My friend Maile and I both married men who love the sea. They do not love the sea more than they love us, but then again they’d rather not be asked to choose. Maile and I prefer hotels. I have a terrible fondness for shade and beds that don’t move. When I go for a walk, I usually want to go farther than ten feet. Maile just gets seasick.

And so the husbands conspired to design a sailing trip that would prove to us that a good time can be had by all on the water. It is a plot worthy of Doris Day and Rock Hudson: Two sailing husbands cook up a plan to turn their land-loving wives into a couple of old salts. It has romantic comedy written all over it.

The four of us met up in the British Virgin Islands in the season of calm seas and endless sunshine. Our boat was called the Aurora, a 67-foot sloop the husbands had decided on after months of poring over choices on the Internet. (Ah, the Internet. It fans the hearts of sailors the way the sea itself once did.) We dragged our duffel bags full of swimwear and sunscreen and paperback novels down to the dock, where we met Rich and Sam Malone, the husband-and-wife captain-and-cook team. They radiated warmth and welcome despite the fact that we were two hours late and had already eaten lunch. “Eaten?” Sam said.

“Did you make lunch? ” Maile asked.

“I’m so sorry, ” I said brightly. “Whatever it was, just give it to us for dinner. ”

Let’s stop the movie here. Imagine you are living in an apartment that is 67 feet long and, at its most ambitious point, 17 feet wide. Four people you’ve never laid eyes on show up with a not insignificant amount of luggage to stay with you for seven days and seven nights, and none of you will leave the apartment for the entire week. To get off on the right foot, you cook a beautiful meal for your mystery guests, and they, in turn, blow it off (albeit unwittingly). Instead of drowning the ungrateful wretches like a sackful of blind kittens, you simply smile. ...