Aside from what it teaches you, there is simply the indescribable degree of peace that can be achieved on a sailing vessel at sea. I guess a combination of hard work and the seemingly infinite expanse of the sea - the profound solitude - that does it for me.
My new house has a deck that wraps around my writing room; my writing room has many windows, and outside the windows I've hung bird feeders... for enticing different species. So I imagine I will be writing about that.