Do I want to share this?

Working on 'Go, Gulliver!' the second book of Mrs. Gulliver's secrets, in which Mary dresses as a man, poses as a sailor, and goes to see to save her husband from the giants of Brobdingnag,

I study the subject of women at sea in the 17th -18th centuries,

and I am shocked at the hardship of it.

Not only for women, but for men, too.

It was a tough life, demanding, cruel, unforgiving, against indifferent, rough and turbulent Nature, sea and storm.

How did she survive it? How did all those super-brave women, who really did it, how did they do it?

Were they all 'dykes'?

Men trapped in the bodies of women?

Official accounts of that period were not yet aquatinted with this phenomena, and were reluctant to concede to the fact that there was such a thing as homosexual love - of men and women - just as another form of human expression.

So, my own challenge, right now, is to overcome my reluctantness to face hardships, dive into the experience and spell it all out.

Wish me luck!