All very sound advice and practical observations ... if you don't mind getting wet... and quite a deal considering that they throw in a swimming lesson and impromptu sea survival course with every purchase.

With a little luck, assuming you can get a call out and they can get there in time, you might get to see the USCG in action up close. Surely a spectacle worth the price of admission.

If they don't get there in time ... well ... you were looking for adventure and sounded like you needed a bit of time alone to contemplate life and regain perspective.

There is nothing quite so adventurous as facing down a storm at sea in a completely inadequate boat. And nothing so conducive of a change of perspective as contemplating spending the rest of a rather foreshortened life bobbing cold and alone in a life jacket on a dark and stormy night. Be sure to bring your own life jacket. Not having one takes a lot of the fun out it.

Assuming you live you could expect it to be a tale you could tell the grandkids. There I was ...