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:
“He stood bewildered, not appalled, on that dark shore which separates the ancient and the modern world.... He is power, passion, self-will personified.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Friends and contemporaries should supply only the name and date, and leave it to posterity to write the epitaph.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)