I want to tell you straight how great life on board Tres Hombres is. I really do. Because it is. Great, I mean. It's just… I'm no good at all that cheery 'life's full of wonders' crap. As a storyteller, I need my fair dose of tragedy. Recently I have found, though, that tragedy is much more frequently encountered on shore than it is at sea. So let me present to you the beauty of life on board this sexy vessel by all the bitter disappointments I ran into since stepping ashore. Please don't take me too seriously, though. I'm only a storyteller.

So it's late and I'm back in my regular pub and they close the doors while I'm still inside, together with a couple of other usual suspects, discussing the kind of topics one discusses over too many drinks in the bar one gets locked into voluntarily upon occasion. Similar stories about how we keep messing up somehow. It feels familiar. I'm back in town. I'm just carrying a little more facial hair. Side note: if you can't go without live jazz, don't go sailing. Damn, was that some nice getting reacted with that loony, incomprehensible music.

But while the fellas demand more stories and the ladies ask to touch my mustache, a sudden, overwhelming sensation hits me. At first, it feels like I'm floating. Then, it's like I'm sinking. And right before I start panicking and fearing for my life, I find myself back on the t'gallan yard, overlooking the North Sea. There isn't a cloud in the sky. In a ditty bag, cheerfully dangling below me I find a jar full of pig fat. The ol' foremast needs some greasing. As I dip my hand in the jar and grab a full scoop of tallow, I can see a little motor vessel approaching at full speed. They're fishermen with their nets in. “Come to have a closer look at the pretty boaty, my friends?” I mutter. “Well, I get it…” and lovingly I smear her all around her mast and the throat of the yard. For a while, we rock gently together on the calm and happy, glistening water. And I take a deep breath of healthy, salty air.

Except it isn't. It's musky, sweaty air with a hint of someone smoking in the background. Looking bewildered at those shaded faces around me I immediately decide to call it a night. “See you soon, everyone,” I say, leaving a barely touched pint and some buzzed land animals behind.

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