about those who had gone before her. What happened to them, and what became of their lives?