Only one thing stands out: "I was certainly ill-equipped." So far in these posts everything has been blamed --engineering decisions, the psychology of panic --

Only one thing stands out: "I was certainly ill-equipped." So far in these posts everything has been blamed --engineering decisions, the psychology of panic -- except the mindset of the adventurers. "Fight and flight" is not a normal way to describe a reaction to an ordinary oil-spill, even in a slightly less than extremely convenient location when you have the comfort and convenience of a complete house, which is even mobile by itself, at your disposition. I think some psychological factors are left unmentioned here, with hints of spousal disagreement, grudges, an unwillingness to admit failure, and a desire to divert blame to external factors (the posts in question being an example by themselves). There was definitely a chain of ill-considered decisions that almost lead to a disastrous outcome, but it seems like a lot of the actions were outside of the realm of the normal default choices, making me suspect there were unmentioned factors at play. Either that or the adventurers were hopelessly unsuited for their chosen adventure at that time. "The animality of the human mind" would have significance in describing high-pressure and continuously mounting situations where in retrospect some baffling choices can be explained by instinctive choices that turned out to be counter intuitive. I guess: - "I don't want to deal with this right now!", - "Fine, I don't need a navigator anyway!" could fit the description, but seeing how it could easily have been: - "I don't want to deal with this right now!" - "Maybe you're right. I'm sorry. I'll put on the kettle and make some tea. Then I'll get online and see what I can drum up." the story really ends up having a "Why the stupid things that happened weren't really my fault" tone.