There are 40,000 Americans sailing boats around the world right now, I’m told. There are lots of awesome places you can’t see any other way.

For a few years, it was my big dream. I bought a starter-boat, a cheap old Columbia 28, and took lessons. I parked the “L’Chaim” in Jack London’s old yacht club (in Alameda) and sailed around the San Francisco Bay, a little. The cabin ceiling was one inch shorter than me – I bumped my head a lot.

Then I spent nine days on this nice big sailboat touring the Galapagos Islands, and my dream died. I still want to experience sailing in beautiful places, but I learned something important: what I really want on a sailboat trip is to sip a glass of wine, one hand trailing in the water, daydreaming while someone else does the work. And I want to get off when I get tired of it.

The Galapagos are famous for a few things: Darwin’s work, isolation, unique fauna, giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies, smelly iguanas… I had a comfortable cabin, good food, and we had a trained naturalist to show us around.

Nights were best: below us, the dolphins would swim around the ship leaving glowing stardust trails in the phosphorescent water. Above: incredibly clear stars and the Southern Cross. It’s dark out there, 600 miles from the coast of Equador.

Also, there’s only one place in the world that has both penguins (on the equator!) and flamingos. And of course, a 220-year-old land tortoise the size of a Smart Car is pretty damned cool.

The thing was, after five days, I was done. I felt cooped up. Blue-footed boobies are fun, and the Galapagos Islands are well worth seeing, but nine days is a long time on a boat. Five is perfect, seven is okay, but nine… jesus tap dancing christ, get me back to Quito.

So I sold my little boat to an elderly gent who’d just been wiped out in a divorce and needed a place to live. And started reworking my life list.