Shore leave is the leave that professional sailors get to spend on dry land.
During the Age of Sail, shore leave was often abused by the members of the crew, who took it as a prime opportunity to drink in excess, indulge in other pleasures denied to them aboard the solely masculine ships, and desert. Many captains were forced to take on new members of the crew to replace the ones lost due to shore leave.
Read more about Shore Leave: In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words shore and/or leave:
“It’s so lonely here. Like we were the only two people left in the whole world. Maybe we are. Maybe when we get back to shore everybody else will have disappeared. I’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
—Michael Wilson (1914–1978)
“Pious Selinda goes to prayers,
If I but ask the favour;
And yet the tender fool’s in tears,
When she believes I’ll leave her.
Would I were free from this restraint,
Or else had hopes to win her;
Would she would make of me a saint,
Or I of her a sinner.”
—William Congreve (1670–1729)